The year seems to have passed like a roller-coaster. I should not be surprised by this; it happens to me every year. And yet, just like a roller-coaster, even (especially!) when I know it’s coming, I always get that feeling in the pit of my stomach when it starts the Big Drop.
Like roller-coasters, the Seasons (at least in the part of the world where I’m a passenger) are about dynamics of energy—in this case, the sun’s energy as it spends more or less time above a particular horizon.
Winter here is a bottoming out, with the Earth losing more energy in long, cold nights than it gains in the brief warmth of the sun. And I feel the same way, myself. Summer’s momentum will carry me through “The Holidays” (usually too fast to know what hit me), but then there’s January. And February. And March. Spring finally arrives, and the world around me begins to recover; for me, it’s always a slower process.
Summer is when I finally begin to feel like I’m regaining more energy than I spend; the slow climb back up the hill in which I save up, little by little, the potential energy I will need for the plunge. (Late summer is when I suddenly find the energy to do ambitious things, like starting blogs, even though I know I will be tearing my hair out over how to make temporal ends meet by mid-December.)
Then September comes… crests the hill… hovers, poised for the drop… (at this point, I’m the one with both hands on the safety bars, wishing for a nice place to just stop off and have a cup of tea…) and, voom! Days and weeks flash by in a blur of obligations, desires and missed opportunities.
But here we are, back in October, again.
It might not be readily apparent thus far, but October is actually my favorite month. Crisp air and apples; blazing leaves and bonfires. Pumpkins, cider, woodsmoke… Halloween. October is that exhilarating moment when I’ve crested the top and it feels like I could fly. I just wish it didn’t go by so fast.
Anyway… Hold on tight, and enjoy the ride!
A Month of Sundries 