October 19, 2015
Everybody I know seems to be worked into a froth over autumn leaves. “Yay, orange and red on the trees and falling to the ground and making big colorful piles and shit. Blah, blah, blah…”
Please friends, stop having kittens over dying leaves. Because the death of the leaves is just the beginning. Everything is going to die for the winter, including my soul.
Forgive me if that seems hyperbolic. I assure it’s not. Winter in Michigan is AWFUL, comparable only to Dante’s fifth circle of Hell.
It begins with lovely leaves falling daintily in the wind. Next the wind grows more powerful and tears the shingles off of your house and tosses your cat into the neighbor’s fire pit which is thankfully not lit because it’s already too cold to even use a freaking fire pit. The snow sprinkles down next and it’s almost pretty for a few days. Next, the wind chill drops to forty below and everything freezes over and the first person who calls it a “winter wonderland”’ will get a punch in the crotch from yours truly. Eight months later, the thaw happens and I finally leave my house for the first time that calendar year.
And please don’t say “at least you have seasons” as if freezing my ass off for most of the year is better than living in a nice, warm climate that is secure enough in its identity to remain stable instead of changing into a hose beast just because that’s what it did last year. Having more than one season is not what it’s cracked up to be.
So until I get back to a warmer locale where I belong, please appreciate your precious leaves to yourself. Because it’s all doom to me.