Autumn, the Most Changing of All the Seasons

In defense of Maryland weather, an orange and black October, and a side dose of depression

Each week, a menu of sorts, around a revolving theme. This week: the changing seasons of fall.

If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Suppertime! I promise to feed you only once a week, and never after midnight.

Ingredient List

🎵 : Here is a collection of all my favorite fall songs (though I’m sure I’m missing a few). Additional suggestions would be greatly appreciated, please leave any in the comments below!

And now, onto dinner service.

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Course 1

A Word of Gratitude: Apple Cider Mezcalita

In the first fall of Covid, we decided it was time to get out. This was around the time when working remote and thinking “can’t we just do this anywhere?” was really sinking its teeth into everyone, as if we could all live the lives of quasi capitalism and get away with it. Van lifers without the vans, the dreams of pecking away on laptops in faraway lands opening up all windows of possibilities. Mostly, we just ended up at desks in our basements, our lives now an NPR concert stripped down to only the tiny desk, spending 24 hours a day in the same building and somehow convincing ourselves that was freedom.

So yeah, we had to get out, and decided to take two weeks doing it.

We settled on a place in Maine an hour northwest of Portland near the border of New Hampshire, a beautiful cabin on a river with not too much around it. We invited two other couples that were some of our best friends in order to 1) keep down the costs and 2) provide an insurance policy for not turning our isolated family adventure into The Shining, East Coast Edition. 

It was a pretty great place to spend a couple weeks

As the date approached, I signed up for the state of Maine’s weekly fall foliage report, which is emailed annually starting in early September. I know this because I never unsubscribed from the emails and each year I anxiously await the color-coded map of the state as the cold creeps from Canada on down. (If any of you naturalists would like to sign up for your own weekly report, you can do so here.) Due to an unusually cool end of summer, the leaves were changing early in 2020. When we arrived in the last week of September, the colors were close to peak foliage in the southern parts of the state. I don’t have to tell you it was beautiful and terrific and radiant and all those kinds of words that Charlotte would spin in her web. It’s Maine, in the fall, I’m sure you get the picture. If you don’t, go look at the Thomas Kinkade print hanging above the piano in your grandma’s house.

This had all the makings of a perfect trip. A vacation away from it all, spent with friends, in the outdoors. I planned out some hikes, we visited Portland, we saw the L.L. Bean boot, ate some lobster rolls, sat around the campfire each night on porch swings, played some disc golf, went to an apple orchard, drank apple cider mezcalitas (legitimately amazing), and went fishing for pickerel in the river whenever we were bored. All of this with my two best friends and our respective families. This was perfect. I even shattered my phone at the beginning of the trip, meaning I had no access to social media. What more could one want in life?

Except, I just wasn’t happy. The tangible feeling of happiness wasn’t there, as if I had left it with my phone charger back in Baltimore. I’m sure it was as combination of things: the freshness of the pandemic had worn off and it was clear we were in it for the long haul, the election was a month away and everyone hated each other more than ever before, the past six months were fairly isolated from friends, during that time period I started vaping, and I was drinking more on account of all of this. On top of that, ever since high school I’ve always had a dose of seasonal depression when fall came around, so maybe it was a little bit of that too. A grande pumpkin spiced despresso.

I just remember thinking of how happy I should feel but I couldn’t feel anything, despite all my pushing and pulling in trying to will the feeling into existence. I set the entire table with all its favorite fixins and it refused to take its seat. In the middle of our trip, there was a moment when Andy and Rabbit and I were kayaking down the river in the rain, with the changing leaves on both sides, peacocked maples shouldered next to stubborn pines, wondering what’s around the next bend, my favorite thing to wonder. On my list of perfect ways to spend an hour or two, this would be up there. If I told myself I was happy to be there I could recognize it, but it wasn’t fun like I had remembered fun.

That kind of blank space of feeling was something I had never really felt before, so I tried to drink and vape it away, which used to work in the past as a temporary solution. The problem was that it wasn’t working anymore. One of the nights around the campfire, I was sitting outside by myself. I’ve actually never told anyone this until now, but I remember a thought flashing into my head of what it would be like if I just wasn’t there anymore. Not like in a “what if” way but in a “would that be good” way. That scared me, a lot, because nothing like that had ever come into my head before. 

