Autumn melancholy

I love the change in seasons. But I grew up in Southern California, where those changes are very subtle. So I am attuned to the imperceptible shifts. My my favorite season is Autumn. Autumn here can mean little beyond the lone maple tree on a street meridian losing its leaves. The subtle change in light as the sun hangs lower light in the sky. The temperature dip. And that splendid melancholy.


I think I know why school the Jewish New year takes place now. Of course in an agrarian society, you just finished the harvest. You are truly reaping what you've sown and having to count it out. Btu even now it's a perfect time to take emotional inventory as well. I heard fasting cleanses are best to do in the fall and spring, right around the equinoxes. So it all works out. Equinox, school starting, Jewish new year.

I've been feeling the urge to take stock and look back. Today the sky was gray most of the day. Larry and I were going to meet with friends and pray, but they're down in Long Beach. They had writing deadlines and so did we. So we sat in our respective homes and wrote.

The autumn melancholy is hitting me. Friday night I wrapped my work on a film Change Your Life. I had had a great time. I really liked the cast, crew and our directors. We had such a great time. And ended, so there was a loss.

Saturday Larry and I worked all day in the garage and we were exhausted. I got into an argument with a friend and was left feeling hurt and angry. Saturday night we watched a documentary called "The Flight From Death" directed by Patrick Shen, who co-directed Change Your Life. It was about how humans' awareness of death affects the way they deal with others. (okay so I was asking msyelf to feel bummed)

I had one of those existential angst moments; What if it really does all end at death? It makes this life ridiculous, and sad. Ridiculous for those in Dafur or Haiti who barely get to live. And for those of us who have it pretty good? Why would we be built with these longings for things beyond survival: for meaning and significance, for love? Why would we love things that are destined to die? Why would we love the weak and vulnerable? Why would we be possessed to help those who are less fortunate? If this is it, then so much of my life is sad. Then this is all I've got with Larry, all I've got with my family and friends. And when it goes it's gone. And that loss is astounding.

I remembered in 2003 my life fell apart. I was so depressed I didn't want to keep living. at least I didn't want to live as if I'd be around in a couple of years. When my mother was selling her house and giving away her nice things, I declined most of it. Why do I want a set of Revere wear pots and pans? I don't want to cook, let alone eat.

But I got a certain kind of freedom out of it. I got free from the things that used to hold me hostage: the tyranny of success, the tyranny of other people's opinions. And with those out of the way, my priorities changed. What really mattered?

When things got better (maybe in part to my changed priorities) I realized I needed to always ask myself that question: If this were the last year of my life, how would I want to spend it? What would I want to accomplish, or just do for the sake of doing? With whom would I want to spend my time?

Not surprisingly, I got a lot more done, because didn't make time for unnecessary things. One of the biggest tyrannies ruling my life had been the tyranny of success. Ironicaly, when I finally gave up at succeeding in that career, I did my best creative work.

My friend Ann Randolph told me that had been her key to creating her best work. "Forget it," she told herself. "I've failed at this career, so I might as well do what I want." As a result she wrote and performed two award-winning solo shows, one which Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft went on to produce.

I'd like to go back to living like that: live like this was your last year on earth. Get free from the tyranny of other people's opinions or expectations. Live life in light of my own death, and an eternity on the other end.

It's Yom Kippur and I have some sins that need atoning for. I have some amends to make: to God, to others and to myself.

I love autumn, I think I also love having a good cry. It also makes room for new things.

In several places Lewis has referred to "melancholy" as Sehnsucht . . . the German word has overtones of nostalgia and longing not to be found in any English word . . . It may appear in different forms (melancholy, wonder, yearning, etc.), but its underlying sense of displacement or alienation from what is desired. (Carnell, 14-15) "Melancholy" was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what? . . . Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. … It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and as before, the experience was one of intense desire. … It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, 'in another dimension' . . . [it was] an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy . . . anyone who has experienced it will want it again . . . I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. (C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 1955, 16-18)