Weather report
Five moments from a week in Austin.
I’ve been stuck in my head about how much time has passed since I last published on Substack and what I wanted to write and what I didn’t want to write and how to return after time away (and and and), my brain becoming a pressure cooker of expectations. As I’ve been catching up on my backlog of Substack posts in my inbox, I stumbled upon this prompt from Summer Brennan’s Essay Camp, which ended up being the perfect reentry point.
1. I stared down from my barstool at the girl’s phone, a perfect bird’s eye view of the couch she’s tucked into, watching her position a photo of her legs, cocktail resting right beneath the tattoo on her left thigh, on her Instagram story. She followed the rule of thirds, I’ll give her that. My husband and I locked eyes the second time she came back to her seat with an old fashioned—the neon orange kind you get from bars that aren’t really cocktail bars—garnished with four bright red maraschino cherries. Though, garnish feels a generous word. I watched her pluck the cherries from their stem with her front teeth, the edges of her lips drawn back in a soft smile. When she returned the third time, glass nearly glowing from the fluorescent bitters and cherries, I flashed four fingers to my husband. He returned the gesture, closing and opening his fist three times. Twelve cherries. “Do you think she’ll get a fourth? Sixteen cherries?” he asked. From my perch, I waited and wondered what it’s like to ask for what you want.
2. I’m sitting at a table underneath the awning of a bookshop, when I can practically feel the grimace of the pregnant woman next to me. She’s looking past me as she says to the man across the table from her, “That’s where the smell is coming from.” I look up, toward the parking lot, see a man on the cusp of middle age, wearing a brown tweed blazer with jeans, sucking from a cigarette, unaware (though, perhaps not) that the incoming storm was pulling smoke toward the tables behind him. The smell had interrupted the woman’s reassurance—to herself? her husband?—of how hardcore she was for doing whatever boutique fitness class she was shelling out hundreds of dollars for, how her cousin probably couldn’t handle it, how most of her friends hated the class, but she didn’t because she was hardcore. She was nine months pregnant—“baby month,” as she said—and I listened to her ponder whether she’d do the 14-day challenge her studio offered, prior to giving birth. I imagined her pulsing or scooping or planking right into the delivery room. I thought motherhood would probably redefine what she thought of as hardcore but that wasn’t my conversation to have.
3. The tomatoes weren’t getting enough sun, situated beneath the canopy of our pecan tree. We dragged it across the river rocks surrounding our patio, lip of the pot barely deep enough to get any sort of meaningful grip. It was situated in its new home only a few minutes when my husband declared we should move it up the hill of our backyard, against the shed. I stared at the tomatoes, nodding for a good minute before we dragged it uphill, gripping with the pads of our fingers, nailbeds a gradient of white to red. I stood there, out of breath. “Think of how Sisyphus felt,” my husband said. “At least ours didn’t roll back down.”
4. The air hung thicker that Wednesday afternoon, sky growing darker rather than brighter as the day edged on. I was standing outside with my dog, trying to coax her into peeing, when lightning struck so close that I could hear its buzzing, the world around us disappearing in a flash. My dog shot toward the door and I ran behind her, apologizing for the weather. The rain crashed in, quickly turning to hail, a crescendo against our tin roof. I walked to the front window, stood next to my husband and watched the small pellets of ice bounce off the hoods of our cars. He said something about how he should have covered the cars. I tell him hail is difficult to predict. He tells me he should have known. I tell him he couldn’t, and what does it matter now anyway? He says, “Yeah, well.” I shrug at the cars, tell them, “Good luck,” and turn away.
5. Wildflowers cover the patch of grass on the edge of the frontage road where I turn off the highway and into my neighborhood. Their petals are yellow, red, poking out between the weeds that have overgrown the few bluebonnets I spotted this year. I didn’t even notice them until the grass had covered them, their blue, dot-like petals barely visible through the bristle-covered seed. The week prior I told a friend that if I lived in Texas for 50 years, that meant I’d only get 50 springs with the bluebonnets, and what does it mean if that’s now 49? Over the weekend, the temperatures dropped into the 60s. I put a sweater on Saturday morning, wool clinging to my skin by midday. I didn’t want to put the sweater away. In May, every day feels like a goodbye. Every crisp, cool day feels like the last good day, a cocktail of pleasure and dread, served up with the awareness that this is a moment in time. We aren’t guaranteed any bluebonnets, so we might as well appreciate the wildflowers we have. Something like that.
Thanks for reading Sitting with Figs. If you could, take the time to share this piece or “heart” it below, it helps other people find my work and it’s also a very nice ego boost. Our attention is a hot commodity, constantly pulled at from all directions, and I’m grateful for a piece of yours today. I don’t take that privilege lightly.
Glorious writing Kate.
I “met” you in Marya’s class, so long ago. I enjoyed your work then and enjoy it still. ♥️
Wonderfully detailed observance of nature, both human nature and Mother nature. Love your perspective!