It’s that time of year: brilliant fall colors, pumpkins, gridlock and election tension

This time of year  transforms the  North Fork landscape into a brilliant canvas of reds,  yellows, and browns. The trees are ablaze with color painted by none other than Mother Nature. The harvest is plentiful; check out our local farm stands for pumpkins, gourds, mums and fall vegetables.  This season brings back wonderful memories of my own kids (now men) and their excitement to find the perfect pumpkin.

Oh! The joy of family carving night.  My late husband George was very adept in fulfilling their wishes especially when their wishes were  diametrically opposite. One  Halloween, George skillfully carved faces on opposite sides  of the pumpkin:  One scary, the other happy.  My son Jeff learned from his dad. He carves  wonderful and diverse faces in pumpkins for my grand kiddos,  Luca and Nova.

I love this season;  yet my life has become a tad hectic, and I feel stressed—and it’s not even “the Holidays”—unless one considers Halloween the beginning of the holiday season.  Life  seemed less complicated back-when, don’t you think?

My sons  costumed-up and went trick-or-treating. It never  occurred to me  that the candy may be poisoned, or some sick person may have stuck a razor blade in the apples. Nowadays I rarely get trick-or-treaters. However I  do get invitations to  Halloween parties—no kids allowed. Huh?

On the North Fork,  fall draws droves of visitors reveling in  pumpkin-picking, corn-stalking  and coffin races.  Fun for the visitors and good for farmers.  Not too much fun for the locals. Our roads become congested with traffic.  The advent of GPS has made some  of our secondary roads impassable.

I have become increasingly inundated with pharmacy texts encouraging me to get my flu and Covid vaccines—and while I am at it, the pneumonia and  RSV ( Respiratory Syncytial Virus) vaccines.  I get the value.  However, that’s a lot of appointments to juggle,  and we only have two arms.  

And the biggie:  We are in an election cycle!  It used to be referred to as “silly season.” Silly is not the word I would choose for this 2024 presidential election.  Elections are part of our  democratic process.  However,  nowadays elections are a  showcase for hate, vitriol , distasteful  rhetoric, name calling and  assassination attempts.

If you are a devotee of social media, you will see folks posting abhorrent remarks aimed at the opposing sides—and as a bonus they mud-sling personal attacks at each other. It becomes  downright dirty.  Rarely have I seen policies from the candidates with whom  they are so  enamored. Like pollution, anger  is poisoning our air.

I am a  news junkie. I wish I could turn it off.  Seriously!  Since I cannot, I have taken the advice of a professor whom I love dearly. He suggests watching most of the  news channels , not only the ones that are close to my heart.

The networks and news anchors are positively breathless giving us their opinions, which they   pass on  as news. The pundits are creating their own playbooks—that in turn are creating a toxic environment.  I don’t  get it! What about forming one’s own opinion based on facts? One single news story produces different versions on different media outlets. Incredible!

Much like the physical harvest of crops, we can metaphorically create a harvest of love, hate, fear,  or confidence. We have so much on our plates:  We are stressed by ordinary things like the traffic, vaccine decisions, elections  and day to day living.  Why not try to reconnect with our better selves? Just as farmers tend to their fields, we might  choose to nurture trust, love  and cultivate kindness and create a bountiful harvest.  

Conversely, a consciousness of negativity can lead to a failed harvest.    Like weeds in a garden , anger, hate and intolerance can choke out the good that is  intended.  

What we choose  to nurture has everything to do with the kind of harvest we reap.   If we cultivate love, tolerance , and kindness,  despite life’s annoyances, challenges and, yes, elections,  we can collectively create a better us.

I am not a Pollyanna, but my heart tells me under all the stress, anxiety, anger,  and hate-filled rhetoric, we are beautiful humans—capable of so much more than what divides us.  We are in dire need of peace in this world.  We can, with a little cajoling, usher it in by offering everyone the dignity they deserve.

The flip side? Author S.E. Lynes writes :  “Anger gets trapped inside us, becomes hate.  If we are not careful, hate becomes a force often too hard to control, and which solves nothing.”

Doesn’t give us much of an alternative!