09.22.23
I could tell quickly, as I set my queue of podcasts earlier this week, that I am emerging from a darker moment. I am dozens of hours behind on my usual weekly listens, which is generally a good indicator that I haven’t been going for walks much. But as Fall settles in, I am more inclined to go outside. I arranged my episodes of Threedom, I Said No Gifts, Las Culturistas, and Doughboys, peppered with an occasional Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Comedy Bang! Bang!, Hollywood Handbook, and Stay F. Homekins (you were looking for a stupid list of all the podcasts I listen to, right? That’s why you clicked on my blog today?… Hello?), and started to try and remedy my body of its seasonal atrophy.
I am not a Summer person. I never have been, and I think it’s time to stop trying, because it’s getting embarrassing. Every summer of the last five years of my life has been marked by some major, objectively negative change or event in my life — but that’s neither here nor there. The reality is that I do not like to be hot, I do not like to be sweaty, and I don’t like my Summer clothes as much as my Fall/Winter clothes, which makes me not want to get dressed. Any terrible things that happen are just icing on the cake, hostile reminders that you’re supposed to enjoy yourself in the Summer and you, Emma, are blowing it (which — by the way — any time or date that has specific pressure on it to be fun is automatically bad. New Year’s Eve? Literally get away from me).
Fall, however, has me singing a very different song. Again able to wear jeans and sweatshirts, to step outside without oozing sweat out of every pore in my goddamn body, I emerge from my apartment with some regularity again, even without prompting by whatever plans I made when I was in a better mood. As the NYC Metro Weather Twitter account fields expected vitriol after their message that the sun will not again set after 7pm until March, I feel relief. I wouldn’t categorize myself as a Halloween person, nor would I say that “the darkness matches my soul” or anything else that you would find on 2012 depression Tumblr. It just breathes new life into me in a way that Summer could only dream of doing. I am absolved of the pressure to have a good time, so I start, by the grace of God, actually having a good time.
I took walks this week in both Fort Tryon and Inwood Hill, the two stalwart parks near my apartment, and thought to myself, as ever, “It’s insane that this is just here.” A squirrel followed me for too long when I was in Inwood Hill (for real followed me, like I would turn around and he’d still be there — frozen, waiting, closer to me than he was the last time... We were playing Red Light Green Light and I was losing), but the sun was pretty and showed all the different shades of green offered by the towering trees, so I’d call it a wash.
I cooked more in the last week than I have in months, prepping lunches and dinners and dutifully stopping myself from draining my 401k to order Chipotle via Seamless (AGAIN). I made the decision to bandwagon with the Orioles into post-season baseball since I will soon be fresh out of Mets games to tune into (I famously choose teams based on charm and charm alone). I consider new shows I can start when there’s no baseball to be seen, rather than numbly rewatching things I’ve seen a million times. I make writing goals to shoot for by the end of the year (two new essays before 2024 — you heard it here first). I scribble to-do lists in my day planner to get other projects off the ground. I read my book and think about which one I’d like to read next. I am new, I am alive, I am wearing a sweater. Happy Fall.
