2009-10-20
autumnal
All I really want to do is watch movies and hang out, I kind of want this comps proposal to write itself. The topic is interesting enough, but I don�t know if I�m really there.
When I first came to Carleton this year, I got back early to work before classes started, before everyone else arrived. I was alone in my big four-person suite, there wasn�t really anyone to hang out with at the end of the day when work was done. The campus library was still open, though, so I checked out a DVD: Synecdoche, New York- a movie by Charlie Kaufman. I watched it by myself, in my big empty room, in the dark. That was an interesting experience. I don�t think I quite got the movie, but there were definitely some lines that resonated with me.
One part was at the beginning, an interview on the radio- the commentator was asking an English professor these questions about the representation of autumn in poetry. Why do we romanticize this season, why is it written about in such longing verses?
The professor said that autumn marks the beginning of death. It is the glorious end- it is the final glimmer before the fade. I thought that was beautiful. Seeing autumn, witnessing the leaves as they wilt and whither, that is a silent observation of death, of preparation for the end. And death, amongst other things, is a reminder of life.
There is a guy outside the window right now, raking dead leaves, gathering them into a big pile. They rest lifelessly on the ground, only to be collected up and carried away. Fall, it�s that sense of inevitability: a surge that warns and beckons and announces the arrival of death, of winter. And it�s during that final reminder, the last hurrah of blooming color and gracefully thinning of branches, that we cling most desperately to life, sadly murmuring to ourselves about its inevitable transience, and trying to savor the soft, vibrant glow before it�s gone.
The air is getting colder out there, it has a bite to it. The maple leaves are dwindling in number. They�re dying. And someday so will I. But not before a final glint, not before we get our day to burst with pure vitality.
I have to go read now, about adolescent egocentrism. It�ll be interesting. But I still kind of just want to hang out, just look at these leaves before they�re all gone, from the canary yellows to the blood reds.
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
- P. D. James
leesah-likes at 10:57 a.m.