The fall

I don't know what it is about this time of year but it gives me a lot of really mixed feelings. On one hand it fills me with a specific excitement that has to do with the smell, the crispness in the air, and the gorgeous thin, lemonade colored light. And there's the anticipation of holidays to come with baking, decorating, music and lights to share with our darling boy.

But there's been something else coloring my feelings for the last couple of days, which I think has something to do with the season of life I'm in paired with current events. I haven't really worked out what it is, but it struck me the other day as I was in Sears riding down the escalator. Looking around the store, which is clearly trying very hard, but hanging on by a thread, I was filled with a sudden sadness. The once mighty Sears, (Chicago's own!) having fallen so far now, seemed to epitomize so many things that used to be fine and are now either shadows of their former selves or are sullied to the point where there seems no going back. 

I have so many questions and fears about where we seem to be going as a culture and the damage we're doing to our planet. Is our culture really as vapid and self absorbed as I perceive it? Is the pervasive consumerism and persistent ignorance actually going to succeed in sinking our communal boat? I know a lot of folks who'd like to get off, but aren't seeing a way. 

We'd love to find a place where we could scale waaaaay back and foster a community with people who share many of the same values that we do, but it's hard to imagine, given these rocky economic times, how we'll get there right now. We're not letting that goal go though, because the nostalgia I've been feeling recently isn't for a time or a place, but rather for authenticity and connection, and we're not finding too much of that here. (not yet, anyway)

So many of our cultural offerings these days feel false and treacly to me. To use the parlance of the current election, they claim it to be Main street but it's Wall street all the way. The neighborhoods with faux homey names, the 'green' Walmart with the 'downtown' look to the exterior, the anonymous strip malls, the hateful talk radio, the 7 year old girls dressed up like sex pots, it's all so dreadful. What we're looking for, and what I'm needing these days, is sincerity. Some place or some situation that doesn't leave me looking around, mind-boggled by the artifice. 

Now then. How's that for a fine pick-me-up? ;-) See what fall does to me? They say the ancients used to perceive it as a time of death, so surely lamenting the state of our culture isn't so bad, huh?