The Brightness Stays

I have made a pumpkin muffin with chocolate chips and a sweet cream-cheese middle. I have named it October's Last Kiss. November will have to manage.

Today's room begins in the kitchen, with a worn cutting board and a question about what to take along when life changes. Books, certainly. But also the man who still gets excited enough to name a muffin.

There is an unexpected call from a dear friend, a few small films of ordinary days, and the discovery that some brightness stayed where it could be found. A little time with affection, with judgment, and with the pleasure of being visibly glad.

And a question for you: will there be room for the things that make your face look like your own?

Come In. It's Already Warm., the keeper's book, arrives at Thanksgiving. Signed copies are at averylanemaxwell.com/come-in.

The letters, the books and the rest of the house: averylanemaxwell.com

Come in. There will always be a second cup.

Written and told by Avery Lane Maxwell. Come In. · Stories from a Keeper. Galena House Audio.

I have made a muffin with a cream cheese middle and named it October's Last Kiss. November has arrived, but I'm leaving the name alone. A person should be allowed a little romance in a kitchen, even with a pan to wash. There are photographs, two muffins on a scratched cutting board, pumpkin, chocolate, the cream cheese finding its way through the top. A few orange crumbs have landed beside them.

Behind them is the baking pan, which has clearly participated in the occasion. I like that you can see the kitchen, the stainless steel, the worn board. There is something very pleasing about a photograph of food that still belongs to the place where it was made. I can imagine reaching into this one. I have been thinking about what I want to take with me when I go east.

Books, of course. More than is sensible. Clothes. The things I want around me in a room. But looking at these photographs, find myself considering something else.

I want to take the man who made the muffins, the one who thought they deserved a name. I want him to have somewhere to put his things and enough time to get excited about something as ordinary as what is in the oven. I'm Avery Lane Maxwell. Come in. There is a photograph on the counter, a friend I wanna tell you about, and a new place waiting for me.

I am trying to decide what it means to arrive there with myself. There are little films too. I have my headphones on in one. In another, I'm walking outside with autumn in the trees behind me. There is one where I'm sitting by a window and the camera moves and my face catches the light.

They are the sort of things that accumulate on a phone. A few seconds here, a few there, A face, a bit of sky, the camera briefly losing interest in where it is supposed to be pointing. I find myself watching the expressions. The small smile that arrives before I've quite arranged it. The way I look toward the camera, then away.

There is a person in these films who is getting on with his day and occasionally seems rather pleased to be in it. I know him, obviously. I have to get him dressed. But watching him can be a different experience from being him. While I am busy being myself, I am also keeping a fairly extensive list of things I ought to be doing.

He needs to answer something. He needs to finish something. He has had an idea at an inconvenient moment and must now find somewhere to put it. He has named a muffin, which may or may not have been on the list. From a little distance, I can see his face.

There is a moment of pleasure there, and I am glad the camera kept it. I would have found something else to think about. The next thing generally knows how to find me. I have spent years learning to notice this sort of thing in other people. I can tell when someone's face is about to open into a laugh.

I have watched a person become more themselves because someone finally asked about what they love. It is strange to discover that I sometimes need a photograph to offer myself the same attention, to look without immediately checking what could be improved, to stay with the expression long enough to recognize that in that small moment, I am happy. And then last night, my phone rang. A dear friend from Yellowstone. No appointment, no careful arrangement, her name on the screen, and then her face.

The sort of interruption that makes everything you were doing seem perfectly capable of waiting. It is nine and a half years since those beginnings. I have lived in more towns than I can count on two hands. I have kept other people's houses and other people's mornings. I have changed my mind about a great many things.

I have also been several versions of myself. Some of them were easier company than others. It can take a while to explain a life when you begin trying to tell it in order. Fortunately, affection does not always require the chronology first. There she was.

My heart flew. I keep coming back to that word because it is what the feeling did. There was lift in it. The instant I recognized her face, something in me was already on its way toward her. I was not cool about it.

There will be no photograph of a mysterious author receiving an unexpected call with a measured expression. I was grinning at my screen like a boy. If she was wondering whether I was pleased, I hope I settled it. I caught her brightness years ago in a place where the earth breathes steam and the elk walk through town like they pay rent. Yellowstone has a way of making an ordinary day feel as though somebody left a door open in the world.

But last night, what came back was the person. The particular pleasure of her. I could feel how much had happened in the years between and still find the affection right there where I had left it. I hadn't needed to go looking. Some people you only have to see once more to remember who you are when you're with them.

Before you have given an account of yourself, your face has already told them something. Mine was saying, there you are. I am so glad. I have been considering how much effort a person can put into appearing less pleased than he is. The little hesitation before answering warmly, the decision to make a joke before saying something affectionate, as though enthusiasm were a possession best kept out of sight.

I have never been particularly convincing at that. If I love something, it tends to become everybody's business. There is a book you must see, a song I want you to hear, a thing in the kitchen that I think you should try. I can be halfway through telling you about it when I discover that I am already smiling. By then the performance is over.

You know exactly how I feel. I hope that more often than not it feels good to be on the receiving end. But I have had times when that part of me became quieter, when it took a little more effort to imagine what I might enjoy or to believe there was room in the day for me to want something of my own. Looking at these small films, remembering last night's call, I can recognize how much of that eagerness stayed. It was in the work.

It was in the things I wanted to share. It was apparently still capable of making a rather elaborate muffin. I don't want to become so absorbed in arranging the next part of my life that I overlook this. The person I am making room for is already here. He has preferences.

He has people he loves. He would like to finish his breakfast, and he would like to remain capable of being delighted. That seems to me a reasonable thing to take seriously when you are considering a new life. Will there be room for the things that make your face look like your own? October's last kiss has pumpkin and chocolate chips with sweet cream cheese in the middle.

