You go on Pinterest and autumn looks like it’s a season for white people: pale blondes and brunettes in plaid skirts, earth-toned overcoats and black leggings, baking cinnamon rolls, drinking pumpkin-spiced lattes, posing on pristine pavements with fallen leaves and reading English classics or The Secret History. (No hate, really).
Yes, autumn is the grey half of Taylor Swift’s Folklore, the entirety of Red and Evermore. It is binging Harry Potter and Over the Garden Wall and wishing you had a brown overcoat and a red woollen scarf.
But that’s not all it is.
Autumn is not sweater weather in my country. Autumn is finally moving back to your own room after sleeping with your parents for six months. Autumn is actually frozen ice cream without soggy cones or melted syrups. Autumn is your triple-coated cat running back to life. Autumn is trying to stay awake in unlit classrooms and staring out of windows at grey skies. Autumn is not sweating through your clothes every hour of the day. Autumn is pleasantly quiet and uncrowded bus rides to college for your thesis. Autumn is fresh haircuts and yearly skincare purchases (because it gets too hot for anything other than SPF). Autumn is new semesters that feel old. Autumn is noting how many weddings you have to attend in December and January. Autumn is the quiet isolation from relatives after both Eids have passed. Autumn is the warm joy of watching your friends do the opposite: celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving. Autumn is extra cups of chai with samosas and akhrot ka halwa. Autumn is hearing the ding-ding-ding of your cat’s collar bell as she races you down the stairs instead of the whirring of loud old fans. Autumn is the distinct absence of house flies and dizzying heat spells. Autumn is waiting ten hours for an egg combo breakfast because there is no gas after 9 pm. Autumn is getting back into yoga and not having sweat trickle down in weird places. Autumn is picking up tahajjud and longer prayers. Autumn is catching up with old friends and revisiting old songs. Autumn is admiring all the cute outfits on Pinterest while waiting for your local shops to move on from floral patterns.
Why don’t we hear more of it?
.
.
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Why don’t we write more of it?
Prompt: What does autumn look like for you?
some things i want to do
Read post-colonial retellings of English classics
Deep dive into Muslim architecture BECAUSE LOOK AT THIS-
Go outside and crunch some leaves (???)
Discover more south asian films and music (help)
Make an original autumnal Pinterest board
Buy a journal and start scrapbooking
something to listen to
This playlist was made on-demand by a friend of mine. She has an excellent ear for soft, sit-by-the-window kind of songs, and enjoys lyrics that speak to your heart, mind, and soul. I hope it tugs at your heartstrings as it did mine and makes your next two months ~dramatic~, ~broody~, and ~light~.
i read this with my egg combo breakfast and slightly cooled down chai while the fan is actually throwing COOL air for the first time in months—and this just captures that small in-between feeling so much. thank you for writing about it 💛
Do you know why I like your writings so much? Because they hit home. They feel like a wind of nostalgia. They feel like they're telling me "you're not alone". They're a familiar existence from a world I know nothing much about. They just feel warm to read. It's the fact that they can make me walk the memory lane with little to no efforts. It's the "I know this feeling" while reading your writings. I love them. And I always will.