The Golden Month

October is the golden month. Not just in terms of the leaves’ colors; It is the season of abundance. Farm stands bulge with pumpkins, apples, and squash. Harvesting machines clatter across fields of bronze or tan. Squirrels race around industriously stashing their winter supplies, as do human beings. The wild animals I see are fat from enjoying the bounteous season. Some use this bounty for energetic pursuits such as migrating to warmer climes. Summer birds are gone, and raptors and waterfowl are leaving. The former make solitary flights, finding energy-saving updrafts to glide their way south. The latter travel in noisy V’s, pointing the way to the equator, which the sun’s path crossed just a short time ago.

For many, the energy reserves of the season of abundance are used for mating. Deer lose their native caution as their hormones rise, boldly and blindly stepping onto roadways… or into range of a bow-hunter. Trout, flaunting autumn’s leaf colors, compete for spawning opportunities. Even the largest and wariest will attack a gaudy fly that invades his territory.

Orange-yellow school busses signify another sort of competition and growth. Other colors blossom as school sports teams vie with a passion adults rarely match. Yet which of us can forget shouting and waving pennons or pom-poms, our cheeks rosy with cold, watching our high school Homecoming Game?

But, under it all, October is the last great work of a dying year. The changing leaves remind me of the changes I see when I look in the mirror. Soon my hair will whiten, like the ground when snow falls. It’s somehow fitting that October ends with Halloween, a holiday of celebration and defiance of endings; of Death itself. What better way to face our fear of mortality than to laugh, to tape up paper skeletons and display cardboard coffins as a symbol of both facing that fear and transcending it? Children come in disguise, begging the bounty that we have stashed against the hungry, cold season; and we freely give it, knowing even beneath the often-scary masks these beggars are our progeny, our future.

“Winter is coming.” But it’s not here yet. Sink your teeth into a fresh Cortland apple, perfectly complimented with cheddar cheese and ginger snaps. Giggle your way through a corn maze, or a “haunted house.” Watch an aggressive brook trout smack your dry fly, then admire it’s muscular, colorful beauty before releasing it. Or just drive some country roads and be awed by each new autumn vista. It’s October, my favorite month of the year!