Dogs in Autumn

I've been thinking about the fall of 1995 tonight. That was when I started spending regular, extended periods home alone for the first time. I remember the late-afternoon sun flooding my room as I sat at the foot of my bed, reading. I remember reveling in the silence, that first absence of background noise from my brother playing video games on the other side of the wall or my sister watching TV downstairs. I remember our dogs, Apache and Smokey, pricking their ears around five, knowing Dad would be home from work soon. Mostly right now I'm remembering that this was the first time I was conscious of the dogs of autumn.

That period from 5:00 to 5:30 when our family pets would perk up and wait for Dad always had an expectant air. I'd start a pot of coffee brewing for my father and laze around in my sunny room. I usually had a book in hand, but part of me was always listening for Dad's Firebird. It seemed like sounds intensified within that space, as did the quiet in between them. The animals would fidget. The house would settle. I'd flip another page in my book. It was on one such evening that I became aware of a sound somewhere in the distance.

I wasn't even fully conscious of it at first. It was a part of the afternoon, like snow whispering at the window on winter nights, birds singing on a spring morning, cicadas droning on a summer day. Barely audible, but there it was: a dog barking on another street, maybe in another neighborhood, echoing faintly back to me. It went on just long enough for me to notice, then stopped.

And in that moment, the year passed out of late summer and into early fall The change was almost palpable. Even the silence of the house around me was different.

This is how it has been for me every year since then, no matter where I've lived. The only difference is when. In Indiana, the rollover happened somewhere in October, sometimes even September. Here in North Carolina, where Indian summers can linger until Thanksgiving, the change usually occurs some time in November. Every year, I hear that dog, a dog, somewhere nearby, ringing in the autumn.

When it happens, I always think back to that first time. There was something about it that made perfect sense, something that told me it was supposed to be there, that maybe it had always been there and I'd never realized it. Sometimes, when the year seems to be unrolling and I get an unnaturally early longing for fall, I find myself listening for it, struggling to hear it it. But it bides its time. It's never there until it's supposed to be, and when it comes, there's almost an audible click in my head as the season turns over.

I've found myself listening for it lately. I finally heard it just now. It was a little closer than usual, a little later, so I had my doubts, but my heart skipped a beat somewhere in there and I knew. It's been autumn by the calendar for two months now and the weather's been cooler for weeks, but it's never real for me until I hear that dog. Let's do it again next year, my friend.

"The Ring" According to Me, Nine Years Ago

I just spent about an hour going through old writing to find this, dredging up half-forgotten, nearly nine-year-old memories from 2004. One rainy day (March 04th, apparently), I sat down to watch a DVD one of my coworkers let me borrow. That DVD was The Ring. I was watching it alone, and I knew I shouldn't be. My solution to making my bad decision sound smarter was to grab a notebook and a pen and analyze the movie as I went along. I had an idea that by making it clinical, I would remove myself from it and not be scared.

Notes from my 21-year-old self:

-Why is [the main character's son] Aidan in school three days after his best friend died?

-This little kid's best friend was his high school senior cousin?

-We finally see the film that kills you. It looks like it was made by a college kid (which even one of the main characters later notes). I can't help but wonder, what happens if you don't watch the whole thing? The deadly ring is at the very end, right? So what if you turned it off in the middle of it because you were bored? Or what if you ran out of the room for a sec to use the bathroom and left the tape playing and you missed it? What if your VCR ate the tape?

-By the way, how does [the main character] Rachel know there's supposed to be a phone call after the video? She doesn't question it at all? She doesn't even scream, "WHO IS THIS?" or, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" like I expect her to. She just listens to the voice whisper a vague threat at her, then hangs up. And how did Samara even get a phone? Or a tape, for that matter? A camera? She's a good director, for someone so young.

-So [the main character's friend/possible love interest/whatever] Noah watches the tape...and the phone starts to ring. What if you just didn't answer the phone? Would the message be left on your answering machine? Why isn't her answering machine on, by the way? Does she have voice mail, and if so, does the threat work through that, as well? And would a copy of the tape work?

-We find out later that it doesn't matter if you don't answer the phone. In that case, what's the point of the call? Just to let you know, so you can get your laundry done before the week is up? We also find out that a copy works. What if you burned a copy onto a DVD? Would it work, as well? Would it have chapters? "Jump to a Scene: 01 - The ladder. 02 - Severed fingers in a box. 03 - Woman kills self. 04 - A tree. 05 - The part that assures your death." [Later addition: What if you just post the video on YouTube?]

-If you watch it again, will you get another week from that viewing? Or will you die in  half the time?

-Rachel decides to make a copy. While doing so, she sees a fly on the screen. Why didn't she notice it earlier? I did. Should I relate to this character, when I feel superior to her?

