People always talk about leaves changing. And why wouldn’t they? It’s a heart-stopping orchestra of color a branch away. But at its bones (ha!) October is so much more. There’s a quiet vibration in the air. A stillness that rests in the weeks before anticipation builds. The days change at a rapid pace, yet it’s a season of anchor points, rhythm building, and watching the light dance on the walls at different times of the day. Of eyeing your favorite thrifted blazer in the hall closet and flicking on lamps earlier in the evening. Of hearing the thrum thrum thrum from the high school marching band practicing in the distance in the early mornings. Of sprinkling a dash of cinnamon in your coffee. The windows are cranked. The garden is surrendering, and so are our summer sandals. Now that October has entered the chat, I want to give you something to listen to, and something to read. Both offer a bit of cozy, a dash of spook, a kiss of nostalgia and an excuse to turn down your social plans and put on “the good socks.”
The sound of October will always be Vince Guaraldi. More specifically, the album It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The swishiness of the snare drum will immediately be a flashback to childhood, taking you right back to the moment the televised cartoon came on right around Halloween at 6:30pm. You wait for this moment the entire year so don’t even think about using the bathroom until the commercial! This entire album is the exact mood of October. Jazzy and relaxed, a barely-there eeriness and completely cozy.
What you’re reading this month: The Only One Left, by Riley Sager. A gothic thriller novel only a handful of years old, it heavily mirrors the classic story of the late 1800’s family massacre by the infamous murderess Lizzie Borden. An atmospheric, modernized version where a young, doe-eyed home health-aid arrives at a decaying cliffside mansion with a wheelchair-bound elderly woman, she has to quickly learn what story she trusts. And who she can trust. It oozes with creepy, complex familial layers and will keep you on edge every single page.
So while the temperatures change, the sunsets change and yes, the leaves change, let the season be the rhythm you yearn for, and the anchor you crave.. A good dark chocolate’s not a bad idea either.