There’s a great debate in my house at the moment. It centers around October and its rank among the months.
Burke is a summer girl (birthday in late June). She likes light at 4:30 am. She loves the green and the sun and the long, long days. She likes having the option of swimming outdoors. A beer is made 30 to 40 times better when it is guzzled outside while the dog lounges in the grass nearby.
These things, I can totally get.
But I am an autumn boy (birthday in mid-October). I like slightly shorter days that involve deep blue afternoons. I like chilly days that don’t go below 50ish and don’t go above 70ish. I like wearing a sweater and knowing all will be well. I don’t swim much, but I do love a walk on a cool day with wind and the bark of rain that never really bites. A beer is made 30 to 40 times better when had in a warm pub after a brisk walk in the cool afternoon air.
These things, she doesn’t get at all.
But I say October is the best month. The shock of summer’s end hits you in September. By October, you have accepted the inevitable horror of reality and are ready to sally forth into the autumn and (gasp) the winter. So you just enjoy what’s happening. The leaves changing, the cooling weather. The whole world gets quieter (as long as you aren’t reading political news or listening to the unrelenting stream of shit that comes out of the wrong end of Donald Trump). Whiskey tastes better in October. So does dark beer. I am a closet pumpkin fan in that I don’t order pumpkin-spiced anything, but will nod a cheers of support to anyone in my vicinity doing so. Same goes for apples. Another point in October’s favor is the associated holidays. I mean, who doesn’t love the Fourth of July, but there’s no competition against the triumvirate of holidays that October purveys.
In October, there is a duality. On the one hand, the holiday season is coming. This is a time in which your main job is to eat and drink and be merry (it’s right there in the sheet music!). So October should be a time of preparing by pre-dieting, by cutting calories and walking briskly. We should do a sit-up or two and skip seconds or thirds on dessert. But on the other hand, the sheer specs of October spur in you a preternatural desire to eat and drink and calorize. It’s getting colder, 120,000 years of instinct tells you to fatten up and quartermaster while you can. It is nature propelling me towards the duck or goose on offer at a pub, the black beer at its side. In June, I might go for the lighter option, in October, the Neanderthal Celt in me takes over and orders and grunts at the ketchup bottle. Perhaps skimming the periphery of the instinct of ancient humanity is the joy I find in the social acceptance of casually munching Halloween candy all through October. It’s as though I am taste testing for October 31st. My waistline may take a shellacking in October, but because of sweaters, who cares.
Finally, Halloween is the beginning of the spooky months. Look into a green forest in mid-June and you feel the urge to go prancing through it. Look into a dying, windy, multicolored forest in mid-October and you feel the urge to walk through it quickly while casting peeks over your shoulder and get home to lock the doors behind you. It should say something that our ancestors chose one month to have rituals to keep away spirits and otherworldly beings and that month is October. Those beings are out there and this is when they show up.
There is no wrong month of the year except one (I’m looking at you, February). So no matter what month brings you joy, enjoy this October. Have a dark beer near a window. Read a scary book, walk through the woods with your heart in your throat. And let our your inner basic SOB and pumpkin spice everything. Everything! Most importantly – eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we fry.