I know now that it’s not totally uncommon for that to happen, that darkness is a part of our lives and it roots itself in different ways and that most people have probably had a similar thought at some point. But I just hated that it came and visited me, especially during a time when it should’ve been so far away, somewhere in another time zone. Again, why I never really told anyone this. I mean, look at my life– I should be happy, it felt almost wrong or ungrateful or selfish to admit that I wasn’t.

I wanted to love that trip so much, but when I look back on it now, it feels like all of the pandemic depression bottled up into one week. If I had to point to a definitive time when the languishing began, that was it, and it would carry on for another three years. As with that week, there were many special moments when I felt nothing, a blankness where I couldn’t conjure up the colors to fill the canvas. The entire pandemic period has a layer of darkness for me, like some sort of vignette around the borders that bled its way into every photo in the slideshow of my memories during that time. 

Eventually, somewhere around early 2023, the darkness began to move back to the sidelines. Part of it was quitting vaping and eliminating the heavy mood swings of nicotine craving, which I couldn’t have done without my wife’s support and grace. Part of it was taking months-long breaks from drinking alcohol during marathon training and now only doing it rarely and in moderation. Prior to that, I was 100% using it as a crutch to fill something that could never be filled. Now, I haven’t had a hangover in almost a year and a half, which– surprise– does wonders in boosting the general mood and productivity levels. Of course, the other part is focusing on things that bring joy and light into my life. My family and friends and community of people who care, who are everything to me.

I’m not saying that’s a recipe for success for everyone, and I’m also not saying it’s been smooth sailing. The waves are always lapping at my door. I hear them even now as fall approaches and the stressful season begins. I drop bad habits and pick up good ones and then find other bad habits to take their place. Translation: I should probably get a flip phone.

But I’m better now than I was four years ago, in nearly every respect.

And for that, I am grateful.

This was a bright spot, for sure ⬇️

Course 2

Appetizer: Pickles

I already wrote about baseball back in the spring, because it is the best and because it encompasses all the seasons. It even goes into hibernation for the winter. And while I love the clean slate that a new baseball season brings, there is nothing greater than the harvest that comes after 162 games and the excitement of the playoffs in October.

As a die-hard Orioles fan for my entire life, the lack of orange and black in the October sports had long haunted me. The playoff drought that began when Jeffrey Maier’s bony hand pulled a phantom Derek Jeter home run into the stands in 1996 seemed to linger for eternity, bound by some immovable force. That changed in 2012, right after I moved to Baltimore. It was an exciting year as the team was finally good again, and unexpectedly snuck into the wild card spot for the playoffs. 

It wa a magical run that ended with a divisional series loss against the New York Yankees, in which I still contend that golden boy Nate McLouth tied the game in the sixth with a home run but was once again screwed over by the Yankees favoritism by MLB umpiring.

However, that loss gave me one of the most memorable baseball moments of my life. Knowing that the team played in New York and would be coming home that evening, a contingency of diehard Orioles fans made their way to Camden Yards around midnight. Around a hundred of us waited in the parking lot until the player bus finally rolled in. And instead of security booting us all off the premises, the entire crowd formed a tunnel from the bus door to the player’s entrance of the ballpark. 

One by one, the players and coaches came off the bus and through the tunnel. Some were melancholy and morose and merely gave slight nods (Nick Markakis and Chris Davis) while others were truly wowed (Darren O’Day and Miguel Gonzales). Manager Buck Showalter went down the whole line thanking people and shaking hands. Most of the team were awestruck that so many people showed up to greet them in the middle of the night after losing to the Yankees to end a miracle season. I didn’t realize how special it was in the moment, but looking back, it’s one of my favorite baseball memories.

I ended up heading home afterwards, but a couple friends headed to Pickle’s Pub for one last drink, and there was Lew Ford, a journeyman ballplayer who just hours earlier had the only RBI in the game for the Orioles. He walked over from the stadium to have a beer after a long season, and my friends recognized him and he was nice enough to chat with them for a bit.

