Let us have one final full weekend of coquette escapism before the official arrival of fall, and for this one I’ll even get up into a dress and Sunday hat and pearls. A boy shouldn’t go anywhere without a pearl necklace. The Sunday hat is really just for Sundays, or Kentucky Derbies, but it fits the finery of our coquette aesthetic for the moment, and in honor of summer magic it stays on. Frilly and fantastical, I’m seeing this summer theme through to the end, though in all honesty I’m rather over it. The sweetness has turned sour, which is the greatest risk to any act of coquetry.
A reprise, then, for this penultimate summer weekend, courtesy of Laufey, who provided much of the soundtrack for our coquette moments. This is ‘Bewitched’ again.
A bit of bewitchery bodes well for the transition into fall, as does a certain feminine energy – and all will be revealed in the months to come. For now, let’s let out a sigh of gratitude for the summer. It’s largely been good to us, even if we haven’t always been good in return. There were sunny and beautiful days where I just didn’t manage to make the most of it, choosing to stay indoors, to stay hidden, to stay in a stasis as much from grief as from healing. There were also new wounds that opened old ones just when I might have thought things were better. The conundrum of a coquette summer… the work of the coming fall.
The sun shines differently in September. It still warms the day, but its staying power has diminished. The earth is priming itself for the bigger chill on the way. I hope it takes its time, slowing advancing into coolness instead of taking some precipitous drop that kills our tender plants in one fell swoop. Maybe that’s the better way though – like jumping right into the deep end of the pool instead of wading slowly in. Rip that ridiculous cherry bandage right off with nary a flinch or flutter.
Our hanging ferns in front of the house have performed poorly this summer, putting on the worst show of any ferns I’ve ever hung there. Of course they happen to be the most prominent plants on view to the street, another one of life’s little fuck-overs. I’ll take them down right after I write this, and drop them into the dumpster. Beneath the veneer of a coquette summer, there is always an underlying ugliness, some bit of bitterness to poison the sweet. Now I’m already veering into fall, and we still have a glittering part two of this madness to post.
{…to be coquettishly continued…}
