Lessons From the Kissing Booth

We drove out to the farm yesterday, tangled in the rental car like eager puppies, over roads lined with explosions of scarlet and gold. Somehow it was warm enough to leave our coats, somehow not raining, somehow just muddy enough for galoshes but not too muddy for the corn maze. We rustled through the eerie whispering throughways of corn, shouting at each landmark, pet goats and held kittens, wrapped our hands around cups of hot sweet cider. All of these goods things that feel like accidents and yet, somehow, aren't.

I like the onomatopoeia of this season, the whisk of leaves hitting the ground and the crunch of stepping on them two days later, the squelch of mud and the million voices of the rain. I like the feel of the soft curls of my hair brushing against my cheeks tingling in the chill air, the sharp smell of a fire under a chimney unused for months, the exact sheen of cold morning dew not quite ready to be frost.