Weekly Zephyr #15: September 7th, 2017

greengage plums, just a picture of them and that wasn't enough, I want some moreI tried to figure out who took these plum photos, to attribute, with no success Maybe they're selfies

September is the most poignant month and possibly the only poignant month.

We're doing this newsletter in the spirit of Sei Shonagon, who was nothing if not crammed full of opinions like this one. This is who she was, if you don't know, and if you don't have a copy of The Pillow Book you need to get one right away. Don't read it from front-to-back. I mean, do whatever, it's yours. But I think it's best to open it at random once in a while and just eat a couple of her opinions at a time, and this way you'll be able to keep some fresh Sei Shonagon handy for the rest of your life.  

That gently introduces the idea of death, doesn't it, just like September does.

Do you buck at the approach of September and the waning of summer or do you welcome it? I always bucked but not at the loss of summer exactly. Summer, fuck off, who cares? So hot and with clothes I don't enjoy. But also I love it in a moment-to-moment way. Now this balminess, now I'm in a garden, oh look at this light, a seashore, this icy drink. But no, I wasn't bucking at summer fun leaving. Autumn has everything I believe in. It's this transition, forever the only tough seasonal transition of the year.

Autumn into winter, sure!

Winter into spring, ahhh!

Spring into summer, oooh.

But this one is just

say goodbye say goodbye say goodbye

I was sitting outside on my patio with my feet up a couple of Sunday mornings ago, talking on the phone with my friend Morgan, looking at the top of a 30 year-old birch tree in the neighbor's garden.

Funny about that garden; it used to be my garden when I was growing up. It's my childhood home. It's next door. We live next door to it.  (My house that I live in now used to have a greengage plum tree growing right up through where I'm typing this newsletter)

We were talking about that melancholy feeling of September knocking at the door, Morgan and I, but when I was looking at the top of that birch against the blue sky, branches all strong and stark white, a touch of yellow in the leaves, a little butteriness in the color of the air, I caught a new angle on it. Instead of loss, it was a growing nobility in the air. If a loss at all, it was just a loss of callowness.   It was like the air, the day, the year was getting wiser and finer. Like an older person who's traveled everywhere and known a lot of interesting people and digested the experiences well and can tell stories in that special way that doesn't feel like monologuing but has either actual listening or a quality of listening in it, even if the speaking is uninterrupted for a while. Like they don't forget you're there, and they're watching you and being with you while they speak, and they're speaking right to you, you as you are in particular.

Catching a new angle on this time of year was a triumph at least the size of a decently chunky lottery win. Like, you could go somewhere on it, spend a couple of weeks somewhere nice. It made me feel good about getting older.

can't embed YouTube videos here in TinyLetter but I can send you on a mission I heard this song when I watched Big Little Lies which I hope you did, too    This is the novel that goes with September above all others.

>>Strongest Possible Recommendation<< for Seattle, for Bellingham and then for the world, re: LANE 1974

I've mentioned this incredible film directed by my friend SJ Chiro before in this newsletter, but there are more of you here now and things are getting awfully exciting. I've had the great good fortune of seeing this on the big screen and now a lot of you are going to have that same chance.

(I had the whole separate great good fortune to be in it. It's my back and it's just for one split-second but the filming of that scene—a party scene?? set in the 1970s?? could there be anything better?? NO—was a crazy good time and an honor.)

It's the real deal, this movie. 

The actual post: why not hop on to FB if you're there and share it?  So do absorb and act on this information:

And please read this wonderful article (one of many in the world, as the movie's been getting deserved happy attention) about SJ and Lane 1974:

SJ Chiro: Accessing Memory to Reveal A Hidden Story

EXCERPT HARVEST FROM SEI SHONAGON'S PILLOW BOOK

      About twenty years ago some friends of mine made a little play called "Lucky Sorrow" I wanted to drop that title in here like a little September vitamin.  It was wonderful, by the way. I wish you saw it.