Octoberfest

October, the harbinger, has finally arrived with a basket filled with pre-holiday forebodings and sharpened tools of harvest. It seems as if yesterday the lazy days of summer pressed down upon us with the heat of canicular days bursting with abundant sunlight. Every so slowly Old Sol has trekked on to a new path leaving us northerners for the belly dwellers of the earth. Our days have shortened and made way for a show of varying shades of orange, gold, purple, and red. We can stand back and be amazed as we witness nature’s own brilliant color display. It is wonderful how each year goes out in a blaze of brilliance.

Fall is upon us and with it, the closing of another year fast approaches. The favorites of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve peek laughingly at as from the shadows that linger along the edges of the road. Three-quarters of 2012 lay behind us and the light we see at the end of the path is the year 2013 hastening toward its birth. Over the next three months, we’ll all remark how short the time seems and wonder how we’ll manage to perform the mountain of tasks that stand between us and a new year.

Somehow I’m sure we’ll manage just as we always do. At the end of this month, we’ll pass out candies and treats to little ghouls that walk our streets every other day masquerading as adorable children. Three weeks later we’ll load up our tables with a feast fit for any kingdom, and celebrate our year giving thanks for how far we have come. Then on the day after we’ll rush out with a list of tasks into the senescent remains of 2012 determined to be triumphant, and we’ll either succeed or submit but either way we will declare victory. After Christmas comes the winding down. Not only for the year that lay behind us, but for ourselves in preparation for the last hurrah on New Year’s Eve. Hours will tick away into minutes, then seconds, and at last we’ll kiss and sing as we welcome the fresh New Year. All the time of 2012 will have evaporated, and we’ll have only the memories we choose to store within our heart.

On New Year’s Day, we’ll arise to look at the path set before us and survey the 365 steps we have yet to take, and we’ll vow to make 2013 better for us in some amazing way. It’s out there waiting for us like a virgin field of untracked snow. A white pristine fresh canvas waiting for us to paint the scene, and it will become whatever we choose from our hearts and minds. We can start sketching it out now. Get a feel for what it’s going to be and how we’re going to make it happen. Then when we step up to that unmarred year, we’ll be ready to make of it whatever we want it to be. Think of the possibilities.