The Sentence Is Still Sitting There

October twentieth. The leaves have been doing their thing for three weeks now and I keep meaning to say something about that and instead I am thinking about a sentence Simone said at the end of a Tuesday session in September, while she was lacing up her street shoes and I was standing there with my climbing bag half-zipped. She said she had been thinking about a day trip somewhere with good light and a trailhead. Not a plan. Just a sentence.

I wrote about it that night, the difference between a plan and a sentence that contains one. I still think the distinction matters. But it is now October twentieth and neither of us has named a date or a place. We have been at Tuesday sessions. We have talked about other things. At some point last week I almost brought it up and then the session ended and I caught the 7:15 bus and the moment passed the way moments do when you are not quite ready to close them and not quite ready to let them keep floating either.

The sentence that contained a plan, moment two.

There is a version of this that resolves, we name a Saturday, we find the trailhead, I bring the camera and shoot in whatever light October is still willing to offer. There is another version where autumn runs out before we get there and I write a post about that instead, and that post is its own kind of answer. I have done it before. The print sale at the framing shop was last month; I wrote about not going in a way that felt like arriving somewhere anyway. Maybe the sentence Simone said is like that. Maybe a sentence that contains a plan is enough, and the plan itself is optional.

Still deciding.

I don't actually believe that. But I am holding it in my hand for a minute while I figure out whether I am going to text her or just show up to Tuesday and see if she says it again.