I woke up and there was October, half-gone. Something about the weather, that longest winter, or was it the tepid summer, I don't know the science of fall, but something has made this season's color show a most gorgeous thing. Today, the bluest sky. A holiday. A kind of joy.

I drove until I found a public hiking trail, ill-attended and overgrown. Steep, and quiet, and I walked and walked. I don't live in the woods anymore, and I've almost gotten over it. But I still need them, just sometimes, need that air, those sounds and shadows, a fix.

October has always been to me like a whole month of Sundays, I have already a tendency to cling to things past but for this one month I indulge. Gluttony. I am sentimental, emotional, strange. I avoid to no avail, all the old ghosts make the journey for the annual reunion, I remember all my dreams. What is it? I begin to remember now how it is that December's deep white numbing always comes as such relief -