Longing

Autumn. I love autumn. I miss autumn. I wish it was here. It’s that time of year when humanity comes to its senses. Summer is the season for frivolity, skin overexposure, and all-around unthinking hedonism. You walk down the road in the height of summer and see people in swimsuits spooning on the front lawn, setting fire to explosive incendiaries, guzzling cheap beer, and making a mess of themselves in undignified ways. These are not the activities of sane people. Summer does this to a person – it wrests your senses from you, and before you know it you’re standing by a pool with a margarita the size of a bowling ball in your hand and your arm wrapped around a scantily clad person who is not your spouse. Summer is not a healthy or sane time of year.

But autumn… Autumn is the time when everybody collectively puts on the brakes, thinks to themselves “Dear heavens, what have I been doing with myself?”, and settles down into calm, rational existence. It awakens primitive urges to go out and buy school supplies and sensible shoes. People slow down, become more aware of their surroundings in autumn.

It is the season of maturity, the harvest, when the cycle of Nature finally gets down to business. Golden wheat, plump members of the gourd family, cornstalks, ripening cheese, and apples so sweet that you get lightheaded when you smell them – that’s what autumn is. Autumn is when the wine is made, when nighttime fires begin to glow, when the earth feels ripe, round, and full.

Gosh, I wish autumn was here.