Robin’s Fall brings feelings of… post today got me thinking about my personal feelings about Fall.
Down in New Orleans, we didn’t really experience Fall as a separate season. Really, it’s Summer and then it’s Winter. I suppose there might be a murky week or two where the leaves fall of of the trees that could be considered Fall, but it’s nothing like up here in New England where there is a soft, slow, sinking change of the seasons from the heat of the Summer to the cold of the Winter and that period between is long enough to be a real season unto itself with leaves changing beautiful oranges, golds, and reds and slowly drifting to the ground. Fall in New England is beautiful and is a soft crinkling of dry leaves on the driveway, in the yard, everywhere. It’s lovely.
But I have to agree with Robin too.
With fall comes darkness, and much too early…Suddenly, the light is beginning to fade by 5:30, by 6 it’s completely black. Gone are those long lazy evenings, replaced instead with a mad dash to squeeze in something, anything, before it gets dark.
I feel the darkness as an oppressive weight on my shoulders, tying me down.
I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Daylight Savings Time hasn’t even kicked in yet and already I feel starved for sunlight in the evenings. When the sun sets, I can feel it in every molecule of my body and I feel extremely sleepy all of a sudden, like a weight has fallen over me. I hate driving in the darkness. Really, I just want to be home in my PJs. I despise being out after dark, but of course, I have classes and work and errands. As Fall creeps along, the sun will continue to set earlier and earlier and then when Daylight Savings kicks in, even earlier. Before long, the sun will be setting at 4p.m., before I even leave work. It will be as if I am going to work in the dark and leaving work in the dark.
As beautiful and spellbinding as Fall is, I know that the changing to the leaves is just a herald of the darkness to come.
{ 1 comment }
You know that I can identify. It’s funny, I don’t mind going out at night, i.e. when it’s supposed to be dark, it’s the dark evenings that bother me so. Maybe I should change over to some warmer lightbulbs this year…
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