Fall is not a time for love

Last week, my grandfather and I took the bus all the way up to Riverbank Park on 145th St., a big, beautiful place that seems to hang almost on top of the Hudson, barely clinging on to the island (and built on top of a sewage treatment plant to boot).

There, all the way up near the north of the island of Manhattan, was the first tree I'd seen changing from green to yellow. Since then, they're everywhere. It's old news to New England and months off for Texas, but Fall is here in New York City, and it's making me terribly lonely.

I'm just wrapping up a slow spell for work, and I'd gotten in the habit of spending my downtime wandering around Manhattan, particularly Central Park. The colder weather has cleared the park out a bit, and the main source of visitors now seems to be schoolkids walking in large groups and young, attractive couples.


Spring is when people fall in love. Summer is when they go to movies and concerts and on interesting trips and meet each other's parents.

But Fall, when the nation comes home from vacation, when your job gets more serious, when the tourists finally clear out back to middle America and leave the city to the rest of us, fall is when you and your loved one settle in to a routine, maybe move in together if it's time for that, and take long walks together on your days off, bundled up in stylish coats and scarves, not with any particular purpose or destination, but just to talk, just to be together.

I consider myself a person who's been around the relationship. Fall is a time for what Nick Hornby calls side-to-side or back-to-back (as opposed to face-to-face) couples, and that's the part of a relationship I like the most. The early I'm-in-love high has worn off, the early hurdles have passed, you're still together, and you're starting to get an impression of what's next in your life with this person.

Sigh.