October

It is October now.

It has started raining here in Northern California, which means the hot days of fall are over, and we are entering into the "other season."  We here in the Bay Area really only have two seasons, wet and dry.  Although I hail from a city so sunny that one of the newspapers used to have a policy that if 24 hours passed with no sun shining on the corner outside their office the next day's paper was free, I am most decidedly a wet season person.

It is not that I love rain so much per se, for I don't.  It is simply that I love the fall and winter.

In the fall, school has started.  While October brings with it the stress of end-of-quarter grades and parent-teacher conferences, it also brings structure and familiarity. School has an established routine now, and everybody knows what is expected of them.  (Whether they follow through is another thing altogether.)

The bright, sunny, oppressive days of summer are over.  The clouds and the lowering darkness of the shortening days fold gently around me, comforting as a blanket.  The twilight comes hard upon the setting sun, and when the stars are out they are clear and beautiful.  When they are not, the clouds are like gray unspun wool, just out of reach.

There is Halloween*, a holiday which takes on much less significance now that I don't have to figure out how to make a mummy costume, or a devil, or whatever the latest video game hero wears.  I still have a shirt belonging to "Link" (from Legend of Zelda) costume.  I have no idea why I do not throw it away -- it does not fit anyone here any more.  Sentiment, perhaps.

It gets better.  The days get shorter until the solstice, and its surrounding holidays.  Holidays were probably meant originally to help those for whom the dark, long nights were a threat rather than a blessing. (Yes, I know Christmas has significant religious importance: but its date was tied to pagan celebrations to help ease the pain of conversion.)  But for me, they are lagniappe.  The joy is in the darkness itself. (Except for Christmas music.  Which my family has decreed I cannot play in their hearing until after Thanksgiving.)

I realize that I am odd; my friends are pulling out their light boxes to help them get through until the spring.  I understand that, I do; I wish I could have a dark box to help ease the brightness of summer.**

But for now, the darkness is returning, and I revel in it.


*Personally, I think the extent to which Halloween has been co-opted by adults looking for an excuse to have parties and drink too much is somewhat appalling.  Stick to St. Patrick's Day, and Valentine's Day, and leave Halloween for the kids.
**I tend to read in dim light too, my eyes can handle it.  Yet whenever I am in even a slightly public place, a kindly  intentioned person will turn a lamp on me and say "You need a reading light.  You're going to ruin your eyesight."  I have not yet snapped at anyone (I usually settle for waiting until they have left and turning the light off) but I've been tempted.