Avery Lane Maxwell.

Avery went down to the water for a few minutes with his phone, not because he had something to say. The creek was moving, the trees were yellow, mostly, and one green leaf hung so close to the lens it took up more of the picture than it had any right to. He nearly moved it. He didn't. An essay on how fast fall happens in the mountains and how everyone in Colorado says the same sentence about it every year; on a man who can turn a chair facing the wrong direction into a four-part emotional thesis, attempting restraint; on the trees, which are not performing a lesson and do not have Instagram accounts; on change that never waits until the previous version of your life has been properly archived; on the hour when the windows are still bright and the room has started glowing back, gold outside, amber in, the glass holding both; on photographs, which keep the light and nothing else; on enough, which has a bad reputation and deserves better; and on the difference between having evidence and having been there. Inside the episode, in the rest after the river, a small song of the house: Keeping September Company, an instrument alone, with the words spoken over it. Stay a little longer, while the light is gold. There is soup. Potato and leek, with the last of the green stirred in off the heat so it stays green, written for nine thousand feet: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen/the-september-soup/ Filmed by Avery on the riverbank in Frisco, the day the essay was written. ⌂ Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters, every one open to read: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the rooms of the house: averylanemaxwell.com/sky · the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen ♫ The Galena House playlist: open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them; some details are changed or left out for that reason. (00:00) - The Part That Stays Green. (00:12) - A small note before we begin. (00:39) - The leaves are louder than they look. (02:15) - A few weeks ago I said the aspens had started. (03:21) - I have been trying not to make fall mean too much. (05:42) - I do not mean this sadly. (06:50) - The water was cold. (08:11) - I came back inside afterward. (09:51) - We ask ourselves for such clean transitions. (12:18) - I think that is why I took the video. (13:42) - There is a temptation this time of year to hurry (14:54) - Stay a little longer, while the light is gold. (16:32) - Outside, the aspens are going to keep changing (17:32) - Maybe that is all I wanted to bring you today. (18:34) - I am Avery Lane Maxwell.

Thursday began with the Pegasus bus leaving Frisco without Avery, twice. It ended beside water in the Denver Botanic Gardens, not reaching for a notebook. In between: Courtney DeWinter, his PR counsel, across a table again; and David and Julie Sandusky of Idea Chic, who had met him in motion, working, carrying things, not introducing anyone, and noticed anyway. Inside their shop lives Hazel, a letterpress born in 1933, who is very good at pressure. An essay on the difference between being noticed and being seen. On the boy who learned early how to make himself readable, and the man who built a life out of it. On construction that is not the opposite of sincerity. On old wooden type that says nothing alone and spells a person together. And on what home turns out to be: not a place, a person. The one who saw you before you started and came back anyway. Sometimes that person is you. With thanks to David and Julie Sandusky, Idea Chic, stationery designed and printed in Denver since 2009: ideachic.net · @ideachic · Idea Chic on Facebook. Send more mail. Courtney DeWinter, PR counsel, DeWinter Marketing & PR, Denver: dewintermarketingpr.com The Denver Botanic Gardens, for the evening: botanicgardens.org ⌂ Every episode, and the films: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast · the letters, every one open to read: averylanemaxwell.com/letters · the rooms of the house: averylanemaxwell.com/sky · the kitchen: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen ♫ The Galena House playlist: open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them; some details are changed or left out for that reason. (00:00) - The People Who Notice. (01:31) - Let me tell you about Thursday, because Thursday (05:28) - That boy knew all about arrangement. (07:52) - David and Julie own a stationery shop in Denver (10:28) - I have spent a lot of time trying to understand who (12:45) - And I found a new happy place. (16:19) - There is another moment I keep thinking about, from (18:19) - I have moved a lot in my life. (20:01) - The brand people would probably tell me I should (21:40) - The sun was lowering when I was at the gardens. (23:40) - I spent years becoming someone other people could (26:19) - I am Avery Lane Maxwell. Click here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.

