The most tragic human proclivity is to take things for granted.
Think of the change in the seasons. An undeniable mark of the passage of time, an inevitable occurrence highlighting the cyclical nature of every law that governs the universe. The beginning of a new chapter in life, a breath loosed after a long time spent in captivity. A dawn that brings with itself the promise of new things, of better things. And we perceive all of this, recognize it in the most fundamental sense, without ever stopping to really understand.
Still, when I find my mind wandering a plane of thought in the unholiest hours of the night, I try to look for reasonable answers — and not poetic ones — about the sudden onset of my melancholia that always seems to coincide with the tilt of the Earth’s axis. The Autumn equinox, they call it: When the planet is just passing a point in its orbital motion that’s neither away from the sun nor towards it. When the days and the nights are roughly equal in length, and nature deems it the perfect moment to start shedding its skin.
Perhaps there’s something utterly terrifying about the prospects of days and nights that run on an equal footing, with neither the inviting bask of sunlight, nor the enveloping darkness of twilight, finding sway in this eternal fight, forced into a doleful stalemate by forces beyond even their infinite ken.
Yes, maybe that’s it. It’s as good an answer as any if we aren’t feeling particularly nitpicky.
And yet, the natural doom and gloom of an overcast sky aside, there’s a sense of unparalleled beauty to Autumn. The chilly wind that suddenly gusts in and sweeps through your skin. The steady fall of rain droplets making patterns and ripples in puddles and declines as you pass them by on the street. The scrunching sound of dried leaves when you accidentally step foot on them. The leaves that, in their thousands, drown the city in a mesmerizing orange-yellow hue.
If you’ve been living on this planet for a while, and I’m sure you have if you’re reading this piece, then you’ve probably experienced all of this. At some point, even the most profound experience, the most tantalizingly divine sight, becomes something ordinary. So repetitively dull. So frustratingly insignificant.
That brings me to the point I’ve been trying to make. Our lives are defined by these small and seemingly insignificant experiences, and no matter how much you’ve seen, there’s always something more to explore, to know, and to feel. I no longer thought myself capable of getting transfixed by a single sight on a small, forgettable corner of the street. But that’s exactly what happened to me recently.
Minutes that felt like hours passed, and still I was breathing in a sliver of the life of the average person, unbeknownst even to myself that this strange interlude — with me mostly staring and smiling like an idiot — had gone on for quite a long time. Who could blame me? It was a strange scene that I beheld, and even my best attempts at capturing it fails to convey the sudden rush of warmth that soaked my entire being, creating quite the sensational juxtaposition against the backdrop of the cold that ruled the night.
I’ll paint you a word picture. A food cart in the natural retreat of a bustling street, tended by an older guy and another youngster whom I presumed to be his son. A small lantern, shining a deep red, piercing the darkness. A few meters away, streetlights make the night pull back on a neat row down the street, but here, away from their cover, this feeble lantern does a commendable job of warding off the abyss and inviting pedestrians to hang back and indulge in the delights it has to offer.
Amusingly enough, in just a little while, perhaps mere months from now, my memory of that night will resemble this out-of-focus, blurred image. Nothing more than an impression of a scene.
But the feeling, that particular sense of warmth telling me that just for now, for the moment here, everything is right… that will always be with me, as vivid as if it happened yesterday.
And with that, I leave you for the time being.
