I've made no secret of my love for James Salter. My overly expressed admiration for him makes the following declaration all the more wonderful, all the more necessary that I follow it to the letter. In September's Vogue (the biggest! issue! ever! - but they say that every year and so what does that mean for September 2017?!) Salter has a lovely piece on passing an hour with Nabokov. (More on this later, so much to say. It is gob-smacking when two of your writerly idols are contained within the same piece.)
In every issue, Vogue asks the contributors a question. Their answer precedes the description of what they've contributed to this particular month's issue and on which page their work can be found. September's question-to-contributors is: What are you most looking forward to for fall? Now, Vogue is first and foremost a fashion, nay, STYLE, magazine and so there are the usual answers about what one is looking forward to wearing, what one can't wait to cook, what party one is excited about attending and so on. What did my dear James Salter say?
"Spending a couple of weeks in Europe in the quiet that comes with the end of summer."
As I find myself winding down before winding up (wedding), Salter's response perfectly captures what I've been feeling these past two weeks. There is a stillness. A quiet. A desire to take stock of what has transpired all these past months before jumping headlong into fall. Not that there is a fall in LA. Not that next month will be markedly different than this month. Yet there is a distinct feeling of wanting to take things slowly now, before they go all haywire in a few week's time.
I hear you, Mr. Salter. I hear you. Fresh off my own relaxing hiatus to Palm Springs (I can now safely say that 116 degree weather does not agree with me, no matter how dry the air), I'm feeling the need to bask in the quiet that comes at the end of my summer. I, too, look forward to fall (in which we pretend we must wear sweaters and rain slickers and boots and scarves, sweating our way through 80 degree days) and all that September (wedding) will bring.
For now though, I'd like to simply sit. Quietly. And enjoy the calm before the...fall.
