Harvest September 20, 1985

  

It’s almost fall again, fifteen whole years since Louise and I arrived in New York City, hat in hand, looking for Hank.

Professor Mollenkott from my college days claimed I would come to fear fall, the dying leaves signifying the end of life, telling me when I reached her age (then 50), I would appreciate the rebirth of spring instead.

I’m not nearly 50 yet, but I am changing, scared just a little of the approach of death -- not in the fanatical way many people do these days, like chicken little fearing the fall of the sky. But in a sense of time passing, and the limitations life imposes on people. If I live another 40 years, I will still struggle with the ups and downs, the radio psychologist calls “the perfectionist attitude.”

We never quite get what we expect, nor accomplish all that we hope for, this becoming a major source of depression.

In my case, it is developing a system that will allow me to manufacture pieces of writing. Short stories work. But I want to write novels, even poetry, yet at the same time balance my needs to survive financially.

I work against a time limit, fearing I won’t get half of what I want to get done by the time I die.

I can dig that Buddhist stuff about having another life.

But this is the life I care about right now, and while I’m intrigued by the idea of starting over, I still have a number of years to contend with first.

So, Mollenkott was right predicting that Autumn and its symbolic dying would take a toll on me, though I have more energy during this time of year than during gradual growth of spring and the heat of summer.

I love the changing leaves more than I do the gradual creeping of color Spring produces, one quarter of a year when my talents seem to explode in color as well,

The crazies of WBAI talk about the fall equinox and winter solstice as times of energy and peace, of talent bubbling over, the harvest after the planting spring provides, people like me reaping the rewards of planted seeds, hurrying to get everything done before the winter brings the freezes the soil again, leaving the vastness of empty fields and the long wait for spring to come and the thaw.

I keep hearing the old song, “April come she will,” in my head and have come to realize what the poet meant when he claimed, “April as the cruelest month,” when the struggle begins to rip open again the frozen soil and force seed into the earth’s open wounds, fighting for each inch of soil so that the fall can bring the harvest again.

 

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