Fall Drinks

and a blue-green coat

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It’s a blue-green coat with brass buttons down the front, and we searched for it all over town. We went from consignment store to consignment store, feeling fabric, comparing colors, and questioning if garments could be tailored to match the vision.

We first saw the coat in an episode of “Gilmore Girls.” Rory wore it with denim-blue cords and fluffy robin’s-egg-blue gloves. She wore it while she walked arm-in-arm with Lorelai through the town square.

We watched this episode in the fall, when crisp breezes were just starting to bookend steamy, southern days. We watched it while we decorated. We’ve never been an all-out-holiday-decorating sort of family. But we’ve always had a few things that make the seasons feel right. Like a twiggy wreath on the door in October. A few colorful gourds arranged artfully on a table. And, my personal favorite, the Fall Scene.

On a long, antique buffet lined with soft green velvet, I set the small ceramic buildings, these meticulously detailed miniatures with raised ceramic bumps painted red, yellow, and orange to mark leaves on thatched roofs. I place the tiny horse sculptures next to the little brick barn, set the bales of hay that look like mini-wheats next to the horses’ mouths because they’re hungry. I set the woman sweeping leaves off her stoop in front of the building whose sign reads “Saddle Shop” and pile a handful of orange fabric leaves next to her broom because she’s been sweeping for a while. I set the Church building, with its dangling bell hanging out of its bell tower, in between the Saddle Shop and the Bakery because that’s how I’ve done it since I was six.