October Doesn’t Have to Ruin You

There’s a running idea—practically a cultural institution—that autumn is when everything falls apart. Breakups. The slow crawl of seasonal depression. Three in the morning and the ceiling and no particular reason to do anything about either. Ice cream for one, a pile of DVDs, and a playlist designed to confirm that yes, the dark is permanent.

I reject that. Bed in autumn is completely correct—I am not arguing against bed—but the bed can also be loud and warm and full of people. SBTRKT was doing something genuinely strange that year, fractured beats with hooks that hit harder than they had any right to. Aeroplane felt like being inside a mirror ball at noon. Passion Pit made the kind of noise that made you want to jump on the mattress like a child who’d had too much sugar and briefly found the world unreasonably good.

There’s no virtue in dragging yourself through October. But there’s a specific pleasure in deciding, actively, not to. Pull someone into the sheets, put the right tracks on, and let the season be a room you live in rather than a sentence you’re serving.