It’s my favorite time of year. Why? Because energy, new-ness, nostalgia, and melancholy are all supposed to be happening … at the same time. In summer you are EXPECTED to be happy. There is an insistence in weather reports (“Good news! Tomorrow more sunshine!” Wow – that’s quite an assumption you’re making there, weatherman. You assume that that means “good news” to all of us. You can just stuff your assumptions up your ass, ya got that? You’re a WEATHERMAN, not a psychologist. Thanks.) It’s not that I don’t like sun. It’s not that I am Tadeusz, the vampire from the Eastern Bloc. It’s that I dislike the universal assumption that everyone should prefer summer. I dislike the assumption that summer is supposed to be happy happy happy.
But fall? The melancholy and the letting go are built into the weather. I am looking forward but I am also looking back. But I do not feel stuck.
Here’s a beautiful post from Wendy. I so relate.
As much as I enjoy summer, I like fall a hair better. Probably comes of being a football fan and having internalized all that Laura Ingalls Wilder stuff as a child. Harvest time rules, and with due respect to Oktoberfest, there’s something quintessentially American about my image of it.
i feel the exact, exact, EXACT same way as you do. exactly.
Fall is best. It’s like spring but with fewer allergies.
I second you on the “people expect you to be happy happy happy” in the summer. Or there’s also this unwritten assumption that you’re supposed to be out having MAD FUN in the summer. And you know? My allergies, my dislike of heat and humidity, my tendency to burn to a crisp with fifteen minutes of sun exposure – not so mad fun for me.
Sometimes I just don’t FEEL like being happy happy happy. Sometimes I feel like being more contemplative or quiet.
For me, I always feel like I’m waking up again in fall. Like I’ve slept (aestivated) all summer long, and now I’m myself again, and I feel the same way again that I’m SUPPOSED to feel.
welcome back cool nights where I can sleep.
welcome back real apples instead of mealy storage apples or hard shipped-from-New-Zealand apples.
welcome back being able to cook in my kitchen without feeling like I’m going to melt.
welcome back rain
welcome back wearing long sleeved clothes and clothes with POCKETS. (all my little summer dresses are pocketless and that drives me crazy – where do I keep my keys and chalk?)
welcome back being able to sleep under a quilt
welcome back walking out of my house in the afternoon and hearing the college marching band at practice (I love that sound; it’s so evocative of so many things for me).
welcome back lighting candles in the evening and not feeling I’m being horribly wasteful because it’s so hot out that burning candles will make my air conditioner run even harder.
welcome back it being cool enough that hot baths sound enjoyable again.
Man, I’m totally with you. Like when there’s a short cool spell during summer and then it shoots back up to inferno temperatures. All the weatherdorks are going “Hooray! It’s back in the high 80s!”
Hooray? We’re back in HELL. Who ARE you people? Anything over 75 is just too freakin’ hot. And even that’s pushing it.
hahahahaha.
try living in the South, Mark, where they refer to summer temperatures of 96* as “a nice cool down.”
makes me wanna tear my hair out.
I also hate the weathercasters who get all sad when it rains – I want to say to them: look. we have been in a drought for three years. I do not care if you are getting married outdoors tomorrow. Rain is a good thing when we are in a drought. You of all people should know that.
My allergies, my dislike of heat and humidity, my tendency to burn to a crisp with fifteen minutes of sun exposure – not so mad fun for me.
Oh, preach ON, sister! I hate summer, every stinkin’ burnin’ minute of it.
ricki – uhm, so when are you getting a blog? seriously – that was some seriously nice writing there with the whole “welcome back” to fall thing. You really captured what it was about fall that so calls to me.
And YES about the whole hearing a marching band in the distance thing – I hadn’t thought about that, but you are so right. I heard one this weekend, practicing, Saturday morning, there’s a school down the street from my apartment – and the wind was cool, and the sky was a bit grey – and the whole thing was just so FALL!!
um..heh…I’d been thinking about it off and on, so here goes
new blog
yeah, it’s just a lameo blogspot blog, but I’m too damn cheap to spring for my own server space at this point.
Oh God – that is so exciting!! Let me go over there right now.
It’s fall?? We were at Sea Island, Ga this weekend for a wedding and it was 85 degrees at 7:00 pm Saturday night (way too hot for an outside wedding and reception, especially for a black tie affair)
JFH – yeah, it was pretty muggy this weekend here as well. 70s, 80s … but apparently in Chicago (where Wendy is writing) it’s a bit more fallish.
Just getting in the autumn mood anyway – regardless of the temperature. :)
i refuse to pick a season..i could write an article about each one and why i LOVE it…winter ,spring,summer or fall…hooray!!!!!!
WINTER-cozy nights in bed with a book or a boy or both.
SPRING-the collective and insane spring-fever that Chicago engenders…amazing!
SUMMER-Narragnasett Beach!!!!!!!!!! nuf said.
FALL- L.L. Bean sweaters that u’ve (or i’ve) had for 25 some odd years..ohh its time to pull it out of storage…
I simply can’t WAIT to walk the leaf covered sidewalks again!!
There you go again, cracking me up! :D