It’s November sixth, but the month and day are just placeholders. We’re short on time and everyone knows it. It was 73 degrees today and people were out in throngs. Tending to their yards. Walking dogs. Talking with neighbors. Anything to cling on to those last bits of our outside lives.
The sun claws its way over the horizon like a kid climbing out the side of a pool. It relieves itself of any duties related to warming us. We’re on our own for a bit. We’re trading in our blue skies and puffy clouds for skies the color of concrete and clouds like boulders.
Kottke has written about this transitional time before – he (and Vonnegut apparently) call it Stick Season.
What’s going on right now and will continue into mid-to-late December is “stick season”. All the beautiful fall foliage has fallen off of the trees and we’re left with not-so-beautiful sticks until the snow flies regularly enough to call it winter.
He links it to a feeling of depression, but I guess I’m fortunate to not feel that way. I always get excited for these transitional periods where things are changing. We end DST and sunset abruptly changes on us, bringing us into our pseudo-nocturnal lives. It’s a shock to the system. We’re forced to change up our routines and knock the rust off. Maybe things take a little longer and require more planning, but we adjust. We’ll be more intentional and what we want to do and where we’ll do it. Maybe we’ll take more time to be reflective.
Bring it on, I say. I’ve got enough coffee and books and firewood and stories to last us until Spring.