A Galena House Audio story, written with intention. There was once a pumpkin that grew beside a little house at the bottom of a hill. He was not the biggest, or the roundest, but he was orange, and he was a very good listener. Every morning two brothers came through the garden. Then summer became September, September became October, and the boys said he was ready. A story about keeping things: a face drawn with one eyebrow higher than the other, a light placed inside, an envelope above the kitchen sink, and the difficult part of growing things, which is that you cannot hurry them by watching. Written for Jeremiah and James, who will grow, and change, and still always know the way home. There will be a book, with pictures, when the pictures are done. ⌂ The rooms of the house: averylanemaxwell.com/sky · the films and every episode: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast ♫ The Galena House playlist: open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them; some details are changed or left out for that reason. (00:00) - The Pumpkin Who Kept the Light. (00:47) - Every morning, two brothers came through the garden. (02:09) - Summer became September. (03:04) - The house was warmer than the garden. (04:04) - Then came Halloween. (06:14) - For several nights, the pumpkin kept his place by (06:53) - The next morning, the pumpkin was carried back (07:31) - Winter arrived. (08:04) - Spring took a long time. (09:31) - The little pumpkin sat in the morning sun. Click here to watch a video of this episode.

A dear friend called today after almost two years, and within thirty seconds it was yesterday. The same morning, a man Avery barely knew came looking for him with a piece of flounder. And on the desk, the first letter from a listener. Three people arriving from three directions, each saying, in a different way, I found you. An essay on the difference between absence and neglect, on loyalty that does not need winding, on the little black notebook and the versions people keep, and on learning to receive without turning the gift into a task. It ends, as they do, in the kitchen: the flounder, a hot pan, butter, lemon, three minutes and two. ⌂ The rooms of the house: averylanemaxwell.com/sky · every recipe an episode has left: averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen · the films and every episode: averylanemaxwell.com/podcast ♫ The Galena House playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw A note from the house: this is a personal podcast. Avery tells these stories as he remembers and understands them, from his own life and perspective. When other people wander into them, he protects what belongs to them; some details are changed or left out for that reason. Click here to watch a video of this episode.

There is pumpkin bread cooling when this one starts, and a letter on the desk. My first from a listener. I do not read it aloud; it belongs first to the person who sent it. But somewhere around the second reading it occurred to me that the letter is another version of me. Somebody formed an Avery in their mind and wrote to him. He is me. He is not all of me. The first time I learned that another person could keep a different version of someone I loved, I was ten, and it was a small black notebook that did not belong to me. This episode goes back to that notebook, and to a boy on a bicycle who was my best friend in the whole wide world and could also be horrible, and to the thing those two taught me between them: that seeing and loving are not opposites, and that seeing is not ownership either. Also in this one: why people want a bad guy, and why my life keeps wandering out of position for a victim story. The difference between vindication and authorship. Wednesday and Friday, and why I will not let Friday revise Wednesday. The people who become structural, living on in the way I make coffee or notice the quiet person at a table. The question that has followed me most of my life, did it reach you, and what happens when love is given a job. And the sentence I have been turning over all day, which sounds colder than I mean it: I will love you until I don't. Past tense is not an accusation. It is tense. There is a recipe, because there always is. The house pumpkin bread, written for nine thousand feet with the sea level numbers beside it, and one rule: do not open the oven door. Good Little Innkeeper is finished and looking for representation. Still, by Design. is where the stillness lives. Every episode is also a film, with the words arriving on screen the moment they are spoken. The score is original, written in the house for this episode and owned by it. Nothing under these words is borrowed. (00:00) - The note at the door (01:41) - The letter, another version of me (02:19) - A small black notebook (03:59) - At ten, a version was danger (05:11) - The boy on the bicycle (06:48) - People want a bad guy (08:24) - Flourishing, and authorship (10:42) - The beautiful pieces of people (12:20) - I will love you until I don't (13:28) - People become structural (15:01) - Did it reach you (17:09) - Giving is not surrender (19:47) - The thread wrote back (21:05) - Galena House tonight is this room (22:44) - A beautiful afternoon is not a contract (24:28) - Same house, different rooms (26:51) - We are larger than the versions (27:50) - The pumpkin bread (29:06) - Thanks for listening The recipe: https://averylanemaxwell.com/kitchen/the-pumpkin-bread/ Listen, watch, and read: https://averylanemaxwell.com/podcast The books: https://averylanemaxwell.com The letters, on Substack: https://averylanemaxwell.substack.com The Patron Circle, monthly: https://www.patreon.com/c/AveryLaneMaxwell Keep the lamp on, once: https://square.link/u/fDE6uq6o The Galena House playlist, the episodes among the songs they sit with: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/55wkYr82P02Tsr4zgKZubw Write to the house: [email protected] Made at Galena House, in Frisco, Colorado.