There is very little restraint involved. The photograph shows where the filling has come through the top, which I think improves the whole account of what is inside. I like making something you can hand to somebody. There is a practical pleasure in it. A person is there.

You have made a thing. And between the two of you, it can become part of the day. You can put it on a plate. So much of what I make requires time from the person receiving it. A book asks you to read.

An episode asks you to listen. I am grateful every time someone agrees to spend a little of their life with something I have made. A muffin has a wonderfully direct introduction. Here, I made these. There is no synopsis to prepare, although given the opportunity, I could probably provide one.

Pumpkin, chocolate, a soft middle. October giving the kitchen one more thing to remember it by. I wanna keep enjoying that introduction, to make something and look forward to handing it over. It is easy to become so concerned with whether a thing is good enough that you forget how much you wanted somebody else to enjoy it. The photographs remind me of the pleasure before the explanation.

There they are, on the board, a little uneven, chocolate where chocolate has decided to be. They look like somebody wanted something good, went into the kitchen, and made it happen. I would like to remember that about these days. There is a great deal changing. There is plenty I am still working out.

And in the middle of it, I have been making things I want to share. That belongs in the record too. When I talk about staying open to people, I know there is a difficult part underneath it. Affection has never made me especially tidy. Once I have seen something bright in a person, it tends to remain, even when knowing them becomes complicated.

I used to wish I could be more decisive with a memory. Close the account. Let the last disappointment explain everything that came before it. But I had been there for the earlier kindness too, and I knew it had happened. These days, I am trying to let the whole truth stand.

Someone can have given me a beautiful afternoon and still be someone I need distance from. I can remember the afternoon without making another appointment. The memory doesn't require me to open the door. There is relief in realizing that I can remain fond of something without returning to it. I can carry the brightness as part of what I have known.

It can be there, quietly, while I choose what happens next in my own life. I mention that because I want to remain a man who looks warmly at people. I am going to need judgment as well as affection. I can bring both. I would be sorry to arrive somewhere new with every tender part of me packed away.

Soon, I am going east to an old house with tall rooms in a town I have met through photographs and conversations. I am looking forward to it. My mind has already begun taking little walks through a place my feet haven't reached. People who know that part of the country become wonderfully animated when I mention it. They tell me things.

They remember things. Sometimes I can see them returning to a place while they are describing it, and I like watching what happens to their faces. They ask whether the house is beautiful. The photographs make a persuasive case, but I find I wanna leave that particular word until I arrive. I want the place to have a chance to show me something I couldn't have known from here.

Perhaps it will be a room at an hour I haven't seen photographed. Perhaps a sound or an ordinary bit of the morning. I don't yet know what I will notice first, and I am enjoying having something left to discover. I have learned that a place becomes yours in peculiar increments. You find where you like to stand.

You learn which small noise belongs to what. One day, you realize that your hand knows where something is before you have thought about reaching for it. Eventually, there is a morning that feels like a morning in your own life. You are no longer visiting the idea of being there. You have slept, woken, wanted coffee.

The place has acquired an ordinary hour, and you are inside it. That is what interests me. The life that can happen in those rooms, The people I haven't met. The little preferences I will develop without announcing them. The first time I look up from something and realize I am pleased to be exactly there.

I'll tell you when I find it. I would like you to know the place as it becomes real to me. We can begin with very little. One morning, one window, something in the kitchen. There will be time for the rest.

There is a temptation when a change is approaching to treat the days before it as a passage you simply have to get through. Finish the arrangements, sort the belongings, make sure nothing has been forgotten, begin the next life when everything is ready. But these days, keep insisting on being a life as well. A friend calls. There are muffins on the counter.

There is a little film of me walking outside, autumn behind my shoulder, briefly pleased enough with the world to turn the camera toward it. I don't want to look back and find that I was absent from the part just before the thing I was waiting for. There is too much happening here. I would like to be able to say what it felt like while I still can. It felt like laughing before I had finished explaining.

It felt like wanting to tell somebody. It felt like being surprised by how readily an old affection could rise in me. And somewhere among the practical arrangements, it began to feel like looking forward. I can take that with me. The habit of finding a thing interesting.

The willingness to be visibly glad. The affection that has survived changes of address and several less graceful versions of myself. I can give those things a place in whatever comes next. I know how to look after a house. I would like to give some thought to the man who will be living in it.

He has spent a long time noticing what makes other people comfortable. I am learning his preferences too. You are very welcome to come along. There will be things to tell you as they happen. Some of them will make better stories than others.

I expect I will bring you a few before I have quite understood why they stayed with me. I like that possibility, having a place to bring what I find, knowing that somewhere, someone might be listening while they walk or cook or make their way through an ordinary hour, A small part of my day meeting a small part of yours. And if you have a friend you would be glad to see, perhaps let them know. You can begin with that, the pleasure of seeing them. You don't have to put all the years in order before their face is allowed to make you happy.

I am still happy about last night. I would like to let the feeling last without asking it to explain anything larger. My friend called. I grinned at her. Whatever else is happening in my life, that happened too.

I am very glad it did. The Brightness Stays. I can see it in people I have known for years, I am beginning to recognize it in the small records of my own days. It was here in the kitchen. It was here when I answered the phone.

I'm Avery Lane Maxwell. Thank you for spending a little of today with me. There will always be a second cup. And if you're here for the muffins, I have called them October's last kiss. November will have to think of something else.

As for my heart, it is still up there somewhere. It hasn't come down since last night. I have things to do, and there is a new place ahead of me, but I think I will let it stay up there a little longer.