What a Wonderful Equinox

ISSUE #123

Try sustaining equilibrium and you'll find that it's impossible. Will we ever reach a self that takes only what we can give? Ever give enough to match what we extract? It's a wicked concept forged in the fires of ideals, like justice or closure or the perfect way to load a dishwasher. $10 on Venmo does not make up for time, all the issues of the heart, or whether you had to poop the whole drive to grab the pizza. These things are mere trifles, of course! They're nothing, forgiven simply—except by some, you know, the ones who will always keep track. Balance is something we can strike but never grasp, not for longer than a moment. Then again, neither can the cosmos.

The equinox is not true equilibrium. You see the sun rise before it actually crests, refracted through the arcs in the Earth's atmosphere. Yet to our minds, on Tuesday, September 22nd, the day is as long as the night, and then the night will win. I, at the same time, will be busy balancing eggs on my head. Last year, at this time, I had the harvest moon to look at while they perched. Now, the moon is new—she's gone and left, she's off to do some business of her own.

The night is coming, regrettably, and it will grow soon every day. Facing it is harder than ever this year. Winter's a challenging enemy, exhausting in its loneliness. It's why we invented holidays. What I'm saying is we should be there for each other, and if this year has done anything, it's stripped us of performances. Come October, we should call a friend a day, if even just to sit in silence. Fall asleep on the phone with people we love. It's the pandemic version of a sleepover, our breaths resembling a balance.

In fall, our heartbeats slow, emotion lingers. Corner stores sell squash and apple whiskey. These songs are autumn cigarettes, right down to the cold of the filter. This sound is every year of school, and every memory since, guitars which float to pavement and wait to crunch like leaves. Melodies that dip for every creature who feels it's time to dig.

Leaves actually change their color due to daylight, not the weather. A slower photosynthesis, the bursting orange a death rattle, colors of fire, excitement, passion, and warmth, before fading to browns of stability, that shelter we need to survive the winter. Except those leaves, they resurrect! They're just trees who're shaking out their bones. Not death, but a shedding of the skin.

For every coming autumn, the other side of Earth expects a spring; for every heartbreak, a person in this world will find some love; and we all still have the summer, bounding toward us at 30 kilometers per second.