Yesterday, autumn arrived. There is something that I feel in the air when autumn creeps in that is different from every other thing that I feel at every other time of the year. In a weird and metaphysical way, it touches me in the soul.
Autumn has been a significant season to me. I think a lot of people probably feel this way, though. When I was in college, I would drive in the middle of October nights to see a girl in another town. We sat in her driveway in my car and listened to music and made out. I was crazy about her when I was younger, but we never amounted to much.
That’s probably why I was so crazy. I lost sleep and she would tell me she was into me at 3:00 AM, but when I would drive away and sit through my 8:00 AM class, she would call me after and say we shouldn’t see each other anymore. And then I would drive again.
My father’s quadruple by-pass surgery happened in the autumn—just after Thanksgiving. And so, at 22 years old, I finally saw my father as completely mortal. I’ll never forget the way the air felt when I was walking to that hospital from the parking deck. I’ll never forget the blow-out on the interstate, the single tear that he cried when he woke up from his surgery, or sleeping on the hard floor of the cardiovascular unit’s waiting room.
The change in the air reminds me of these things.
I’m sorry that this is scattered and sad, but autumn kicks up in me an emotional congestion. It’s like my soul is allergic to something that the trees are doing, which is maybe the single cheesiest clause I’ve written in my life.
But for all of that emotional congestion, I write more. I’m more creative in the fall of the year, and I can only assume that is because of the experiences that I have with the season. I become emotional and unsettled, but I write some really promising shit in autumn, so there’s that.
I wonder—when during do you do your best writing? When do you feel emotionally congested and how do you turn that into creative energy?
Maybe this is why National Novel Writing Month is in November.
Until next time…