Hello dear ones,
If you haven’t surmised this yet from these letters, I love fall. I love the colors, the weather cooling down, all things apple & pumpkin, all things cozy.
There is a part of fall I don’t love, however: a chronic illness phenomenon known as the October Slide. During the October Slide, many people with chronic illness find themselves in a flare with worsening symptoms.
It makes sense that cooler temps & barometric pressure drops are hard for those of us with arthritis & joint pain. For this I recommend curling on the couch with a big hot cup of tea or coffee or cider with an electric blanket or hot water bottle & reading a beloved book – or watching Practical Magic or an inferior movie with similar fall vibes. Might I suggest the brief animated series Over the Garden Wall, which has lovely music & characters & draws on lots of folk art & fairy-tale themes. I recommend a furry friend or two. Mine are two cats, one orange & one black, the perfect familiars as Halloween approaches. The black one is nuzzling my ankles as I type.
Also, the daylight is slinking away before our eyes & those of us who experience Seasonal Affective Disorder (with its glaringly on the nose acronym: SAD), feel this in our bones, too.
Something I have learned about myself is that I feel most everything in my bones, which is to say that I understand we are so much more animal than I used to think. We have words & can express ideas & sometimes, we may intellectualize to mask the fact that our nervous systems are very physical, reactive, & deeply perceptive of changes in our environment. As the season changes, we sense stormy weather ahead & our brains, or I suppose I should just say my brain which belongs to a hyper-sensitive nervous system, think “DANGER!!! CHANGE AHEAD!!!” So, we have to calmly & gently convince ourselves that no, autumn & winter are not a tribe of hungry lions.
Years ago, on a still warm, but breezy early fall night in Chicago, I marveled at my friend’s scarf tied around his neck, draped & grazing his bare arms. Surely, this was a preliminary measure. However, my friend told me that when studying Chinese medicine, he was taught to protect his throat from the wind as autumn rolls in.
I think that makes sense. We are at once remarkably resilient & vulnerable creatures. Sometimes, we need to bundle & take expert care. We need to move gently through our changing world. Have a nap or a bath or lie-in for a few extra minutes in the morning.
All this said, I am experiencing some October Slide myself & thusly, this week’s letter is brief. I’m going to leave you again with another favorite poem of mine–this one by Irish poet Seamus Heaney. It’s just, well, perfect. It makes me wonder, what can you only see this time of year, dear reader, in this precious & diminishing light of October?
Until next week–don’t forget your scarf ;)
Annie
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Postscript
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
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