I should be in New England right now.
I was tempted, very tempted, to make this post full of pretty pictures and just hit "send." Then I realized how remiss I've been in posting actual words and thoughts and feelings and sage wisdom (from my brain to your ears, y'all) and decided it was time to stage my comeback.
(Insert opening "Mama Said Knock You Out" lyrics.)
I've been so busy (including recovering from strep throat) lately in large part because of the slow but sure change in seasons - that is, "summer" to "fall" in San Francisco. I have committed to doing several (too many! so many!) street fair-craft market-handmade show-type events. Add this to my full time job, the fact that I've been attempting to reconnect more solidly with friends who have their own careers and social lives, and the natural progression of more parties as different holidays approach, and I am completely maxed out on time and energy.
Because of that, all of my spare time from now until January must be spent knitting. Or with family. Or friends. Or cooking. Or working out. Or going on dates. Ok, but really, it's just me in my room watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch and knitting until my little hands ache with the foreshadowing of young adult arthritis.
The only problem with this? San Francisco doesn't get summer until mid-October.
Please picture my grumpycat face right now.
Our weather pattern is such that, in my crude understanding of meteorology, when everywhere else is hot, we get the fog pushed into our fair city. June through August is cold, windy, and cruelly sunny without the warmth of actual sunshine. September and October is where we really hit our stride - as soon as everyone else is busting out coats, scarves, and boots, we get 80-degree days without end and picnics in the park. This would be fantastic if I were not so reliant on my slim window of Fall as I am. I love Fall! I love the crisp air in the morning leaving the house for work. I love that leaves are dry enough to crunch when you step on them. I love how comforting a warm beverage in your hands can be. I love breaking out the myriad scarves, sweaters, and coats I have accumulated over the years in my desperate attempt to pretend I live somewhere outside the Golden State.
None of this happens in San Francisco until practically Thanksgiving some years - especially of late, with our current drought. When it starts to rain, at all, that is our official "winter." Therefore, Fall lasts for approximately three weeks and I need more. More, I tell you!
Which brings me to my original titular point - a large part of me belongs in New England. I love the Bay Area (it's my home, after all) but there are times I really, truly, crave the Fall I have only seen in movies, read about in books, and witnessed via the Instagram accounts of friends. I would love to know what it's like to wear rainboots beginning in September, to smell the first snowfall (according to Gilmore Girls, it has a smell), to begin baking and knitting and nesting as soon as the leaves change!
Here, the leaves change, and I'm still ordering iced lattes. Because it's 78 degrees and sunny. And I'm hot, and we don't have air conditioning, and there are fruit flies coming in through our open windows, because of said lack of A/C. This is not the October I have heard tell of on Pinterest, my friends.
I realize I may retract this lamentation when everyone is posting pictures of snowed-in cars, scraped knees from slipping on ice, and screenshots of windchill factors in the single digits, while we San Franciscans have a fun little rainstorm that makes the streets smell clean and puts us all to sleep to pitter pattering. Still, I hold true to my thesis: I would love Fall on the East Coast. I cannot think of any other person I know (sorry friends, going to be a little narcissistic here) who would so thoroughly appreciate all that Fall can truly bring.
After all, I am the girl who grew up making apple butter from her American Girl doll books, who so loved the movie Little Women because of the domestic bliss (I'm sure they would view it differently) shown in the March household, and who has her own Etsy shop for knitwear. I purposefully and knowingly make and sell freakin knitwear, for god's sake, and I am under the age of thirty - I think I have some traditional bones in my bod that are not being satisfied here. Maybe I need to take up canning.
More than the idea of becoming a homemaker (which is not my actual goal), I love Fall because it foretells the onset of winter. More specifically, of Christmas.
Anyone who has met me knows how dearly I hold that holiday, but I don't know that I've ever fully explained why in a tangible way - maybe because what I love most about this season we're entering are the intangibles. I love the feeling of joy that permeates the air. I love the sense of kindness that seems to overtake people more than other times during the year. I love that, though corporate America has set a goal in its mind to monetize Christmas for all it can, most people seem to genuinely love the season's values of family, love, and generosity. I love that if you look for it, you can still find those sentiments within the most jaded, crabby, anti-capitalist people. I love that Christmas music is implicitly perky and happy and that walking around and looking at decorated houses makes me immediately smile. I don't know what it is, but I love it.
And I also love that you can buy cute reindeer dolls and mini trees and put twinkly lights everywhere as a representation of the sparkle inside us all!
Alright. We've gotten a little off track here, so let's reboot: I love Fall. I think it is an underrated season that San Francisco sorely lacks, and I think that I need to find some way to move my adorable, cold-weather-loving self to a Fall-having location for at least three months of every year. If anyone can inform me which (reasonable) profession will allow me to do this, I will immediately begin studying for any necessary exams or skills tests. I am good at quippy tweets, showing my mother how to properly use technological equipment, and making various pasta dishes. Someone must need these talents, stat!
Until then, I'm going to go back to my knitting, and my cocoa, and my holiday movies on Netflix. These are all I have, and I'm going to milk them for all they're worth.