How handsome October is.
Some months just sit there like lumps; February comes to mind. Purgatory comes to mind.
Meanwhile, October is tactile. It has a soundtrack (chattering leaves), a love language (ginormous bags of Reese’s Cups).
We are in October’s third quarter now, in the sweet spot within the sweet spot. If only this month were three months long.
This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare… (Wordsworth)
October is a month of movement. Did you hear? The Bengals made a change at quarterback. Taylor Swift is flouting her love life (yes, again!) The price of gold keeps setting records.
Meanwhile, what awaits us from all this AI investment? The big shots don’t care. Investors keep tossing big wads of cash into something they half understand. We live in the age of data centers and robber barons. We may soon live – I fear – in another age of Dickens.
Jim Cramer, the fiery financial expert, claims that there are actually three economies. I’d say more like 10 or 12, with most sectors barely scraping by — the middle class tumbling, the gig economy based on servitude, college grads casting about for decent jobs.
Bought a car lately, or a bag of dogfood? From burgers to baseball, everything is priced like lobster.
The best thing to do in times like these?
A fall trip seems wise. I’d love to lug a stack of books and a basket of wine — maybe an apple of two — to a canyon overlooking aspen forests. On autumn afternoons, we’d sit in our old sweaters, holes in the sleeve, and watch the last sailboats of fall.
In the evening, we would seek out cafes honeycombed with candlelight and maybe an ancient fieldstone fireplace. We’d order the burger medium rare, the French onion soup, a slab of pie, a couple cups of coffee … no hurry.
See, to live is to linger. To live is to look forward to things, no matter how far-fetched, or simple, no matter how many economies we see.
Optimism is a form of romance.
Today I’m racing across town to watch my baby granddaughter while her mama goes off to Pilates class. Rapunzel is so excited, you’d think she won Wimbledon. She’ll get an hour or two to herself for the first time in three months, for the first time since Mookie was born.
And I get the better end of the deal: an hour or two with my 3-month-old grandbaby, the lanky one with the pumpkin hair.
I’ll teach Miss Mookie about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the infield-fly rule. I’ll read her a book, any book, she won’t know. “Pride & Prejudice” perhaps, or “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
You would not believe the number of great books I have never read, though I’ve read a lot. I trend toward comics and thrift-store magazines. The kind of stuff you flip through, then happily toss over your shoulder.
Or anything by the great Tom Robbins, whom I’ve gushed over before.
Here’s some Robbins to stir in your coffee, sprinkle on your eggs. ‘Tis the season for cinnamon and spice. In October, even my sniffles taste better.
“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
“The beet was Rasputin’s favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”
Such a point of view. Such a jaunty passage.
I guess that’s what’s free in life, amid all the troubles. Radiance. You find it in a meteor shower, a charity walk, a chord change, a funny sidekick.
Yep, utter radiance. Catch it where you can.
Coming Saturday: Nurse! (how I landed in the hospital)
I want you to know that because of your wonderful posts about the countless joys of autumn, I consciously, intentionally slow down and savor its many quiet delights on a daily basis. It used to just be the lull between summer and Christmas. Now, I think you have been the biggest influence on making it my new favorite season. Thank you, Chris. Your writing is what keeps many of us feeling hopeful and grateful amidst insanity.
Leave it to you Chris to quote from the Tom Robbins masterpiece Jitterbug Perfume.
Thank you.
My favorite!
I think that your assessment that we are living in an age of data centers and robber barons is spot on.
Hurray for Chris. Whatever put you in the hospital may you swiftly recover. Hurray for Tom Robbins and kudos for Honeyman knowing it was from Jitterbug Perfume. October includes our family’s High Holy Days – the World Series! Go Dodgers! – I just had to Chris. GET WELL!
Thanks buddy!
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” — Robert Brault
Love that!
Sweet!
Literally genius. I’m stunned… “the way he
brings things together,” sayeth the Marvelous M. I linger on the thoughts—the mood, here. I even. ease off “Mookie” as an unfortunate label, as The Dodger’s immortally talented Otani so astonished me with his masterful pitching trajectory and three breath-stopping blasts, all in one game—a baseball epiphany, and the real Mookie has been on a tear, as they say. Hitters on tears deserve namesakes, no matter how far afield (not a pun)…and “Optimism is a form of romance’.” I live that. It’s one of the few things i’ve ever wished I’d said. You can stop now. It’s all down hill from here, this one the apex, the peak, the acme—but don’t, of course… just lovely. Like this October dream, here on The Southwest Coast…
Catty-kins is getting SO big! And what a beauty! Enjoy those munchkins of yours, they only stay young for a very short time! Happy Halloween!
I love October. I cling to it every year, willing off the dark curtain of November. I want to linger over everything. Stay up later. Sit outside till the sun goes down. I love Tom Robbin’s books. One of my favorites is “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.” Who could not love that title.
This post is a bright shot of sunshine.
Never read that one. Now on my lit list! Thanks!
You do not look good in hospital gowns! Get outta there and enjoy more things so you can share with us more stories! Another thing about October is you can bring out your favorite sweaters and sweats!!
Cool weather, baggy clothes. Love it!
Wait! I’m confused?? Lovely October post! But what is this about you in a hospital gown??? Am I missing something here? Hope you are well?? Thanks for always enlightening us!!
You’ll have to turn in Saturday to see if I made it!
I’m so sorry to hear you were in the hospital, Chris! I hope you are doing much better now! Your column about October is beautiful, thank you! I love the Wordsworth quote and the beautiful photos of Cakes and Mookie. (Mookie is my favorite Dodger; go Dodgers!)
Thanks Margie. Go Dodgers!
Oh! The late October lingering and lingering(loitering?), looking for radiance…and its context…
What’s Next
You know the way time blinks in the morning
Light—kind of stutter-steps and pauses?
It is in this brief floss of tension
That I feel such a lovely leisure
Of purpose, the way it finds motive
Without substance, that pulling away
From the logic of matter a mind
Of intrinsic euphoria less
Sensation—a waiting in the wings
For a show to go on, or to put
One on; what a way to start a day
In inner space without a thought;
And in Fall sometimes the light’s warning
Softness fails to alarm, even causes
An apple’s golden crush to fall on
The skin and suspend ardor—inure
One’s inner senses to the deep-dive
Change taking place in a vast array
Of hazy interstices, the mind
Sweetened and lulled so the undress
Of heat seems like something happening
In a love affair, anything but
Loss possible a heart beat away;
And your flesh yearns to fall, and be taught;
How vulnerable to what’s coming;
We are in Autumn, its grand largess
Marching into one’s noiseless parade
Of moments with a lush overflow
Whose golden rotations flood with sound
The shadows drawing longer, summing
Darkness not adding up to witness
Humming breeze knifing heat in the shade
Of each sunset’s dulcet afterglow;
So if you can, for cause, look around—
The leaves sighing, drying, curling toes—
Drifting—a sort of anything goes;
You’ll see inevitable context
And the smoking ice of what is next…
…What’s coming…(no following punctuation). Loitering has it’s lurking price.
Thanks for this “ beauty”, Chris, but Hospitals are definitely not for lingering, and radiance takes on new meaning there, so glad you didn’t linger, looking for radiance, as we are wont to do in October.
The way you describe October in the opening.. I feel like I want to eat it, sounds so delicious, warmth, like a hot spice pumpkin latte ^^
Love that. A feast for the senses. The holidays really start with October, don’t they?
Beets! Roast the hell out of them, rub off the black ash, cut in slices and enjoy something so devine.
Love that!