October Which — Season

But the children of October know the truth deeper than any calendar. Ask a child who has kicked through a pile of leaves on Halloween night, costume rustling, candy bucket heavy—that child will tell you October is autumn. Ask the teenager who still goes to the high school football game in shorts and a jersey, the air warm enough to forget the calendar—that teenager will swear October is summer’s last gift. And ask the old couple who sit on their porch in Ohio, watching the final hummingbirds fight over the feeder, then retreat indoors at six o’clock to light the first fire of the season—they will tell you October is the doorway. It is the threshold between the living world and the sleeping one, between abundance and memory.

In truth, October does not belong to a single season. It belongs to all of them, and to none. It is the thief of time, the great illusionist. It gives you a day so warm you leave your jacket at home, then wakes you the next morning to frost on the windshield. It ripens the last raspberries beside the first pumpkins. It holds county fairs and harvest festivals, but also the first whispers of November’s gray silence. october which season

So when someone asks, “October—which season?” the only honest answer is a story. A story of maple leaves and ocean swells, of bonfires and barefoot afternoons, of the scent of cinnamon and the sound of a surfboard hitting the waves. October is the month that refuses to choose, and in that refusal, it gives us everything at once. It is autumn’s heart and summer’s ghost—and for thirty-one days, it is enough. But the children of October know the truth