Making Sense of Autumn in Simon’s Place

Autumn is a funny time of the year. We should be sad about the end of another summer and yet there’s something cozy, familiar, and uncomfortable about what’s to come. The falling leaves, the autumnal colors taking place, the intake of breath before the clocks go back and winter waits for spring. It reminds me of slipping under the duvet to the sound of heavy rain falling outside. The soft leaves flutter onto the concrete carpet of the housing estate before they turn into slippery sludge. The early tentative steps of the back-to-schoolers soon become a routine as the freedom of the summer months retreat.

Halloween is in our sights already. The shops even think of Christmas.

Autumn is a slow death wrapped up in the wonder of what’s to come. The dark nights we spend staring into the mystery of a roaring fire. Like school children, we take a step back into ourselves and take stock. There’s fear too. Autumn brings death. The last breath of summer exited as a slow gasp. The end of everything. It’s a time of trust. We know that eventually, it brings renewal. It’s a breather before we begin again in the springtime. We feel tired, and weary because we’re supposed to. Like the squirrels and the bears, we too are supposed to hibernate.

Unfortunately, it’s not in our nature to do so. We are seeing it now that the pandemic has been declared over. The things we have forgotten already. The rush back into crazy. It’s like we learned nothing at all. To be still is a skill. To reflect. To breathe. To do nothing. To leave the busyness behind. To turn away. To trust our bodies. To trust our minds. To go with the flow. To let go, lie back, and let the river take us downstream, instead of fighting against the current until we are depleted of spirit.

It’s strange how this crazy world sucks us into its relentless rhythm. Our hearts beat faster than they should until they can no longer keep pace with what’s going on around us. We listen out for our last breath as it rises and falls again to be replaced by the next. The thump, thump, thump of our hearts reminds us that we are still alive, despite everything. Often I do whatever it takes to break the cycle of what has become a relentless grind. That’s why I find myself sitting in Simon’s crowded cafe in the George’s Street Arcade and watching the world go by. Looking out the window I try to guess the occupations of the people strolling past. Teacher. Nurse. Doctor. Mad scientist. LSD addict. Midnight stroller. Footballer. A student with possibilities. A drummer with priorities. The options seem endless as I allow my imagination to run free. I let it go beyond what I was taught into the unblemished space filled with mystery.

I like to go to Simon’s as often as I can. It’s in places like this I can disconnect and let go of the world around me. It’s here I reach for the madness. It’s here I step outside of and into myself. Like everyone, I am a product of my environment. I often feel the need to step off the carousel if I am to be true to the possibility of dissection until there’s nothing left but the possibility of everything being paired back to the beginning of my existence. I drink in the freedom, the innocence, the truth. And once that is done, I watch myself slowly begin to grow again. Suddenly I am pure spirit, the way I was born, the way I was always meant to be. I watch more people go by. Butcher. Baker. Candlestick Maker. Each one is burdened by their own insecurity. Their minds turn faster than they were ever meant to. I count to ten and begin again. Suddenly free of my own expectation, it is as if I can fly. I wonder if will I ever possess the truth before I die. Maybe in those final moments, when I am truly alone and nothing else matters, anymore, maybe it will happen then.

I turn away and lift my mug of tea to my lips and take a bite out of the best chicken sandwich in the whole of Dublin and watch the girls who work in the cafe doing their thing. Talking, smiling, chatting, making the day better for everyone whose pleasure it is to cross their path. Nothing is too much in Simon’s. Bringing an order over to the table of a man laden down with children or helping an old lady find a seat. A younger woman sits quietly in the corner, fresh out of Hodges Figgis, she opens her green paper bag to reveal the treasures within. A little Dostoevsky, mixed with The M Train by Patti Smith. She takes a minute before choosing Patti and starts to read the first page, the sugar slipping effortlessly into her tea as she raises her spoon and lets it drop pleasantly into the heat below. Her eyes remain fixed on the page. Up here in the city, we’ve learned to cherish our identity, but still, it’s the little things that give us away.

I let my gaze drift towards the young man sitting opposite, his lips curled slightly upwards as he writes. The pen moves from side to side in a desperate chaotic dance to keep up with the images echoing in his head. His is a rich harvest, each line finishing even before it begins. There is only silence between us now as our energies connect and fall away into the abyss of not knowing each other. I catch his eye and he smiles. I can feel the similar desperation of a fellow traveler. The need to know why. The days rush towards us, like the passerby lost in the thought of whatever they will do next. It seems we’re always chasing what’s to come. They’ll meet a friend and pretend that everything is okay or buy dinner on the way home or maybe even catch a movie in The Lighthouse. Anything to push tomorrow further away. But like everything else they too are soon gone, only to be replaced by more of the same. Time waits for no one, not even them. It feels like the days and the weeks and the years are going by even quicker the older I get. The weekend over even before it begins, I hang onto it as if it’s a piece of elastic, but it beats me every time, snapping back into place with a Sunday evening twang characterized by anxious anxiety of what’s to come.

I often wonder who decided it has to be this way. One of the things I love more than anything is waking before dawn when most of the world is still fast asleep. The quiet track of time is lost in the slumber’s lull. The hush is almost palpable. I reach out to touch it from under the warmth before it’s gone. I look at the minutes passing on the clock face and pull the duvet up to my chin. I’m not ready to get up yet. I look out the window of the cafe again. Good girl. Bad girl. Mathematics professor. Florence Nightingale. Politician. Self-Made Millionaire. Underwater Deep-Sea Diver. Mini Driver lookalike. Hotel Kitchen Skiver. A civil servant with a civil servant walk is followed closely by a comedian laughing all the way to the next show until he tells a joke that cancels him. As a result, he no longer exists, forgotten on a whim. Thrown to the wolves until he comes back again. Apology accepted he’s let back in.

A bus catches on the corner of my eye, an advertisement for Bohemians Football Club running proudly along its side. Phibsborough was born and bred singing a gypsy song. The passengers on the top deck search the street for someone they know. The sun sits pretty in the sky like the sweet summer dresses passing by. A hipster smokes a cigarette and looks up at the shorts and teeshirts finding their way into the mainstream. A suit walks by unimpressed by this descent into fashion chaos. A banker perhaps or a candidate for an interview trying to think of the kind of questions he might not be able to answer in a few minutes. They are wrecking his head. Maybe his tie will soon be extinct. A relic of the past that will be captured only in a photograph on the wall of the pub across the road that likes to remember such things. The suit thinks about running a campaign to save the day before he moves on to more important things. Like everyone else, he has bills to pay. Further down the street, a siren calls out in a desperate cry for recognition.

I let my mind drift. It’s here that I commune with artists and bohemians when I want to let go. The hipster’s getaway deep in the heart of Dublin town. They come disguised in everyday clothes. I could do with a bit of Patti Smith myself right now. Patti helps me to notice the beauty in the ordinary. Her wisdom draws me in. Her words bring me to someplace new. The creative whirl of her vivid imagination stops me dead in its tracts and demands that I take notice. It’s here I sink into the writer’s prose. Nothing else is important when I go to Simon’s. I never have to hide here. Pretense is something you learn to leave at the door. I forget everything that lies outside. Hot dog. Jumping frog. Albuquerque. Places like this cleanse me of life’s gritty grime. The parts of me I want to forget, even though I know they’ll always be with me as long as I am gripped by the temper of regret.

That’s why I like to sit here in the slow afternoon and think of what might be. It’s in Simon’s that I found a way out.