-The argument Rachel and Noah have while stretching the tape is STUPID and predictable. The only surprise is that it didn't ruin the tape.

-Rachel prints out some pictures from the tape. I'm surprised she has to go to some special building to do this. [Boyfriend-at-the-time]'s dad had a machine that allowed you to print pictures off of VCRs, and he wasn't some rich journalist. Anyway, what if someone just saw a still from the movie? Would the screencap of the ring alone kill them?

-Rachel finds a shot of a lighthouse on the tape. She goes to the library (I guess) and asks for some books on lighthouses (I also guess). She is given a huge stack of thick books. She opens one, flips through it, and almost immediately finds the lighthouse she's looking for.

-We learn that the owners of the lighthouse used to have a horse ranch, but the horses mysteriously died. Did the horses see the tape?

-Rachel, after her initial outburst, accepts things pretty casually. She remarks offhandedly (but not as if she doesn't believe it) that she'll be dying tomorrow. Geez.

-Okay, so...you're on a ferry. There's a horse in a transport trailer. You try to pet the horse. The horse doesn't react favorably. Do you keep bugging the horse?

-Rachel catches up with Noah and they remember that Aidan said something about Samara sleeping in the barn (oh, by the way, I think the kid's psychic or something, I forgot to mention). He repeated it a few times, but I could never understand what he was saying, because if I had, I would have been shouting at them about the barn for the past fifteen minutes of the film.

-And down Rachel goes, falling into the well. Oww, oww, oww...you'd think, but apparently she makes it to the bottom with a splash and without any major head injuries.

-Noah runs outside "to get help." For some reason, he breaks into the emergency fire hose and begins to pull it along. It sticks and he falls into the mud, where he begins wrestling with the hose. [2012 Note: I think it was lost on me at the time that he might try to lower it into the well to help Rachel out, so I honestly thought this guy was flopping around in the mud with it for no reason.]

-As the film continued not to stop, I checked the time remaining. Seventeen minutes?!

-BE OVER!

-That's actually written across the top of my paper.

-Rachel discovers Noah's dead body. As she's running up to his apartment, we see sets of stairs, from the ground to the ceiling of this apartment building, making a dizzying rectangle. Finally--an antithesis to the ring. Hints that something's different about Rachel now. [2012 Note: Did I really get all that out of a simple shot? I'm pleasantly surprised at myself.]

-I'm shouting at the television and slapping my notepad against my knees. This wakes [boyfriend at the time] up, and he pokes his head in to see if I'm all right.

-Rachel finally has a nice, angry freak-out scene, before she comes to a conclusion: she isn't dead because she made a copy of the video. So she has her son make a copy. "What happens to the person we show this to?" he asks, wide-eyed. Rachel says nothing. The film ends.

-I scrawl across my paper, "Awful."

This is the last day of my twenties.

This is the last day of my twenties. This is the last night of my twenties. I have less than an hour left. I've been thinking all day, "This is the last time I'll..." like it matters. I was pretty much fine until I was driving home while the sun was going down and thought, "This is the last sunset of my twenties. I'll never be in my twenties again." Then I came home feeling awful and couldn't really explain why to Adam. Even when I was very young, I was aware that the passing of time is sad and scary and utterly, hopelessly unstoppable.

I'm looking back across the years, wondering, did I feel this way when I turned twenty? I don't think so. I felt awful when I turned ten, though. What was the last song I listened to in my teens? What was the first song I listened to in my twenties? Did I make it a point to make it something special? Probably. It's something I would do. I was listening to my MP3 player on the way home from work tonight and just kept skipping to the next song. It has to be special, right? The last song of my twenties. The last song I will ever listen to in my twenties. I'll never be in my twenties again. Now I can't even remember what song I stopped it on. I'm going to ask Adam to turn on the player and put it on something random while I make it a point not to look, so I don't have to remember.

Someone told me everyone said he'd hate turning thirty, he'd hate his thirties, but then they were so much better than his twenties. I remember a movie saying that. I think it was Tiny Furniture. The main character's mom says that once your twenties are behind you, you start to realize how irrelevant they were, that life really starts in your thirties. That's nice to hear, since I'll never be in my twenties again.

I'll never be in my twenties again. How did this happen? I spent half the decade with Adam, half the decade with someone else (mostly). The cut there is sudden, deep, well-defined. Two different lifetimes, two different lives, two different girls. Girls. Can you still call yourself a girl when you're thirty? CAN you still call yourself a girl when you're thirty?

I'll never be in my twenties again. Never again. No matter how long I live, I will never, ever be in my twenties again. I just can't believe it.

Goodnight, from a girl in her twenties.