Speak to me truly: how autumn are you feeling? Could you hit up a large and richly-scented skillet of glossy pasta speckled all over with crispy little nubs of chorizo and thin sweet ribbons of shallot? Have you got the blankets out? How early is too early to light the candles?
The other three are rhetorical— or rather, I assume the answers are “some”, “duh”, “duh”— but the last one is serious business. I lit them at five, and let me tell you: I was counting down the minutes til five like an old sailor gunning for the sun to go across the yardarm. (So he can have his drink.)
Earlier than five felt a bit much, and honestly, five felt a bit much. But I lit them all anyway.
I used to have this superstition about lighting all my candles with a single match and I worked really hard to unlearn it, the way I have tried to unlearn nearly all my self-created superstitions, because, you know, it’s not that helpful to always be having a million signs and signifiers (sorry Saussure) in every single day. I mean it’s not that helpful to always be thinking: if I do this right, nobody will die, or whatever. It’s a slippery slope, you feel me? You do feel me. I truly believe that of all the audiences in all the gin joints in all the world, the audience for this newsletter will understand both the joy and the terror of obsessive-compulsive self-created superstition and tradition. Anyway, I lit all my candles with one match, and— look, I know I know better!— I couldn’t not see it as kind of a great omen for the autumn. My first candle extravagance of the season, and it’s one single match? Come on!
I may be a pure rational being these days, but listen, I’m neither stupid nor ready to look a gift omen in the mouth. Give me all the good omens you got, autumn, I’m ready for them.
(And this….is why we don’t do superstition any more, it’s like gambling for people with only their sanity on the line. Still though. One match!)
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to You Get In Love And Then to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.