If you have read my October Thoughts before, then you know that there are many facets of the month that I enjoy. There is the scary, the sublime, the cozy, the beautiful, the creative, the weird and everything in between and then some. Sometimes I could write for days on a particular aspect and never think of stopping. Some days I am content to just let October be. This one of those days. I've been a bit under the weather lately and today I spent all day watching October movies. One after the other after the other. Usually that in and of itself is a prompt for an October Thought, but it was a moment in between that caught my attention.
On my computer I have many seasonal files. Some are pictures, some poems or writings. What caught my eye today was a picture of an autumn lake. The water looks cool and clear and cold. There is a ripple off to the side where a fish may or may not have jumped and disturbed the water. Perhaps someone just out of frame has just tossed a pebble and we are seeing the remnants of a skip. Either way, it is a picture of calmness and the beauty of fall. The lake is ringed on three sides by autumnal trees moving up a hillside. But it is what lies in the middle of the frame that grabs me.
In the front middle is a little floating dock that is disconnected from the shore. On that dock are two Adirondack chairs arranged to face each other. One has a blanket tossed over it. Both are empty and there are no people in the picture. No signs of life at all other than those chairs. They just sit out in the middle of the water, ready for someone or someone's to come and occupy them. I can see myself in that picture. I can see me sitting crosswise with my legs hanging off the sides of one of the arms. I would have a cup of tea with the steam rising off the top next to me on the other chair and a book in my hand as well as a pile yet to read down on the dock.
Today more than anything I wanted to be in that picture. I wanted to close my eyes and listen to the gentle breeze rustle the leaves on the trees. I wanted to hear the plinks and plunks of tiny disturbances in the water. To smell the earth and water on the wind and just be.
It was a nice world to inhabit for a little while. Instead of a lake I settled for a sea of blankets in my room. I did drape my legs over the side of the chair and I did have a cup of tea and many books by my side. So all in all, if i couldn't be in the picture, I had a pretty good substitute. I might not have had the serene natural setting, but I did have the comfort of familiar holiday cinema.
October is like that. There is beauty in stolen moments. There is magic in imagination. I've said it before and I'll say it again, in October anything is possible.
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