Like the foliage in autumn, in its peak colors, baseball is beautiful.

Course 3

The Main: Candy Apples

I’m here today to defend the great state of Maryland. Not from a mighty military force, not from an invasion of lanternflies or snakeheads (they’ve already taken over land and sea), not from the New York Yankees or any other yankee, though we will surely see them both defeated in October as the carpetbaggers come to Oriole Park at Camden Yards where they will meet their demise.

No, I’m here to defend Maryland on the meteorological front. As I write this, the first day of fall is just a day away. As you read this, it’s already here. Really, the first day of fall was a few weeks ago, because Maryland weather’s favorite thing to do is to lull you into a season and snap you back out of it, as if you walked into a manhole while on your phone and came out the other side somewhere in the southern hemisphere.

Just a few weeks ago it was the dead of summer. School had started, but the dog days kept wagging their tail, as if they forgot it was time to start shedding their summer skin. And then, overnight, it was fall– a break in the humidity and a crisp 52F in the morning. Like firemen asleep in their bunks, sweaters were quickly called into action, descending down the pole and jumping into the hook and ladder– a five-alarm fall was here. Starbucks baristas manned their battle stations with pumpkin shotguns strapped across their chests. Call in the retired forces of ‘90s kitchen decor– we need apple everything, now.

And then the next day, it was summer again. Sweltering, hot, humid. The sun-bleached sweaters withered into backpacks and bedroom drawers. Within a few days, the thermometer would reach 95F. Oh fall, oh fall, why have you forsaken us?

This is the life of a Mid-Atlantic Marlyander, and it can be applied to all seasons. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I grew up in south central Pennsylvania, less than two hours north of where I currently live. Summers were just as hot as they are here in Baltimore. But the winters were cold, so much colder. Mercury-wise, the difference isn’t not much, just a few millimeters of red on the thermometer. But there is a huge difference between 40F and 32F in the middle of February. It’s the difference between depressing and dirty snow on the ground for a month straight, of running in shorts versus full-on tights and winter cap.

Conversely, I’ve slept in a van in August in Florida and Louisiana and Texas, and I can tell you the brutality of the heat is on par with a Mortal Kombat finishing move. The sun feels like it’s reaching inside of you, pulling your beating heart out and holding it to the sky, an Aztec sacrifice to itself. Maryland will at least let you reach the third round, even if the humidity does perform a krushing blow to the skull every now and again.

I’ve breathed the crisp mountain air of Colorado, with sight lines that extend forever, white mountaintops bobbing above the prairies like seagulls perched on algae patches in the middle of a sawdust desert. It’s beautiful and crystalline. For about three months. Then the aspens ignite in a high-caliber gold rush not seen since the heydays of Leadville, and it’s over. In mountain towns, the snow is relentless and endless and everywhere else it’s a dice roll wrapped in a game of roulette. Maybe it’ll snow six inches in the morning or maybe it’ll be 75 degrees in the afternoon, who can say! A Patagonia Nano Puff and gallon Hydroflask jug are required extensions of the body when applying for a residential license. 

I’ve also been to paradise– the unfathomable perfection of San Diego in the dead of winter or San Francisco in summer. A cool breeze coming off the coast, a thick fog rolling out, the sunshine so abundant that surely the state is salivating at the tax possibilities of its riches. It’s so surreal that you almost want to stick a pin it, like a mannequin at night, just to see if it comes alive. I’m not here to argue the perfection of the West Coast weather. I will concede that Californians have full bragging rights to the meteorological cheat code, and I wouldn’t share it with anyone else either. It can’t be beat. 

But– and hear me out– it’s boring. 

Maryland, on the other hand, is the life of the party, the friend you want around to keep things interesting. 

The winters, as noted already, are fairly mild outside of the occasional polar vortex, or whatever extreme name they’re calling a cold snap these days. I would say the winters are even perfect. Just enough snow to create a few sledding memories, but warm enough that it will melt in a few days. No major disruptions to life aside from the odd milk-and-bread raids on the local Harris Teeter. Can you really not go 48 hours without those two items or do you just listen to everything your TV tells you? 

