Rage and joy can exist at the same time

Fall bliss and the anxieties of an election.

I love the burgeoning promise of spring and the lushness of summer greens, but I love the embers of autumn even more. It has me hunting for color studies on my walks every day—leaves that get swept aside, lining the curbs with ribbons of yellow; fiery treetops against cloudless blue; the jewel of a single crimson Japanese maple nestled among the brittle brown Oaks. I take it all in.

October in NYC. This is it. My favorite time of year. When the city measures up to what you see in movies, a fabricated Hollywood mirage of autumnal fairytales. Just like in Spring, the trees tell a story, each on its own timeline as they succumb, one by one, towards the stillness of winter. And now that the kids have flown, October is their first return home.

I walk out my door to crisp weather and feel the energy shift. New Yorkers are smiling. The oppressive heat and humidity from the summer, which lingers well into September, lifts and suddenly people seem kinder, more patient, less disgruntled. I feel energized.

This is the paradox of a season that shows us the first signs of decay and dormancy. We learn that there’s beauty in impermanence.

I am taking extra care to enjoy it this fall—all the magic, all the abundance at the markets, the colors, the textures, the smells and flavors that I couldn’t be bothered during the summer because it was too hot to eat. But now I indulge in it all as a distraction from this underlying anxiety of the upcoming election. All the racist anti-immigrant rhetoric, the threats of mass deportation, calls for violence, the misogynistic policies that can’t wait to take control of our bodies with their grubby hands and put us in our place.

Only three more weeks to go. The anxiety is palpable.