This piece was featured first on Nov 6 for One Good Thing, a weekly newsletter brought to you by Alexis Madrigal about his take on Bay Area art, culture & nature. Subscribe today.
On paper, I hate this time of the year.
I love long summer days. I love eating outside. I love running in warm sun. And right now, night is coming fast and hard. Soon, all dinners will be in the dark. My apple tree will finally lose its leaves, its bare branches the sign of winter at our house.
But this year, I have found myself marveling (even more than normal) at the slant of the light, the extension of shadows. We’ve had so many beautiful days completed by real sunsets.
What a wondrous thing to be reminded of sunlight, to not take it for granted overhead, but watch it have to work through trees. This light comes up behind us as we walk, lengthening us, or we face it, the orange-marker sun, as it lights up the windows in the hills.
Maybe I love this moment, balanced before winter. Maybe I love that coziness is coming, that the holidays will pounce and shake and then it will be a new year.
There is a row of elms near my house and they are turning colors, a single line of east coast autumn. There will be sprays of yellow and orange and red overhead and on the sidewalk and in the gutters. You’ll pick one leaf up and marvel anything could be so beautiful and then toss it back into the street because beauty is everywhere and there’s no need to be greedy.
What a time when you can just look around and every single thing is golden, or at least, golden-er. What a contrast with the broader political moment. What a contrast with the reality of suffering on this planet and in this life.
It must be something that the most beautiful light pours forth right before winter comes. A more daily promise than a rainbow. An invitation to keep living.
Alexis Madrigal, Co-Host, Forum
My Tipline
- The new Florence and the Machine album is out, and it is so dramatic and lovely.
- Behold the new anthology of Ursula K. LeGuin poems, stories, essays and talks: A Larger Reality.
- For my money, there is NO more Bay Area experience than going to a poetry reading at Golden Sardine in North Beach on a First Friday.
My Picks
FOOD
Nite Yun Showcases Flavors of Her Parents’ Home in New Cookbook, ‘My Cambodia’
Nite Yun’s book is a revelation about Khmer life in Stockton and the food that sustains it. Her story is only exceeded by her food, which is thrilling and unusual and delicious.
ART & HISTORY
New Book ‘On Loop’ Details Oakland’s Crackdowns on Black Sonic Expression
Alex Werth’s history of the politics of music and noise is rich and resonant.
KQED LIVE
Pupusa Showdown
I may have my Mexican card revoked for this, but pupusas are better than quesadillas or burritos.