Love List: September

second chances | the wild mind | autumnal bookshop dreams

It is September. I am wearing a long, black velvet dress and twirling in a misty field. My husband—he was a September baby and today is his birthday—stands beside me in his dinner jacket. I adjust his bow tie and he laughs. Behind us, a sweep of wooded hillsides and at the bottom of the valley, a solitary cottage. We are celebrating the end of summer—harvest time—with friends at a country ball. I have worn a velvet gown before: in a Bath ballroom, a Venice opera house, a London theatre… but nothing has delighted me more than this juxtaposition of fancy frock and foggy field. I tiptoe across the farmyard in my high heels and lean on his arm as we walk towards the cow barn that has been transformed into a ballroom for the night. It’s the first time since the pandemic that we have gathered for this particular event, and I am giddy. The valley is lush and gleaming in the dusk, the barn twinkles with lights, and I’m with some of my favourite people in the world: it is a perfect September night.

At first, September arrived without me noticing. The weather was too hot—not the sweet warmth of late summer, but the strange ferocity of a climate under pressure. Weeks passed, scattered and unsettled—I found it hard to concentrate and couldn’t discover the way back into my work. Everything felt poised, waiting for the seasons to turn. When the weather finally broke and the damp air touched my cheek like a caress, I picked up a pencil and opened my notebook. Outside my loft-room window, pink-tinted clouds drifted and the huge beech tree opposite was dusted with gold.

On the autumn equinox, I swam in the sea with my best friend. It was one of those rare days when air and water are the same temperature— balanced, equal—like the hours of light and dark. I felt the shock of cold as waves washed over my head, and as I emerged I shook salt from my eyes. Later, I went back for a second dip with my middle boy— floating as he surfed. My smallest swam too, following a shoal of tiny fish underwater through a rock-pool tunnel. In the evening, we cooked supper together over a fire, sparks dancing into the sky. The smallest collected pinecones, watching them crackle and burn. ‘When did you first come here?’ he asked me. ‘When I was eighteen’, I replied: twenty five years of this garden, of that beach. Neither my first equinox here, nor—I hope—my last.

An equinox is always a pause, a still place, a reckoning. In the book I am reading— Cacophony of Bone by

Kerri ní Dochartaigh

— there is a list of Things To Carry into the Darker Part of the Year. It includes the sea (the sea, the sea), as well as the moon, books, feathers… I will carry all of these, but also rising sparks, fat pinecones, tiny fish, a ballgown in a misty field.

What will you carry with you into the darker part of the year?

Here’s what I’ve been reading and loving this month:

Fiction

The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane

I came across this novel via Ella’s Instagram. It’s the first book of Mary Beth Keane’s that I’ve read, and I found myself fully absorbed in its world. Set in a small town in Upstate New York on the day that a blizzard sweeps in, it reveals the strange, sharp intensity of lives pulled close and temporarily frozen (it’s a novel that was at least partially written during the endless days of lockdown, infused with claustrophobia).

At its heart, this is the story of a marriage—of Malcom, bartender at the Half Moon, and his lawyer wife Jess, whose infertility journey has led her to a difficult place. As the snow falls, the crisis in their relationship deepens, and their futures become increasingly uncertain. The Half Moon explores what it means to love, to change, to forgive, and to navigate a life that you never expected. It’s a beautifully crafted novel of secrets and second chances that stayed with me long after I turned the last page. When I had finished it, I immediately sought out a copy of Mary Beth Keane’s bestseller Ask Again, Yes.

Non-Fiction

Wild Mind: Living The Writers Life by Natalie Goldberg

‘Let everything run through us and grab as much as we can of it with a pen and paper. Let yourself live in something that is already rightfully yours—your own wild mind'.’

In this book, which is in many ways a sequel to favourite writing guide Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg urges us to lose control, to embrace vastness, sink into the infinite sky and let wild mind guide us. ‘It is the best way to write’, she says. ‘To live, too.’

Combining Natalie Goldberg’s Zen practice with her teachings on writing, this book takes the form of a series of short, thought-provoking vignettes interspersed with practical writing exercises, and threaded together with episodes from the author’s life. It reflects on the ways in which writing and living can be seen as one simultaneous, ongoing practice, with an emphasis on paying attention and going deep to the heart of meaning. There’s advice for the beginner-writer, but also a wealth of wisdom for those who already write for a living:

‘you have to push your edges. You can’t get too comfortable…’

Online

I have a new Substack crush called

It'll Be Fun, They Said

: I’m obsessed with

Jess Pan

’s bookshop girl Substack of dreams! If you’re a fan of Nora Ephron…if autumn makes you think of the scent of cinnamon, of oversized cardigans and steaming hot coffee…if you love the Gilmore Girls but have reached the point where you feel more Lorelei than Rory…if you’ve always dreamed of working in a gorgeous little bookshop—I think you will love it too! As a brunette who does indeed work part-time in a lovely indie bookshop (and who met her husband at nineteen), it’s probably no great surprise that I adored this post in particular.:

Sorry I'm Late - I fell in love too young

Poem

In late summer, all along the roadsides in rural Vermont, feathery yellow flowers waved. I asked my brother their name, but he didn’t know. ‘Goldenrod’, I discovered when I looked it up. The name was familiar, though the flowers were not. From deep within my suitcase, I pulled a poetry book I had bought earlier that week in an independent bookstore. There they were, on the cover. The book was Goldenrod by

Maggie Smith

and the title poem was perfect:

‘Dear flowers born with a highway view,
forgive me if I've mistaken you. Goldenrod,

whatever your name is, you are with your own kind.’

You can read the full poem here: Goldenrod

My September loves.

Thank you for reading, and for your continued support.

Laura x

my book

my instagram

PS: Wild Mind was recommended by Beth Kempton, along with some other books on writing, here. I would also endorse number 7 and number 10 from her list!