Chilly & A Little Bit Glum

Originally posted October 2, 2009:

It’s cool today, as it seems to have been for most of the past few months. We seldom used the air conditioner this summer, our first in the house. Part of that was, no doubt, a quality of the house itself, shielded as is it by numerous trees. But it was also the weather. It just didn’t get that hot this summer.

And it’s chilly – and rainy – again today, as it was yesterday. I look out my study window, and the two oak trees I can see still hold mostly green leaves: There are only a few scattered spots of brown, though I expect that to change in a few days. Autumn, as I have written here before, is my favorite of the seasons. And my favorite autumn days are those when the sun lights up the red, gold and brown leaves and the temperature hovers around fifty degrees Fahrenheit (about ten degrees Celsius). Those days should be ahead of us, but given the odd weather we’ve had this year, I’m not sure how plentiful they will be. Perhaps I just have a case of the Friday glums, but I fear this morning that those days will be few this autumn.

On the other hand, perhaps the clouds will clear and the sun will light up the trees and lighten my mood. That might not happen for a bit: Weatherbug says the best we’ll likely get in the next week is partly cloudy skies on Sunday. Still, as October advances, we’ll most likely have at least a few of those bright days. And my mood – changeable as it can be – will most likely shift upward even before those sunny and cool days light up the oaks outside my window.

I am honestly not in as bleak a place as the titles of the following songs might lead one to believe. It was just easier (and more productive) to search for “dark” than for “kind of glum.” I think, though, that I’ll just let the songs speak for themselves this morning except to say that they’re all worth a listen.

A Six-Pack of Dark
“Darkness Brings” by the Panama Limited Jug Band from Indian Summer [1970]
“Darkest Hour” by Arlo Guthrie from Amigo [1976]
“Darker Days” by the Connells from Darker Days [1985]
“Alone In The Dark” by the Devlins from Drift [1993]
“The Darker Side” by the Lamont Cranston Band from El Cee Notes [1978]
“Right On For The Darkness” by Curtis Mayfield from Back to the World [1973]

(Some of these may have been shared here before. With the loss of my blog’s archives, it’s become difficult to know if that’s the case: It would require searching thirty separate Word documents, and that’s more trouble than it’s worth. So accept my apologies for any repeats.)