My Blog
Farewell October
Driving home from town today, my car stuffed with fresh apple cider for our wild forest Halloween dance party, the air infused with the vocal melody of Dolores O’Riordan’s Zombie from a playlist Storm and I have been carefully curating (Halloween-esk music, dance-able, haunted, wicked, but not too scary…) I found myself pestered by a fly for the entirety of the journey. One hour to town, one hour back, and all the time in between. Just as the music shifted to Kate Bush’s soulful Running Up That Hill, the fly alighted on my leg, a clear position for me to bring my hand down easily in a good solid whack. In the two hours plus a few more hours journey, I’d become so taken with the fly’s crafty ability to materialize and disappear, to annoy and then vanish, that I found myself in near admiration of its guile, and instead of smooshing it into smithereens as I’d planned, I simply gave it a nod of appreciation and let it go about its day.
Several times on the way home I stopped to send messages to friends I suddenly realized I’d neglected for too long. And one to my husband, who is deserving of ALL the praise and accolades, and doesn’t hear it nearly often enough from me.
My sister gets in tonight, that big sister presence that keeps me grounded, the sole person in my life who has traveled such an expansive journey from small child to middle-aged woman with me. Our lives wrap about one another like the roots of old trees—together we weather storms.
I think that I can’t wait for her to spend time with the kids, my kids, these children-people who make me proud. Because that’s what that feeling is when I think of them, it is a swelling pride, like a river swollen with snowmelt, brim full of love for their independent, quirky hearts. They are no trouble to me, I am no mother hen to them. I hope to be not controlling, or burdensome, rather to be a beacon of light, a North Star so they can always steer their courses true.
Three snowflakes fell on my windshield, this morning that first kiss of frost turned our beloved dahlias black. I will need more firewood in our canyon, all the ghosts and ghouls must keep warm after all, as they monster mash the night away. October has been good to me, I feel full with her beauty,
my heart crimson and gold.