A Few of My Favorite Things

October is my absolute favorite month... and autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. It isn't just the changing of the leaves, though that certainly ranks pretty high. It's also the crisper air, apple season, and the tension between summer ending and winter beginning. I feel revived, ready to slow down for winter, but also eager to make things and find ways to occupy myself. I write more in the cooler months.

Here are a few other things I simply love about October.


I have a great fondness for dirt roads. I love the way trees meet overhead. I love the way they seem to be moving off slowly to someplace lovely, and inviting you to come along. And I love them best of all with a crunchy dusting of leaves.



I also love pumpkins, even though I won't eat one. And I love-love-LOVE stone walls... the way they stagger along a tree-line on an old estate, or the way they seem to embrace a piece of land that has remained unmolested. I love the really, really old stone walls in New England. They melt back into the earth as if the land will tolerate divisions and markers as long as they are stone and lichen-caked. Ahmed went nuts decorating our stone bridge with pumpkins this year.



I love the leaves before they "peak," with green mixed with the colors... and when they are past "peak," and are scattered all on the ground, too. Peak is over-rated!



I'm nuts for bittersweet. When winter comes the cardinals, bluejays, and chickadees show up against the snow and sit on the bright branches, but in the fall the berries are waxy and fat, and they pop in late October. I like making wreaths and trimmings with the branches. The colors make me think of spices!



And here in my neck of the woods we have swans, who mate for life and stay in the same bogs, lakes, rivers to nest every year. They are gorgeous year round, but somehow the snowy white bodies drifting over pools with colored leaves that fall like confetti down under the water... they're stately and peaceful. Seeing them together always makes me smile.

What do you love about autumn where you are?

My Secret Semptember Shame

It's my favorite time of year, for lots of good reasons. But I'm going to share with you, gentle reader, the really freaky reason. I have a problem. I'm obsessed with something a little weird and I can't get the monkey off my back. And the sick thing is a lot of us-- writers-- share the addiction. So back-to-school time is tough. The ads are everywhere. There's no way to hide from them...

SCHOOL SUPPLIES

Oh my word... they call to me like candy. Bright, shiny, colorful-- like prettily wrapped jewels designed to catch the eye of a deranged magpie like myself. Sparkly! Shiny! Bright and fancy and NEW!!!

So seductive. The little cellophane tabs in purple and blue and pink? Oh my. I could organize my plot book with those. The hard-back theme notebooks defying conventional black and white covers with swirls of bold print in lime green, orange, teal? My character sketches want to live in them like modernized condos for fiction. The brand new packs of unbroken crayons? Magenta and cyan blue and vandyke brown--- ooooh they're calling me!


I didn't like school much til I moved on to college. College became my place to blossom and I loved it. But I've always had this secret... this shameful yet diliriously delicious addition to all things paper, pencil, and pen related. Blank pages have always made me itch. Freshly shaved pencil wood gives me shivers. Turn my palm and you will find a lifeline pock-marked with blue dots-- the scars of pencil led driven into my hands as I furiously erased something I'd sketched. I cherish them: battle-scars of a young artist.

So while many of you may be in mourning as the summer comes winding down with a wistful sigh, I am all ajangle with joy. It's school supply season. I can smell the ink on the wind! Bubble-gum-like pencil sharpeners and ice-cream colored triple folders beckon me. I'm hooked. I admit it. Get out of my way, I need to get to the closest Target NOW!