Once again, I am bewitched by October. The water is no longer a choppy white and blue but a flat and shiny silver. The morning fog colors the world grey; shrinks it as far as the trees at the edges of the cove. In my mind, any illusion can appear through those October mists. A Viking funeral ship could materialize. Hamlet, perhaps, sleeping amongst the dried leaves of Elsinore will rise. Mary, Queen of the Scots, headed to the guillotine during the cold October’s early dawn will stand and say goodbye for the very last time. October was the month of doomed kings and female sovereignty. I see how things could get a little carried away when the sky’s light is short and the chill lingers in the bones.
Driving through town, there is poetry in October. Druids celebrated the harvest season. The whiff of burning leaves and logs perfume the air. Baled hay lies resting in the fields. Crisp sunlit days and brisk nights prompt scarlet and amber leaves on trees (whiskers on kittens and warm woollen mittens), bushels of shiny red apples, carved orange pumpkins and burgundy mums litter the streets and shop steps all over town. Their multicolored lives are short but glorious. Light and power poles are swaddled in corn husks, masquerading as varying mutations of scarecrows.
October also marked the end of covid’s long talons of death and replaced it with the gifts of hope and life. There are three venues for great weddings in the area and they were booked solid all month long. Even the neighbors hosted a wedding at their home. The joyous music carried along the watery airwaves, allowing us all to rock with the sheer euphoric bliss of being alive.
A good wedding is short on speeches, long on food, dancing and alcohol (which is how everyone gets to dancing as if no one is watching), and the somewhat bracing weather is so conducive to amorous cuddling afterwards, ahem.
Weddings have lost a lot of the old traditions; some good, some bad. Songs in church are more relatable; I Love You Truly has been replaced with All You Need Is Love. Grooms wouldn’t dare push a piece of cake in the bride’s face, or vice versa. Happily, the young bride still throws the bouquet and her fresh faced girlfriends still vie to catch it. Hope, the ultimate gift.
On a more pragmatic note, there is much to do in October: trade summer outfits for heavier garb; clear the fireplace of cobwebs; cover the pool and patio furniture; pile the firewood close to the house; cutting back the overgrown summer vines; on and on it goes, grunting, groaning and grateful.
