Smells Like Fall Spirit

Currently reading:

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

I packed this book specifically to be my Train Book™️ on my trip to and from Washington, DC for the National Book Festival. I wanted to bring a paperback, to ensure I left room in my bag for all the new friends I planned to bring home with me. I put in some good work on the way down, but then I got distracted by my shiny new books (The Weight of Blood, specifically) on the way back.

Books finished this week: 1

★★★★☆

Where this book came from: The National Book Festival<3
Why this book: A Carrie homage with modern racial sensibilities, written by a Black woman, needed to live on my shelves.
Thoughts: I’ve only read Stephen King’s Carrie once, but the movie is one of my Halloween staples. So, at first, it was definitely a challenge to shake off those memories and focus on what Jackson was doing in The Weight of Blood. Once I did, though, I realized what a smart revamp this is, and it made me take a closer look at some of my own thoughts and behaviors. Was I getting annoyed during certain character conversations because the book wasn’t good . . . or because I saw too much of myself in the well-meaning-but-flawed white characters and didn’t like it? (It was the latter. Always the latter.) I liked that this was an epistolary novel, because that was a nice added layer to the homage to King’s Carrie, though the podcast framing the author employs most felt unnecessary. I also found myself getting annoyed at basically all of the characters for making what I felt were irrational decisions and feeling things too fast——but I guess that’s teenagers for you? I also, uh . . . did not find this book scary. Not in the horror novel way I’d expect, anyway. There is plenty of blood and gore on the later pages, but that fell flat for me. I wasn’t kept awake all night, afraid that Maddy was going to come get me. But I did find myself thinking more about responsibility and accountability, and what I can do to be a better person. You shouldn’t try to do right by someone just to make yourself feel better (*cough*Wendy/Sue*cough*); you should try to help them because they’re a human being in need of support.

Library updates:

The start of this week was a bit of a whirlwind. I got home from DC on Monday and had some family stuff to deal with over the next few days. I finished The Weight of Blood, started listening to Carrie the Musical, and then had “Do Me a Favor” stuck in my head for most of the rest of the week. When I got home from my trip, I had a box from Houss Freya waiting for me, bringing me a replacement Inspiration intention candle and four boxes of incense.

I like pretty things——especially things that smell pretty, I’ve realized over the last few years. Growing up, my mom had a bunch of Yankee Candles in the house, but I was never allowed to have candles in my bedroom. I was told that my room was too “cluttered” for candles, the implication being that I’d light something on fire (probably one of my unsteady stacks of books). I literally lit candles covertly, late at night after my parents were asleep, and blew them out by the open window, like I was blowing weed smoke out into the night so I wouldn’t get caught getting high. And yes, this continued when I moved back home after college and lived in my childhood bedroom for four more years (yikes).

Naturally, the minute I got my own place, I went a little bonkers on the Bath & Body Works website. Over the following years, and especially during the pandemic, I found a number of small businesses to buy from——Houss Freya, Strike and Flame, Frères Branchiaux. I also finally pulled out the incense holder that a friend (hi, Alyssa!) bought me years ago. It too had been outlawed in my parents’ house. I bought some incense at a shop in Woodstock last summer and added to the collection from Houss Freya, and I like to have something burning to keep me calm and focused while I work.

I don’t own very many perfumes, but I do enjoy those, too. I’m also very into essential oils——not in a “they’ll heal me” kind of way, though I do reach for the peppermint whenever I feel a migraine coming on (along with my Excedrin, a dark room, and gallons of water). I just like playing with scents, because mixing them up in a diffuser makes me feel like a witch, in the best way.

As I’ve said before, I’m a maximalist. I like owning things that make me happy; I want every inch to be filled. And I guess that extends to filling the air with scents, too.

We got a taste of fake fall in NYC this week——lowering temperatures and humidity, tons of rain. It won’t last; I know. But it feels restorative. Paired with my renewed Carrie fixation, it’s beginning to feel like spooky season, when you wait for the sun to go down to watch a scary movie with a cup of tea or something flavored with pumpkin and spices.

Also . . . the queen died?? (Full disclosure: I’m adding these lines to this post as a piece of late-breaking news. Sorry this post is a bit disjointed.) I cannot believe we live in a world where Elizabeth II isn’t queen. It just kind of feels like everything we’re familiar with is falling away these last few years, for better or worse.

One last note before wrapping up. Not to make things too heavy, but I can’t post this without acknowledging the date. I was born in the city but raised on Long Island, and we lived out there on 9/11. Thankfully, I didn’t lose anyone. My mom worked in Manhattan and my dad worked in Queens, so they have their own stories of the day, but they made it home. My own memories are honestly pretty fuzzy; I just remember going home with a neighbor friend because it took my parents hours to get home. And I remember the footage on repeat for the days and weeks and months after.

I’m going to think on some of those fading memories today. I hope you take a moment to reflect, too, and find peace.

Closing thoughts:

Don’t be a Sue Snell.

Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 17

(Total books added to the Library: Nine new books came home with me from DC, so . . . 27. But imagine how bad it would be without the moratorium!!)