October Reflections

by Henri Marchand

Fall is little over a month old but well underway.  It officially began September 22 with the autumnal equinox, but for me fall began, as it always does, the first week of September, right after Labor Day.  After all, that’s when we return home from summer vacations and school traditionally re-opens.  And it just seems the more logical beginning of the season, making for a neat quarterly sectioning of the calendar—September, October, and November for fall; December, January and February for winter and so on.  Less than a month is sacrificed and except for the astronomical purists, who really worries about a couple of weeks or so?  Despite it being the start of school, autumn is my favorite season, October my favorite month.

In the cycle of the four seasons, fall is considered a time of decline and of final harvests but in many ways, it is also a time of new beginnings.  Except in school districts that have pilfered the final summer days of August, the season of learning and intellectual growth begins in earnest in September.  Come the week after Labor Day, new friends are made, new books discovered, new knowledge gained, and ageless sports rivalries are renewed.

A full schedule of cultural activities also begins in early fall.  Summer stock and outdoor concerts are pretty much over, but the traditional season of theatre, concerts and art exhibits begins in September, as does the new TV season.  In sports, there’s an overlap of seasons as the Boston Red Sox fade like garden annuals while the Patriots return to provide new hope to New England sports fans beginning the first weekend in September.  It is in autumn that Kerouac fans from around the world return to Lowell to honor the founder of a new literary expression.

November on the other hand, begins with the solemn honoring of the saints and seems a month of sudden stillness, of somber preparation for the long sleep of winter.  There are regular frosts and early snows might whiten the landscape, but mostly it’s the time when the last of the leaves, now matted brown and black, are gathered with iron rakes from lawns and swept from where they’ve huddled in windward corners and among low shrubs.  Oaks cling stubbornly to their leaves, rusting and rattling in chill winds.  Thanksgiving is a bright spot, arriving just in time to bid a final farewell to autumn and to officially kick off the holiday season, which now begins ever earlier and unofficially in late summer!  Thanksgiving is a day of feasting and spectacle, of traditions old and new—shared meals, the Macy’s Day Parade and the last of high school football.

But it is October that spellbinds and the month when autumn’s transformation seems suspended and most vibrant.  It is a month of mystery, acute in its effect on the senses.  First of all, the weather is perfect, especially so this year.  It is like a multi-colored May without the bugs.  Except for a late, short lived warm spell or an early flurry, the air cools to comfortable and the landscape glows with the saturated color of radiant foliage against blue sky and white clouds.  October ushers out the drift and drowse of August’s haze still loitering in September.  The Harvest Moon rises in early October when apples and the sweetest of corn are still being picked.  By month’s end Daylight Savings Time ends and lights come on at dinnertime when comfort foods make a return to the table and jack-o-lanterns stand guard by the front door.

Agricultural fairs like Topsfield remind us of New England’s rural past and of agricultural technology, fundamental but indispensable still.  Ancient rites converge with modern traditions on All Hallows Eve, in the fearful contemplation of the spirit world and the gleeful gathering of sweet tribute.

In memory, October is the month of endless after school pickup football games played until dark; of being showered by falling leaves; and of fireworks-like chrysanthemums bursting in a final garden display.  October stokes the imagination and conjures up images of Ichobod Crane being chased by the headless horseman.  In memory, October evokes Saturday mornings filled with sunlight flickering through jagged-edged elm leaves like candle flames, children’s voices blending with the tinny scratching of metal rakes on pavement; and the sweet incense of then legal leaf smoke rising from gutter fires.  In October memories, children gather fallen leaves, saving them from the fires, piling them higher and higher before diving headlong into the heap.

Jack Kerouac, who imagined a new American viewpoint but was acutely sensitive to his roots and home, wrote at the end of “Part I” in On the Road, “I was going home in October.  Everybody goes home in October.”  He might have been speaking not only of the literal journey home but of the metaphorical journey of memories, back from a wild summer season towards new beginnings and a time of reflection from the stable source of his inspiration.