You know, even if I am in a corner, dying (unless I am already dead!) I would write for my dear October. My old friend is here again and as always it has been a lovely and much awaited reunion. Unlike last year, this year I am walking a lot in October. Embracing every bit of it and that excites me immensely. I greet it in the mornings with its soothing mist and damp grass. I meet it in the afternoons with its not so-hot-and-not-so-cold but just-right, breeze. I hear it from the window during the nights with its orchestra of the swaying branches mixed in with a special melody by the crickets.

Life has been mostly good... and quiet. Quiet is good. Quiet is always good. Don't ever not be grateful for the quiet, because chaos is always lurking beneath and it's only just looking for an opportunity.

So yes, life has been good. My daily struggles involve changing bandages on my feet (because no matter what shoe I wear, it just wouldn't become friends with my feet), and fighting with a spider. There is a spider that made her home outside my gate, by the mailbox, and she just wouldn't leave. Her web looks ugly, and makes it seem as if I don't care for my home.  So giving into my vanity, I have destroyed her home multiple times but she builds it right back up, sometimes within hours. Tough little gal. So there you have it, these days I have been losing to a tiny spider. Sigh.  I may have to call it a truce. I may just give it a name and see what happens. Like Charlotte… (or Aragog?). It looks like we are spending the winter together.

Sometimes we should. Sometimes we should stop fighting and let things run their course. Autumn teaches me that every year. Let go. You can't stop the leaves from changing the colors, dying and disappearing, you can either enjoy the destructive beauty or you can fight it. You'll fight it and you'll lose. Because things have to run their course. And sometimes when we give into the stubbornness, we lose sight of what we are fighting for or fighting with.  For instance,  no matter how I look at it, my vanity is not more important than that poor spider's life. But if I continue at it, soon it will become a matter of pride and I’ll lose sight of the fact that I am about to kill a living thing, for really no reason at all.

It’s an autumn tradition in the U.S. to go apple picking, and visit pumpkin patches to get the best pumpkin for Halloween, and grab some cider before you hop on the hay ride, and sometimes end the day with a bonfire and s’mores. Sometimes it involves telling spooky stories, sometimes it involves laughter and songs, and other times it just involves silence. We all grew up with that. 

Now when I think about it, the whole ritual sounds silly. We pay for an overpriced bag of apples and the quality of the apples is always a hit or miss. There is really not much to the hay ride. It’s sitting at the back of a trailer with hay on it while it drives around the farm at 15 miles an hour. And yet, every year my friends and I itch to do it all over again the moment the first fall wind blows. We go and we pay and we ride and we drink, and we find the whole idea silly and we laugh.

But something has changed over the years. We have stories to tell now. We aren’t necessarily making new memories but rather recalling the old ones; solidifying our friendships while exchanging our experiences from when we were children - when trying to grab the apple from the highest branch was so much more exciting. Somehow doing this over and over again, reminds us of the simpler lives we all once had, helps us get in touch with our innocent selves that was content with just a hay ride and a glass of apple cider.

Childhood memories, no matter how silly, are so terribly important for our sanity today. I think we lose ourselves in the stress, and the work, and the selfishness when we lose our sense of self. We must never forget who we were and how we came about to be. We must never forget that happiness sometimes just means spending a Sunday at the apple farm.

I do hope this fall you take a moment to relive your childhood. Pick your favorite thing you did as a kid and do it all over again no matter how silly it seems. You’ll be happier for it. You’ll be better for it. 

I never really understood why autumn is associated with sadness. Perhaps it is the uncertainty of the season.  We don't know if summer has ended of if winter has already begun.  It is the in-between and most of us don't do very well with it (more on that later).  Most of rather us would rather be in the glitters of summer, or under the covers of winter.

For me, October has always been the most inspiring time of the year. Perhaps because I like life like that - fully open, ready for me to take it on - naked to the core. October allows me to see what things are really made of. No more hidden tree trunks under millions of leaves that have lost their identity in the green.  No more flowers that all look alike. No more trashing the water of the sea, no more hiding under the snow. 

Fall is when everything is raw and visible. Fall is when you see what the tree is really made of, and how many colors in the leaf really make that green.  Fall comes raw and natural. It doesn't hide behind sunscreens, and snow-cones. It doesn't cover itself with holiday lights.  What it does is strips us of all the pretentiousness, and let us face our raw emotions. But people don't like that.  Perhaps that's why they think it's sad. Why would we ever want to face how we really feel, who we really are when it's so much easier to pretend feeling happy under the mistletoe, and put on a fake smile on the beach.

Perhaps, that's why I like fall. It's no nonsense. It strips me down to my core. Challenges me to be one with myself.

It's a Sunday in a small town. It's a crisp morning with the smell of cinnamon in the air. There is some sort of clarity that comes while living in a small town which just wouldn't come if you are in the city. The sun is shining bright and all I want to do is take a walk along the beach, make eye contact with strangers, and grab coffee from the local bakery.

Some Sundays are like that. Peaceful and serene. Some mornings you wake up and somehow you have a better sense of yourself. You have figured some things out that you weren't really sure you would be able to. You had a few epiphanies in the wee hours of the morning which gave you a better sense of self. I think that's one of the most important but most underestimated things in today's life: Knowing your own self. You can't really do much if you don't know what you want out of it. You can't really expect anything from anyone unless you know what to expect from yourself. But it seems like we just don't have the time to reflect on ourselves. No time to figure out how our actions effect others or the world in general. We are just running. Running to God knows where. No wonder we are all messed up.

I am just thankful for a Sunday like today.