just briefly

There is a distinct chill in the air this morning as we amble down the hill into the long, golden grass. September is solidly here and with it the knowledge that another summer is over, with all its blowsy, fragrant promise and the hint of romance that might have been.

I slept poorly last night -- it's hardly notable; insomnia, it seems, is my friend -- and I flipped through the photographs on the dating site my friends have insisted I join, longing for one friendly, kind face to jump out at me. I wonder what I'm doing on there. I feel like a prize heifer waiting for the auctioneer's mallet. We primp, we preen, we present the best curated version of ourselves: here I am smiling into a sunset, here I am swimming in a lake, here I am with a horse, here I am looking carefree like a Charlie commercial on a beach. I'd rather be thrown into a room full of tigers and have to fight my way out, extra sword between my teeth.

My bff in England wrote to me:

"If YOU'RE  finding it hard to find anyone halfway decent there's not much hope for anyone else. Might have to outsource for your lobster-loving dog-loving man in the UK...  We are all on it. You without a man is frankly unthinkable."

Bless her!

But there was something. There was a long, warm summer, and the reminder that love existed in the world. There were lingering days and dinners outside and nights when I couldn't sleep because there were butterflies in my tummy and I remembered what it felt like, just briefly.

"How mortifying to remember the dear delicious shifts I used to be put to, to gain half a minute’s conversation with this fellow! How often have I stole forth, in the coldest night in January, and found him in the garden, stuck like a dripping statue! There would he kneel to me in the snow, and sneeze and cough so pathetically! He shivering with cold and I with apprehension! And while the freezing blast numbed our joints, how warmly would he press me to pity his flame, and glow with mutual ardour! Ah Julia! That was something like being in love."

-- Lydia Languish in The Rivals by Sheridan