The Neurotic's Autumn/Fall

This is the only season with two names, and neurotics love both of them more for the associations they bring to mind than for anything that actually happens. They love autumn/fall because it is a time for looking back into the idealized past, a time for wistfulness and profound of loss and bittersweet memories regarding gum erasers, roaring football crowds, and desperate embraces under swirling skies. They love it also because it is a time for jittery glances ahead to the desolation of winter, for gathering and hunkering down (two favorite neurotic activities), and for heightened worrying about snowtires, storm windows, insulation, anti-freeze, and the like.

There is great comfort to be taken from the death of nature. As the weather worsens there are fewer and fewer reasons to be out and about, fewer diversions that involve hastily drawn directions on tiny scraps of paper. In autum/fall the focus of concern comes back sharply to where it belongs: yourself. Once again it is perfectly okay to curl up and under a blanket on the couch to daydream and drift off. Once again there is ample time for you to reflect upon the fact that you are but a speck in an endless universe. And a cold, rainy day in November is the perfect time for you to lie in bed with a pillow over your head and go over and over how you cowered before a maitre d's icy stare while on vacation nine years ago - and to reconstruct the scene so that you come out on top.

Neurotic behavior is not only acceptable in autum/fall, it is expected.

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Some Facts of Autumn/Fall*

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What Gale Through Yonder Window Blows?*

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How To Make A Jack-O'-Lantern*

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Back to The Four Seasons of the Neurotics