The fall is, I promise, my favorite time of the year. There’s something about the dull light on the overcast days, or the way that sun is almost mixed with crisp chills if and when it eventually arrives. (I’m writing this on the first sunny day here in Portland in something like three or four weeks, and it feels magical how much it’s lifted my mood.) Despite that, I’ve noticed that in recent years, the fall is also the time of year when everything just… folds in on itself as if time is collapsing around me.
This year, for example, it felt as if October just… didn’t happen. Or, rather, days of it did — I remember by birthday, and Halloween, for example, and I know I went to New York for a week of it even if all I did was work endlessly — but the entire month seemed to pass in the blink of an eye overall. Suddenly, it wasn’t just November but midway through November and I felt as if I’d magically arrived here through time travel or sleepwalking through the last few weeks. (To be fair, that might have been the case, given how intense my workload was for about four or five weeks there.)
Last year, the fall was lost to my UK trip; I left mid-October and when I was back, it was almost Thanksgiving and the holiday season felt as if it was already underway. I spent the holidays trying to catch my breath and wondering what had happened.
What is it about this time of year? Is it the stress of the entire rest of the year finally catching up with us and pulling us under for a little bit? Is it that the darker mornings and evenings just fuck with our sense of time and sending us spinning as a result? Am I simply not as much of a fan of the fall as I used to be?
Maybe I’m just getting old. But the final two months of each year are becoming increasingly tricky for me, and I’m not quite sure what to do about that.