Redwoods don’t drop their leaves.
So it’s fall now, I think. I’m not really sure anymore if the seasons exist. Here in San Francisco nothing changes. Quinoa’s on its way out, boar’s on its way in. Gourmet sausage is somewhere in the middle, the roasted pork chop probably isn’t going anywhere, but fall isn’t coming. That’s for darn sure. Even though sometimes the wind blows and it’s got that crisp feeling and maybe there’s a leaf somewhere in there too, but it’s all an illusion. Fall isn’t going to come here at all.
Sure we get the Halloween Candy, and the pumpkins, and fall-themed lattes from Starbucks, but they won’t bring me a proper autumn. And the kids are back in school, and preschool-high school teachers are wearing themed sweaters over wildly patterned turtlenecks, but it makes no difference whatsoever.
The fog rolls out and in.
We’ve already been wearing sweaters for the past three months and one hundred years. We’ve already lit our fireplaces to stave off the cold of a chilly summer night, and warmed our hands at a bonfire on the beach to keep our fingers from turning blue in late May. We never put our scarves away in the first place, but we’ll never have to turn on our heaters because we don’t have them. Time doesn’t progress here so much as ebb in and out. Other places go in circles, but we move back and forth along the same straight line.
Still, the children get older. The facial hair on the hipsters gets slightly more ironic. Banana Republic models get more smug as they laugh in their business casual clothes.
Somewhere, college students are planning apple picking trips and updating their facebook statuses about how excited they are about wearing fall clothes. Somewhere, the leaves are beginning to turn slightly less green as they prepare to all fall down. But not here. Not ever.
I’ve only been on the West Coat for 2.5 months. Thank God it’s never too early for nostalgia. I’ll go out and drink $8 cups of coffee until the pain goes away.
Snotting black 
Nice post. I hope you stay warm, even as time ebbs. And don’t forget that it’s our experiences, no matter how annoying we find them, that give us character (or something like that) and something to write about 🙂
Reblogged this on sorryforbeingawkward.
$7.95 Starbucks coffees. Here’s your Nickleback. Whoo-hoo! A Chad Kroeger reference.
Was I sane when I wrote that? Were you sane after? Damned nice piece though!
Why thank you sir. Sanity has nothing to do with it.
We have seasons over here in the UK. From my perspective, it’s over-rated. Chilly now, thundering, with the prospect of winter still to come. Trees have not yet turned, so we will possibly miss a proper autumn, just have the leaves dump themselves into slimy messes during the next bit wind.
Quite often go from summer to winter, without the intervening autumn, sometimes several times in one day. And this year, it was wet all year from April. Before that, we had a drought. Weird weather and not that much fun. That’s why the Brits talk about it all the time and why they will do almost anything to fly away and escape it.
This is likely another case of the grass is greener. I don’t relish the idea of sweltering during summers either.
Er, no. Don’t care for the very hot days. I suppose I do live in the best place for me, really, even though it doesn’t always feel that way.
Don’t like extremes of temperature – hot or cold – so I guess this ‘temperate’ climate is where I belong.
🙂
Quinoa’s on it’s way out? Nooo!!
We suffer from a similar seasonal dysfunction here in Georgia; it’s kind of a bummer.
Sad panda.
Growing up in California, the whole concept of “seasons” was lost on me until I moved to Arkansas, and later to Kansas. It was as if this big archetypal motif of the story of life had been missing from my existence. My husband still makes fun of how much I stare out windows.
I still talk about the weather obsessively…I need to find a new go-to conversation topic.
Well put. Well written too. Bravo.
Ah thank you very much.
Honestly, I find your blog one of few for which I actually check my inbox.
I honestly and truly appreciate that.