New Moon On Monday

I often think that autumn is the only season that hasn’t lost its magic for me.

Midwestern springtimes have been marked with more tornadoes and freak snowstorms, than mild winds and fledgling birds, more end-of-year decisions and goodbyes than rebirths and renewals.

The past two summers, possibly the final ones in my life to signify a break from normal life, have been fragmented, split between the summer-dwelling places I call home and locales with no change in seasons. What used to be my summer is becoming as sticky and disheveled as my hair appropriately becomes during the season.

Christmas, the only redeeming part of the world’s bitter wintertime torpor, has lately been more a mad dash to complete academic obligations and find people-pleasing presents, spells of waiting for mall-bound trains in the cold and being perpetually disappointed when I miss my favorite Claymation specials on TV (or, worse, they’ve been replaced with uninspired holiday rom-coms that I cannot fathom anyone enjoying)

The fall used to depress me to no end, with thoughts of schoolwork, inane classmates, and the idea of the summer heat dwindling away. I began enjoying school by the time I reached university; it’s not that  these nuisances went away, but after realizing just how splendidly chilling it was to walk under a crisp full moon covered in black clouds (I've always associated the moon with fall even though it's there, obviously, all through the year. I guess it's something about full moons and spookiness and stuff, but I find myself playing "Sisters of the Moon" by Fleetwood Mac a lot more once the days grow shorter and cooler), while a smoky breeze wove through an apparently-too-thin green jacket, none of these things mattered.

Besides, Halloween, what I consider to be the heart of fall, had come to signify all of my favorite things: spending entire afternoons and impractical amounts of money in order to express myself by pretending to be someone I wasn’t for a night, sipping pumpkin ale and being able to feign enjoying beer for a time, donning the cheap polyurethane minidress that I, for the rest of the year, wistfully pushed to the back of my closet, in preparation for a night of shouting vulgarities that I otherwise frowned upon as Brad and Janet made their way to Frankenfurter’s mansion. Spring seems the season most ripe for reinvention, but I’ve always found October to be wrought with ways to change who you are, if even for one slightly too cold for your attire, somewhat intoxicated night.

Maybe the fact that it took me eighteen years to realize all that autumn has to offer is what has kept me from meeting the season with such indifference, or abject dread, every year.

I’m taking off for the Caribbean in November this year, and regret that I’m leaving the fall prematurely. I can at least rejoice that I've been here for the best of it. After weeks of the yellow leaves clinging precariously to the maples and poplars while the summer lingered, they all seemed to fall at once, suddenly burying windshields and the occasional bewildered squirrel, assuring that I’d get a chance to traipse through some crunchy, wet foliage before setting sail for the land of palm trees and perpetually blistering heat (wah wah my life is hard). Running through the park each day this past week, I’ve slipped in slick piles of leaves, been stuck in deluges caused by freak rain storms, been pelted with acorns and the oversized fruit of an Osage orange tree (which, in case you don’t know, can be confused with having a spacey biker crash into your back). 

And now let's watch this entry devolve since I've had too much caffeine tonight!

I don't really know how to end this entry, or what the point of it all is. I don't even know if it's about appreciating the fall any more, or about appreciating the time I'm getting to spend with all the people that have made previous falls, and this one, really awesome. Now I killed any potential metaphors so if somehow someone thought my writing deserved analysis, they wouldn't be able to. Except they'd still find a way. Ramble ramble. Lots of run-ons in this entry. That widget that told me I wrote like DFW (the entry's somewhere earlier in this blog) really wasn't lying. Except for the part where DFW was brilliant and I'm mainly just full of myself.

K bye bye bye.

Oh, since I mentioned it, here's this. 100% of the Mac was obviously 100% seeing their reflections in the 100% snow-covered hills during this, but Stevie is at her most captivating.