The Subculturalist: Autumn Rising

Keeping cool, dry-land training, the "Pink Panther" GMT, and more...

Total reading time: about 5 minutes

Hey ya'll,

In case you hadn’t heard, we’re in the thick of a pretty serious heatwave here on the West Coast. Rather than join the choruses of people either a.) endlessly complaining about the heat or b.) pontificating on what and who is to blame for it, I’d like to go in a different direction. At the moment my mind is firmly fixed on the (hopefully) cooler days of Autumn and yes, eventually, Winter. It’s not so much that I’m trying to think cooler thoughts in order to get through this heatwave, it’s actually just part of the fiber of my being. Allow me to explain.

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First: Autumn On The Brain

Despite living in Los Angeles for the past 14 years(!!!) and knowing damn well that September is August in disguise out here, I still get "the itch", every year, right around Labor Day weekend. No, I don't need to go see a doctor, at least not for this. The itch I speak of is the deep seated desire for cooler days when September rolls around and I imagine it stems from being an avid snowboarder since I was 10. Growing up in Vermont I would keep an eager on eye on the peaks waiting for the Autumn leaves to get hit with their first hard frost and hopefully not long after their first dusting of snow. Early Autumn is unequivocally the best time of year in my opinion, days when the high temps are around 65 and you can comfortably skateboard with a hoodie on, or golf in an insulated windbreaker if that's more your thing. The nights get crisp, geese honk overhead as they begin their migration south, the old familiar smell of smoke hangs in the air as fireplaces and wood stoves are called into action after taking the Summer off. Even though most of nature is in a state of decay, life feels full this time of year. That is Autumn, at least as I remember it for the first 20 odd years of my life.