October

I remember writing, a few weeks before my 60th birthday, something to this effect: Sixty comes wearing clunky boots draped in mismatched rags....I can't run from her, she's barreling in, a fearsome thing. 

How little did I know that Witchy Unattractive Sixty in my mind would turn out to usher in a mostly good decade with some unforgettable adventures, one last romance, friendship, energy, and great expectations!  How little did I know that Sixty was so...young! 

The weeks before my October birthdays cause me to reflect a bit more than usual on aging, especially the ages that end with zero or five.  

The weather is getting slightly cooler now and October is here, if only in name, without the sentimental scents and colors I associate with my birth-month in Georgia. I love walking Luci on the nature trails, letting her feel more a bit of dog wildness, trails filled with mysteries to sniff and, potentially, other four-legged strangers.

If "April is the cruelest month," October is perhaps the sweetest, when autumn was full of color, a nip of cold air, men burning leaves in their yards, women hanging clothes on the line, then running to bring them in if rain came without advance notice.  October is the month of my birth, of the county fair, the ferris wheel and cotton candy carnival that set up for a week just a couple of blocks from our house on Ann Street.  October smells like orange and gold and red, apples and leaves and boiled peanuts. Homecoming and mums and high school bands. 

In two weeks, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that this will be my seventy-fifth whole October.  How did I arrive at this staggering number?  I knew all along it would arrive one day (if I was lucky), now here it is, my new reality. 

I met an attractive man on the trails tonight and I noticed myself comparing ages.  I do that a lot these days--compare my age with the age of the person I'm talking to.  I don't see dancing or dating  in my future, but there's nothing at all wrong with my eyes, or my memory.  

Luci and I meet good people on the trails--dog walkers, kids, teenagers on bikes, puppies.  We share dog stories and de-skunking recipes.  I learn that there are at least three foxes in the neighborhood.  

This upcoming weekend, I'll be celebrating 75 early at the beach with friends.  We go back fifty years.  One has a beach house and we're reviving our many years' tradition of retreats we started in our thirties.  I look forward to walking in the sand, donning a swim suit, and having our fill of seafood. 

So, come on, October!  It's going to be okay.