October
October again, and the first real rain of the season today. I'll be climbing the walls by January, but today I love the rain.
Ma1 once told me that one of our family, perhaps her mother or one of her aunts, wrote a poem for each month of the year. She recited to me the only lines she could remember.
Of all the months the whole year boasts,
I think I love October most.
Ma likes October best, too. She loves seeing the happy children in their Halloween costumes, watching the leaves change colors. She and I were both born in October. When I was very young, she showed me her opal jewelry and told me that it would be mine when she died, because opals bring good luck to people born in October but bad luck to anyone else. She taught me never to believe in the cheap pink glass that is sold as the October birthstone. The real October birthstone is opal.
October is my favorite month, as well. April runs a close second. The times when the seasons change, and a new kind of rain comes in like the curtains opening on a set that is both new and familiar. The scent of seasonal change is heavy in the air and wafting up from the saturated soil, and the animal knowledge deep in our bodies prepares. If you listen closely, you can hear your blood dancing in April. It's still stiff and out of practice from the long winter. You may feel twinges in your veins as the blood shakes out its creaky knees and briefly loses the rhythm. It may step on the toes of partner cells. If you pay attention, you can hear it sigh contentedly when it detects October, feel it settle down with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate,2 maybe a fresh corn muffin. Right now my body is filled with the memory of crunching leaves and damp dens kept warm with fires and huddled bodies. Every drop of water that makes this body once fell as October rain, and it has not forgotten.
April and October are lovers. Perched neatly across from each other on the wheel of the year, I picture them playing footsie under the calendar and gazing longingly into each other's days. They're very different, but they understand each other. They both know what it's like to be on the edge, never fully one season or another. They know what it's like to have their ancient pagan holidays reduced to marketing frenzies. They're sad at the loss of meaningful ritual, but still, they like the chocolate.
In my life, I have known two people who could be like that for me --lover, best friend, confidant, companion on the edge. They were both born in April. They both like good chocolate.
1: my grandmother. She is named Ma. She used to have another name, but it never got used, so it atrophied and fell off. Her great-grandchildren call her iMa. I'm not making that up. The name fits, because each year she gets smaller and has more high-tech body parts. I'm not making that up, either.
2: or Smart chocolate. Smart chocolate isn't any more intelligent than regular hot chocolate, it's just that the first person I knew of to make it was a man named Bill Smart. Hot chocolate + whiskey + Kahlua = Smart chocolate.
Ma1 once told me that one of our family, perhaps her mother or one of her aunts, wrote a poem for each month of the year. She recited to me the only lines she could remember.
Of all the months the whole year boasts,
I think I love October most.
Ma likes October best, too. She loves seeing the happy children in their Halloween costumes, watching the leaves change colors. She and I were both born in October. When I was very young, she showed me her opal jewelry and told me that it would be mine when she died, because opals bring good luck to people born in October but bad luck to anyone else. She taught me never to believe in the cheap pink glass that is sold as the October birthstone. The real October birthstone is opal.
October is my favorite month, as well. April runs a close second. The times when the seasons change, and a new kind of rain comes in like the curtains opening on a set that is both new and familiar. The scent of seasonal change is heavy in the air and wafting up from the saturated soil, and the animal knowledge deep in our bodies prepares. If you listen closely, you can hear your blood dancing in April. It's still stiff and out of practice from the long winter. You may feel twinges in your veins as the blood shakes out its creaky knees and briefly loses the rhythm. It may step on the toes of partner cells. If you pay attention, you can hear it sigh contentedly when it detects October, feel it settle down with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate,2 maybe a fresh corn muffin. Right now my body is filled with the memory of crunching leaves and damp dens kept warm with fires and huddled bodies. Every drop of water that makes this body once fell as October rain, and it has not forgotten.
April and October are lovers. Perched neatly across from each other on the wheel of the year, I picture them playing footsie under the calendar and gazing longingly into each other's days. They're very different, but they understand each other. They both know what it's like to be on the edge, never fully one season or another. They know what it's like to have their ancient pagan holidays reduced to marketing frenzies. They're sad at the loss of meaningful ritual, but still, they like the chocolate.
In my life, I have known two people who could be like that for me --lover, best friend, confidant, companion on the edge. They were both born in April. They both like good chocolate.
1: my grandmother. She is named Ma. She used to have another name, but it never got used, so it atrophied and fell off. Her great-grandchildren call her iMa. I'm not making that up. The name fits, because each year she gets smaller and has more high-tech body parts. I'm not making that up, either.
2: or Smart chocolate. Smart chocolate isn't any more intelligent than regular hot chocolate, it's just that the first person I knew of to make it was a man named Bill Smart. Hot chocolate + whiskey + Kahlua = Smart chocolate.