I won't let the differences of 2020 ruin the Fall season for me. It's a time of year I love. The morning light, the sun barely over the hills as I stand on the platform at the train station, is perfect. The trees are beginning to lose their leaves, while people put on an extra layer against the chilly morning air. Those leaves cover the ground until a rake or blower moves them into a pile. They start out green and yellow, red and almost purple, depending on the tree, and then the color fades to brown. The air smells different: cleaner but with a dusky undertone of leaf mulch and decay. It's an odd perfume, but I like it. Walking in the woods, there is more sun coming through the half-bare branches, speckling the ground with shadow and reflected sparkles off of wet leaves.
The pandemic hasn't faded. Here, the number of new cases remains fairly steady with isolated hot spots. The re-opened schools are a potential problem but who knows. If we act with a small degree of wisdom, living our lives close to normal but with masks when out and about, keeping a certain distance from friends and strangers but still close enough to speak and interact, it isn't too bad. The streets of midtown Manhattan are not deserted and not crowded. On Tuesday, for the first time, the fruit stand on the corner of E. 48th and Madison was open. That's a good thing. But the Diamond District on W. 47th St. is bustling with more people than feels safe, with many of them maskless, speaking loudly and right in other people's faces. I won't walk down that street again soon since I have no reason to go there. The Gotham Book Mart is long gone.
The Trump Administration is riddled with infected staff. What seemed only a moral illness has now become a physical one, and they dance as if nothing was wrong, a tango for the end of time. It is frightening, and the more they parade their apocalyptic message and their uncaring demeanor, while outside more than 200,000 Americans have died from the disease they pretend is nothing to worry about at all, the more aghast people across the country seem to be repulsed. I can hope, the nation should hope, that this is the end of the line for this government and that the election in 27 days will show them the exit.
On our early Autumn expedition upstate on Saturday, we stopped for lunch at the Oakhurst Diner in Millerton. Nice people, nice place, excellent sanitation and social distancing. The food was good too. I'll eat there again.
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