November, As Intended

It’s rare when a day as gray as today was here in Chicago can fill a soul with joy and excitement. No gifts arrived. No unexpected loved ones showed up. Nothing special happened really, other than the true arrival of autumn.

If ever there is supposed to be a day like today, it is in the month of November. It was as if the dreary clouds descended upon the earth like they were tired of flying and needed a rest. Everything was lightly wet and cast in misty shades of gray, lending the feeling that I existed for the day in a Frank Capra movie. What bright colors did dare to shine were decisively muted by the mood of the fog.

Chicago – all of the upper Midwest – is a four-season place. They transmogrify almost seemingly to suit the desires of us fickle humans: in winter, when we’re fed up with the cold and snow, it all changes; in the spring it’s not getting warm fast enough; in the summer it’s just too damn hot! And now, fall, in all its glory, has arrived just in time.

Oh, sure, the leaves all turned colors weeks ago, but that’s just their final fanfare, their fancy farewell before they abandon the trees and head “south” for the winter, leaving them as we’ll see them for several more months. Bare trees in bright sunlight just don’t look right. A naked tree needs a blank, gray sky behind it to accentuate its stark exposure, to bring home the point that winter’s coming, and winters in the Midwest are cold and snowy and unforgiving, the way winter is supposed to be, and if you don’t like it, if you want trees to be green and happy and pretty all the time, then you need to move to Costa Rica or some steamy tropical place like that.

Just keep your eyes peeled for anacondas and those flies that drink the mucus from your eye sockets and lay eggs in your skin.