“I’m so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers.”
Lucy Maud Montgomery, Ann of Green Gables.

October. Last week it dawned on me that October is kind of the Wednesday of the seasons. Even though it is the tenth month, it feels like the middle of the week…hump day. The glow of summer is moving into memory. Much like a weekend that has not yet been fully planned, the fullness of winter lives only in the imagination. For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere and in the midwest, October is the month that can feel like we are suspended. Some days are warm enough for short sleeves. Others require gloves and sometimes a hat. And of course there are those who live in the before and the not-yet, wearing shorts and a warm, fleece jacket. 

All seasons, all months, bring a definitive kind of light. October brings its own special golden glow that bathes trees full of surprising color which spills onto our floors inviting us to think about embracing a feline nature. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to crawl into the sunlight moving slowly, ever so slowly, through the window and across the floor? That action would also help stifle the message of wonderment about how dirty the windows have become and the urging to wash them before the snow flies. 

For those of us who rise early, there is also the darkness that has crept into the morning hours. No longer is there the greeting of pink-tinged morning light and the sound of birds trumpeting a wake up call. With windows closed and darkness lingering longer and longer, we are reminded that a shift is happening and we are wise to stay awake to its invitation. As the author A. A. Milne writes: “Yet, I can face the winter with calm. I suppose I had forgotten what it was really like. I had been thinking of the winter as a horrid wet, dreary time fit only for professional football. Now I can see other things—crisp and sparkling days, long pleasant evenings, cheery fires. Good work shall be done this winter. Life shall be lived well. The end of the summer is not the end of the world. Here’s to October…”

Yes. Here’s to October. There are places in our world where it seems like ‘the end of the world’. Their world as they know it. In these days bathed in changing light and leaves that show themselves as the artist of limb and trunk, we can hold those places and those people in our hearts and, if we are praying people, our prayers. And we can toast October with the hope that it sends us gently into a winter that might offer a calm. For all the people. For all the places.