October

I love this time of year. I always have.

As a child, October meant that the air was finally cool enough for me to wear the smart sweaters and woolen skirts, the back-to-school clothes my mother had bought me back in August when I was dreaming of clean notebooks, freshly sharpened pencil crayons, and a reprieve from the summer humidity. October meant my mom's baked goods, new wooly mittens and a hearty soup luncheon bought at our church's bazaar, and piles of coloured leaves primed for leaping into.

As a teenager, October meant high school football. It meant the homecoming dance at which I could model a new dress while dancing until dizzy with my girlfriends. It meant lazily curling up in a late-afternoon sunbeam to read or to try to tackle whatever homework had been assigned that night.

As an adult, October means leaving the windows open until the temperature in the house drops below seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and then curling up in the wing-chair or in my cocoon of a bed to read until all hours of the night. It means Christmas knitting projects in full-swing, baking of my own, and long walks through wooded areas alive with harvest and early migration.

Above all, for my adult self October means change--of temperature, of leaves, of diet--but also constancy, for October, more than any other month, is ripe with all the meanings and associations it has ever held for me.