The Autumn Icarus: A Festive Lament

My Dear Blog,

And just like that, summer is over. Though we still receive random heatwaves here in LA, the highest being 93 (93 in October is criminal!), the sun is seldom in the sky without a cloud hovering over it. The mornings and evenings are now colder, and the mystical energy of fall has rolled in as though it were some eerie fog in a cheesy horror movie. I’ve found myself in a somewhat fatigued slump. It could be the weather, it could be my burning the candles at both ends, or it could be the fact that I haven’t been doing the festive-autumnal-rituals I usually do. It seems this is a problem that not only plagues me, but also many of my peers. Indeed, my friends, it is time to pull out your masks and hazmat suits because we are in a dire epidemic of forgetting how fun the holidays can be. 

It was just the other week that I walked into my school's Trader Joe's and I was suddenly hit with a waft of pumpkin-spice-and-everything-nice-cinnamon-and-happiness. I was paralyzed in my tracks as a slew of memories flooded my mind. It was as though I were an autumn Scrooge being visited by the nostalgia of fall’s past. Riding the school bus and feeling the cold air nip my nose, ensuring that every scent around me was some variation of pumpkin or vanilla, watching Charlie Brown’s The Great Pumpkin Waltz, and participating in what seems to be the forgotten art of carving pumpkins. I stood there, a figurative tear rolling down my cheek, realizing that October had blown through as though it were some offhand breeze. The month that I used to love, that I would spend every day participating in a festive activity, counting down the days until Halloween, had just flown away. It wasn’t until I had lamented to my other friends that I realized this was a shared experience. It’s not entirely our fault either; it seems that the rituals we would do when we were kids, like the long nights of trick-or-treating, have been almost snuffed out as well. 

It’s understandable how this all happens, but it’s been harder to work towards fixing this problem. That’s usually how things go, amiright? I myself have ensured that I’m chalk full of projects and commitments. Whether it’s friendships, work, homework, going to the gym, clubs, my energy has been re-routed to external areas, but I’ve forgotten about providing soup for my soul. I also think we as a society have moved away from the old fall that my generation grew up with. The pandemic undoubtedly put trick-or-treating into somewhat of an unfashionable light; newer minimalistic aesthetics have toned down the warmth and brightness of the fall palette, and social media has made fall activities into quests for external validation rather than something personal and fulfilling. Now, I don’t mean to yuck anyone's yum by saying this, if any of what I mentioned is what you enjoy partaking in, by all means, you do you boo!

Why is it that now that we are adults, exploring independence, learning the ropes of the world, gaining control over our lives, are we forgetting, maybe even sacrificing, what we enjoy most about the year? Is it because some of us feel like the “adult fall experience” isn’t complete without a special someone or external witness? Or is it because the joy that we found in these seasons are figments of our childhoods, and we are all married to the myth that to grow older, we must let go of what we enjoyed as children?

Therefore, I’m using this post as a call to action, and I hope you join me. I demand that from now on, for the years to come, we change every candle, even the ones we’re all hiding in our dorms, to be vanilla and pumpkin spice painted, we all must carve one pumpkin, we must watch fall-time movies, we must trick-or-treat until our feet can’t hold us, we must trade and organize our candy, and lastly, we must commit to doing things that we enjoy doing.

I think it is safe to say that the second Thanksgiving is over, which is the proper and correct time to switch seasonal gears, and that I will be trading my pumpkin spice for pine and Christmas cookies. I vow to be the most festive I have ever been!