Susan Senator

NancyBea has done it again. She is my artist friend from college and if I were ever to like fall, it is because of a picture like this. I mean, this chick has an eye, n’est-ce pas Quik?

This is the perfect jumping-off point for today’s post. Yesterday was a pretty bad day for me (got some hate mail, Anonymous strikes again, plus some local yokels who are annoyed at my stance on a certain ballot question, plus the WaPo rejected another scintillating column, plus I did not enjoy my brand new belly dance class, plus I don’t know what my next serious book is going to be so I feel over). But — I had a great presentation last night, very warm, lots of laffs, so it gave me a good feeling to sleep on.

I thought about how there are moments of extreme pleasure in the oddest times. I realized how happy I felt this morning on my way to the gym, coasting into the red light. The moment that all sides of an intersection have a red light is kind of a wonder. There is a soft stillness and a silence that is such a peaceful contrast from the typical highway-in-action noise. You are forced to stop, wait, look around, breathe.

There is so much color everywhere right now; fall is very late this year. Some of the leaves have turned a ruby red, which Ned calls “lips color.” It is my favorite color to wear and to see. The sky is often a deep silvery gray, which sets off the yellow and the fuschia on the trees. Fall is not my favorite time of year. Its beauty impresses my brain, but it is a cold, flashy beauty that does not reach my heart. To me, autumn is all about going out in style. Glorious, but dying. I don’t like death and dying. I don’t like things ending. I can’t forget that this is what autumn really is about.

And yet I always have a great October and November. They are months where I am often happy and clear-headed. The routine of school forces structure and consistency into my otherwise loose Libra-like existence. My days are shaped by drop-off and pick-up, chores, work-outs, writing sessions, and presentations. The slow spaces in between do not make me ache the way they do in the spring. In the spring I have an enormous feeling of want, and yearning, a need to burst forth into something not quiet perceptible. And yet spring is my favorite season because it is all about potential and beginning. Clean slate, the hot swarming activity of birth, a messy popping out of growth. Yet it sometimes makes me too excited.

So that is the joy of fall. It is a cold and brittle fun, a chilly red nose and chafed hands on the rake, a feeling of imminent loss that makes you rush to enjoy every warm spot you come across. Like my suspended moment at the red light, autumn is a blazing beauty being pursued by hungry, relentless, deathly winter.

But as I said, I’m having a good day.