Fall Back

It happened about ten days ago. Maybe two weeks. The feel of the air shifted, the breeze changed its personality, and I stopped walking and breathed deep. Fall is here. How is it so distinct? East Coast people laugh at the West Coast folks when they discuss the seasons. Rarely obvious to the extremists, California weather can be soft around the edges. Here it is all about subtleties. But it is so distinct when you pay attention. And that same day I stopped in my tracks as I walked down the street, realizing Fall had arrived, Miss M called me and said New York had gone cold. That the wind had picked up and everything felt like Fall. Same day, different coasts. Subtle. Funny.

It makes me realize that Fall is where most of my heart lives, as far as seasons go. There is a soft longing that accompanies the season. A longing that is so hard to identify, so hard to place. But it is always present, and the deeper into Fall we go, the stronger it gets. It’s that sweet melancholy that only creative people understand fully. Its part of the artistic temperament and non-creative folks will never grasp how deep it goes. They think they do, but then will say things like, “well, just snap out of it,” or “think about something else and you will feel better.” Yes, certainly. Thank you for playing.

Fall is when Nature understands me best, when we are in sync with each other.

The melancholia can be so nurturing to the creative impulse; becoming the dark and lovely fertile place where the ideas filter up from. Or it can just as easily shut you down a little at a time till you realize you are thinking too much, that you may be leaning to the depressive end of the scale, making nice with your bed and pillows a few too many hours of the day.

Fall is when I question myself more, but it is also when more of my puzzle pieces fit into place. It’s when I listen to The Shins or Turin Brakes, and it fits. Fall is right now, and the introspection is tenfold. You may have already noticed. But I am on Day Four of being stuck in my apartment cuz of a sprained knee. Before then, work was too busy, I was tired of it, and wished things would slow down for a minute so I just THINK for a damn minute. Well. Are we capable of manufacturing our circumstances so quickly and distinctly? I wonder. I had been thinking more of a little getaway. Some quiet moment in a place where the ocean meets the land and there is a whole lot of sky. But instead I am here, gimping about on the same little circuit, scared of the four flights of stairs that must be dealt with to exit the building.

Me and this knee go way back. We started our distrusting relationship one afternoon when forced to play a rather vicious game of co-ed football for PE. Dreaded PE. The bane of the bookworm’s existence. Being tackled by two big guys, one of whom pushes your knee backwards, is not the way to develop a loving relationship with a knee. I hadn’t realized that you could be young and strong and be injured so quickly and badly. So I deal with the consequences now and then, in the here and now. I am the only thirty-something I know who has had an orthopedist seriously talk to them about knee replacement. I ignore him. I try not to feel older than I am. Sometimes it works. Fucking mandatory PE and goddamn stupid-ass football.

Breathe.

So although I am indoors, Fall seems more intimate because me and these introspective Fall-ish thoughts keep bumping up against each other in this one-bedroom apartment, usually as we both round the corner at the same time. He and I keep the same hours. He is partial to the Persian tea with cardamom that I so treasure. He nods knowingly when I bathe just before going to bed, knowing how it makes one sleep more deeply. Fall is a quiet fellow; the sort that puts a heavy throw blanket over his legs while he reads, even though he is not an old man. (He just likes the cozy feel of it.) He keeps an eye on me as a trusted therapist might: quiet but observant, giving warm smiles at opportune moments. He is smart and quirky in that academic way that makes discussions deep and long lasting.

We get along, me and Fall. We go way back. I always know when he comes to town, and he is always happy to see me. I pick him up at the airport, give him a cup of Persian tea, and ask him how his time away was. He inquires as to my thoughts, asks if I have been lost in those thoughts since his plane touched down. I smile knowingly at him over the rim of my glass. Me and Fall, we understand each other. We get along just fine.