Sweatshirt Day

There’s no date for it. You can’t circle it on a calendar, and the weather folks can’t really call it either, though they try every year. It just shows up one morning. You walk outside and the air has a little bite to it. It’s not “oh, that’s nice” weather. It’s chilly. It’s chilly enough that you turn around, go back inside, and put on a sweatshirt.

This year it came early, on Sunday, September 27. That was the day I pulled the zippered storage bag of sweaters and sweatshirts out from under the bed and started unpacking.

That’s the day. Around here, that’s when fall actually starts, no matter what the calendar or the pumpkin spice people have been saying since August.

If you’ve never done a Georgia summer, let me catch you up on what we’ve been living in. Central Texas taught me heat. Houston and New Orleans taught me humidity. Georgia has given me the two together. From May through the end of September, the air is something you wear, like a wet towel that came out of the dryer a little too soon. You walk Remy at nine o’clock at night and come back sweating. The house stays sealed up tight for months, and the air conditioner becomes the soundtrack of the whole season. You hear the compressor kick on, and you already know what the power bill is going to say.

Then Sweatshirt Day happens, and the house goes quiet.

Nobody touches the thermostat. The AC just doesn’t come on, because it doesn’t need to. After four or five months of that low hum, the silence feels almost suspicious. I keep listening for it the way you listen for a dripping faucet you finally fixed.

That night, I open the bedroom window. This is the part I wait for all year. Cool air comes in, the neighborhood is doing its night sounds, and I pull the covers up because I actually need them. I get the best sleep of the year on nights like that.

In the evenings, Zach and I end up on the sofa together, and at some point I reach for the blanket and put it over my lap. It isn’t cold, exactly. It’s just cool enough that the blanket finally earns its spot on the back of the couch instead of sitting there looking decorative.

The animals notice before I do.

All summer, Finn and Callie drape themselves across the coolest floor they can find, as far from any warm human body as they can manage. They love us, but not in July. Then the temperature drops a few degrees, and the sofa turns into one big pile of humans and animals. Callie crawls into my lap, Finn stretches across my shoulders, and Remy lies down between Zach and me. I’d like to think it’s affection. It’s not. I know exactly what I am to them in October: a space heater with thumbs. I’ll take it anyway.

Remy is a whole different animal on Sweatshirt Day, literally. Summer Creek walks are slow. He stands by the water with his head up, hoping to catch a breeze off the creek, and looks at me like the heat is somehow my fault. Once it turns chilly, he gets friskier, bounding and running and chasing, with his nose down like there’s breaking news in every pile of leaves.

Something shifts in the kitchen too. Turning on the oven stops feeling like a personal attack on the air conditioner. I start thinking about soups, braises, and anything that needs a few hours and makes the house smell good. My brain starts drifting toward Thanksgiving and December, whether I’m ready or not.

And out front there’s a half-barrel of saffron crocus, my first try ever. While I was away earlier this month, the first tiny green shoots came up. Now I’m watching it like a hawk to see whether the cooler nights coax a flower out of it.

Nothing fancy happens on Sweatshirt Day. No recipe, no project, no big plan. It’s a sweatshirt, an open window, a blanket, two cuddly cats, a happy dog, and a quiet house. After a Georgia summer, that feels like plenty to celebrate.

If it hasn’t happened where y’all are yet, hang in there. It’s coming. Keep your sweatshirt where you can find it.

P.S. That’s the actual sweater bag up top. It’s been half unpacked since September 27, which is about how every seasonal changeover goes around here.

P.P.S. If you read yesterday’s post, yes, I celebrated Sweatshirt Day with a homemade pumpkin spice latte. I contain multitudes.

P.P.P.S. Yes, I am currently typing this with Finn watching over my shoulder and Remy snoring at my side. Callie is supremely uninterested.