In the spring, Maryland will court your hand in marriage once again, by bringing you flowering trees of dogwoods and magnolias and cherry blossoms, but also allergies. The way in which it unfurls, however, is nothing short of magical.

We have friends from Houston that lived here for a couple years before moving back to the Lone Star state, and one spring, I remember them saying, “What we love about Baltimore is that when there’s a warm day, everyone immediately goes outside.” Windows and doors flung open, running and walking, eating at sidewalk tables. In Texas, the weather year-round mostly lives between lukewarm and hell, so it’s not appreciated. In Maryland, spring bursts at the seams.

The summer can be admittedly rough on account of the humidity, but when the breaks come, they are unexpected and welcome, almost a gift. Maybe it’s a form of Stockholm Syndrome, the captive befriending the captor, but the random fluctuations are just enough to make it livable and tolerable. Unlike Florida in the middle of the afternoon, you can still do things without taking shelter from the daily air raids of ultraviolet rays.

Then there’s the fall, which is short but candy-apple sweet. Aside from being the perfect time to visit Ocean City, it also pulls in all the glory of its New England neighbors. The leaves change, and brilliantly. Crabs are fattening up before the winter, plentiful and peaking in meaty sweetness, a phrase that should only ever be used with Chesapeake Bay crustaceans and/or shellfish. Within an hour or two of Baltimore, you can enjoy the splendor of the mountains awash in a cornucopia of colors, most notably on the Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park. Sweaters and jackets and knit caps and boots are finally given their rightful place in the world. Campfires and s’mores and a good night’s sleep in a tent are just a few of my favorite things.

When running, everything feels deeper in the fall. Maybe it’s the reflection of all things passing, or the activation of the lungs with the air, a balanced alchemy of life and death passing back and forth with each inhale and exhale. 

And that is the point of it all. The cold and the heat, the snow and the sun, the wind and the rain. The changing of seasons, the Ecclesiastical rhythm to it all: a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend. All of it here, in equal measures.

So California, you can keep your uniform of board shorts in the boardroom. Texas, you can have your wide open spaces. Florida, keep the beaches for the spring breakers. Colorado, send me a beacon signal from under the avalanche.

For now and for always, it’s Maryland for me. 

But you can bet I’ll be visiting you all come February.

Course 4

Dessert: A Repast of the Past Week

The regular baseball season is coming to a close, but we made it to one more game thanks to my wife’s work friend who has the best seats in the house at Camden Yards. Unfortunately, it was a train wreck of a game (literally the worst game of the season), and the Orioles got shut out 10-0. Earlier in the week, our team from Believe in the Run got to take a tour of the Gore headquarters in Elkton, Maryland, where Gore-Tex products are developed, which was super cool. I fully understand now why their products cost so much. The amount of time and testing that goes into each product is astounding.

And then there was running. This was my final week of training for the Berlin Marathon, and though I missed a couple shorter runs, I did bang out a great 8-mile workout and my last long run this afternoon. I felt strong over the entire 14 miles and am feeling pretty confident about having a good day in Berlin, especially since the current weather forecast is calling for a low of 45 and high of 59. I’ll take it. So yeah, I leave for Germany on Tuesday, a place I’ve never been. Super excited to see what it’s all about, do some very cool things with Adidas and Believe in the Run, and hang out with some friends from around the world.

I also contribute to The Drop, a weekly email from Believe in the Run, where I round up running news and stories in a generally sarcastic (and sometimes heartfelt) manner. You can subscribe here.

I’m also the co-host of The Drop running podcast, one of the top running podcasts in the country, where we mostly talk about things other than running that thousands of people seem to find entertaining. You can listen to this past week’s episode here.

Postcards for Paids

I’ve been creating and sending postcards to my paid subscribers, made from vintage postcards with custom artwork courtesy of the weed packaging I find on the ground in Baltimore. Got a handful more sent out last week, and if you haven’t received one, don’t worry, I promise I’m working on it! Good weed packaging has been hard to come by lately. On the back, a handwritten thank you note, of course. Here’s one from the last batch I sent (thanks Shana!):

END OF MENU

Thank you for dining with me this evening, I hope the service was acceptable. Tips (whether monetary or recommendations to others) are appreciated, but not expected.

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