Just two short months ago, the first scent of pumpkin spice filled the air in and around the friendly neighborhood Starbucks. The ensuing cries of delight marked the start of fall, as they do every year.
My calendar disagreed with them.
As my calendar has it, fall did not begin until the 23rd of September - two full weeks after the September 8 release of the Pumpkin Spice Latte rang in the season. I don't mean to stir up trouble, but we in Omaha were only a week removed from temperatures in the mid-90's on September 8th! Does that not seem rather warm, and exceptionally early, for fall?
Yet here we are, hardly a week into November, and already the first voices are calling out the coming of winter. The first chills are hardly in the air, but I can sense sleigh bells a-ringing in the not-so-distant future. The writing on the wall: Christmas decorations, already on the shelves for sale at Target.
When did this insanity begin? We seem so insistent on celebrating our seasons and our holidays that we rush them upon ourselves, only to watch them vanish before we can begin to enjoy them.
On October 1st, Halloween began, or so you might have thought from the outpouring of celebration. By the time the day of spooks arrived, I had already given up the ghost; I spent my All Hallows' Eve watching football. Not just Christmas, then, but every holiday is entangled in this rush to festivity.
Every holiday except one, that is: Thanksgiving. In theory, this day is one of the most important holidays on the national calendar, with all the founding lore to match. In practice, Thanksgiving boils down to a feast day of epic proportions.
In a nation that delights in food as much as this one, shouldn't a day of idle feasting be met with wide acclaim? Alas, the glittering and snowy glory of a white Christmas overshadows the warmth and spirit of the classic American day of rest. That, I fear, is a cultural problem over the long haul.
We Americans are always in such a rush. We speed on the roadways, we eat our meals quickly, and apparently we race into seasons. Maybe it's time for us to slow down.
Perhaps we can't slow down in all things, but there's something deeply ironic about the rush we work ourselves into over the passing of time. We always hurry into the next glamorous moment at the expense of the present moment, and in doing so rob ourselves of the chance to enjoy it.
We do this at the other end of the year, too, insisting on summer so early that spring scarcely breathes. It's an annual phenomenon, for which I have no antidote. We sell our souls to each new season and call it aesthetic.
If it's not too much to ask, I'd like this year to be a little different. You can keep your Black Fridays, ringing in a fresh celebration over the ashes of the last. All I ask is that we allow Thanksgiving to begin in earnest before we declare its unceremonious end.
Keep sipping your Pumpkin Spice Lattes, for an honest autumn's sake, and pull up a seat by the fire. Fall has some life left yet.
