A nice magazine with New Age tendencies once asked me to write a calendar of ideas on how to enjoy each month of the year in Chicago’s bioregion. I started with May, the month the issue was to come out. “Watch the warblers at Montrose Harbor,” I gushed. “See the phlox and wild false indigo bloom in the prairies.” May was a piece of cake. I typed breezily, full of ideas for it and the four months that followed, when nature kicks into overdrive.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
I’m uneasy with fall and I loathe winter. Consciously I understand that fall is a beautiful season, but I don’t experience it that way at an emotional level. Sure, every once in a while I find myself grudgingly charmed by the golden quality of the afternoon light. But deep inside I’m worried that the cold is seeping in and living things are dying by the thousands all around me. And despite all of autumn’s cheerful supporters who say it’s their favorite season, I don’t think I’m alone in my distrust. At the very least there’s my friend Joe, a stalwart opponent of fall. “It’s just the slippery slope they put us on that leads to winter,” he says.
Dormancy is dull. Maybe if I could be dormant too the season wouldn’t disturb me. But this isn’t my evolutionary path. I have to continue to find food, drink water, eliminate wastes, exercise my body to keep it functioning. It occurs to me that the limbo of dormancy might not be unpleasant for the plants and hibernating animals that experience it. Perhaps they appreciate the period of peace, or maybe they have rich inner lives all winter long. This idea irritates me. I feel left out of something. If it turns out when I die and go to heaven and all knowledge is revealed to me that the perennial flowers and dozing queen ants got to spend winter filled with psychedelic visions while I was chosen to stay sober and stand watch, I’ll become one surly angel.
The only real choice seems to be resolving my differences with fall and winter, much as this option annoys me. While it’s beyond my capacities to muster pleasure when faced with cold days, I am capable of savoring each last warm hour that comes along. So two weekends ago I made a pilgrimage to Door County, and though I couldn’t help but comment to my companion that the views reminded me of a Roz Chast cartoon that called rainbows and fall leaves “kitsch in nature,” I dutifully marveled at the reds and golds. Last week when it was 85 degrees, I canoed on the Chicago River one afternoon. And each night for dinner this week I ate yams. They’re not half bad.
