The season ends and there is too much time to ponder the outcome of the crops. A successful harvest yields one half abundance, one half recalling and mourning loss. Be it backwards or forward, there’s growth in milking the moments from the memories. But there’s more pain in savoring than tasting. Rolling up your pant legs and wading alongside loneliness is the antithesis of pulling up your bootstraps and plodding through trauma. Yet simply sifting through solitude is the same as collecting an assortment of mementos reminiscent of anguish. The artifacts of longing are displayed next to meatloaf recipes neatly on the fridge. Autumn and fall are interchangeable, like winter and wither. Maintaining an intimacy with numbness is key to becoming stone-faced in any famine.
Daniel Romo writes, bench presses, and rides his folding bike in Long Beach, California. He lives at danielromo.net.