October. My favorite month of the year. I don't know why, but I feel so much more alive in the fall. The colours are richer, the air crisper. The heat of summer, which slows a person like me down, fades into the darkening days, and I start to wake up (with the exception of this particular year, when this first week of October finds us in the middle of a week of summer's heat - mid to upper 80's and all the humidity you can't stand). There's something darker, more ominous about October too. Halloween approaching and the decorations all around... the spiders seem to come scurrying out in full force (I kill about 3 a day here at home). Stephen King was always a favorite author of mine, and during this time of the year his twisted tales seem a bit more believable, like maybe among the elaborate halloween decorations strewn across the neighborhood lawns, the walking dead simply have an easier time blending in while they wait for you to pass by, alone. And if, by chance, you don't believe in the horrors that King writes about, you simply haven't been paying attention to the nightly news...
The Cider Mill opens its gates and wooded paths by the river, and I always look forward to taking a book and a journal back to a spot by the water to read and write, to reflect on life and God, in the quiet place of nature that somehow makes me think of Merton and a retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani. The taste of Cider and donuts, and the smells in the deep woods always puts me right in the middle of the best time of the year. I have good memories of this place from years past, books I've read in my favorite spot where the tree roots by the riverbank make a natural resting spot to sit and read - Thomas Merton's Conjectures, Kathleen Norris' Cloister Walk, Annie Dillard's American Childhood and Pilgrim, Thoreau's Walden (of course!), To Kill A Mockingbird, etc... Maybe it's just me, but books seem to hold deeper treasures and music drives ones thoughts more intensely in this season of eternal change. The time right before everything around us dies. Winter looms so cold and dreadful, sucking the life right out of summer's stronghold, and in the dying season everything burns so much brighter for one last time.
How many more autumns do I have left in my life? How many more of these seasons will I be able to enjoy? Lord, teach us to live before we die...
