October
Fifty-five years ago, almost to the day, my boyfriend and I walked into the Cook County Courthouse in downtown Chicago where a cantankerous old judge pronounced us married. The groom, a second-year medical student, wore purple bell bottoms, and I, a twenty-year-old bride with long dark hair parted in the middle, wore a short beige dress and an expression of apprehension.
“Get under the flag,” said the judge, and I began to giggle hysterically, irrationally picturing myself crawling under a flag and wrapping it around me like a blanket.
“This is a serious time,” scolded the judge, noticing my worrisome immaturity. My laughter ceased and the ceremony proceeded, and I was a married woman.
We walked through Grant Park, where the air was festive with fall. A new part of my life was about to begin, and my boyfriend-now-husband was a very nice man, but I mostly felt bewildered. That night, his fraternity brothers hosted a spaghetti dinner celebration for us. At some point, I went outside and sat on the steps of the old brownstone building, vaguely contemplating the collage of autumn leaves in a sidewalk puddle at my feet. I put my head in my hands and wept.
Many years and peregrinations followed. I eventually went West, and in 1984, there was another October courthouse wedding, this time in Santa Barbara, and this one took.
And I guess I’m thinking about these October wedding days because even here, in this apartment with no views, I can see the slant of autumn light and sense the shift of mood. It triggers a distinctive October feeling, a fusion of nostalgia and sadness and memories arising like smoke from chimneys on a Halloween street in a neighborhood where I have never lived.
It was October too when my father died, which put a heavy weight upon the month forever. The leaves were yellow and red in the Northeast that year, garish and lavish, defiant in their dying, and telling me, perhaps, to go forth and live anyway, but I did not immediately understand this.
My weddings were beginnings, though. Even the first, while misguided and short-lived, was a step, at least, instead of standing still.
There are so many lives within a lifetime!
And now, on this October morning, I am embracing reasons to be hopeful, married to amazement, as Mary Oliver famously said. The political news feels good for a change: Bolsonaro, gone; Serbia ousts Vucic; Hungary rids itself of Orbån. Please, oh please, may the midterms yield an unequivocal message that we too are rejecting fascism.
Smaller kinds of sweetness, but also significant: My friend Ron sent me a box of 25 daffodil bulbs, and Monte and I planted them yesterday behind the house in which we will one day live. I know folks who are registering young voters, stepping up in civic service, tending to those who are in need or have become targets of cruelty. My dynamic buddy Tina somehow found the time to cook up a favorite recipe and deliver it to us for dinner this evening along with news of her latest constructive community endeavors. My daughter has almost finished editing my book, Light Years, which I hope will resonate with readers and in some indirect way contribute to the causes we believe in. My mentor Dan is still finding poems, Jan proves every day that she does the right thing even when it is the hardest thing, and music has the power to move me to tears. And guess what? I can walk to the market unassisted. This new hip is working.
Then there was the moon. Oh, my God. Did you see the moon last night?
Keep looking up. Keep trying. As Stephen King has said: “It will be at least 40 years before our loved and lovely America recovers from the wounds this selfish, stupid, and ego-driven man has inflicted. That it will recover seems certain to me, but it will leave scars.”
Today, our recovery seems certain to me too. Not easy, not fast, but certain.
I speak with some authority. Fifty-five years ago, I was a baffled girl in Chicago, making a big mistake that turned out to be part of the circuitous trail that led me here to this amazing and unlikely life. Extraordinary outcomes are possible. We have proof.
October is winding to a close, and the sky is saying anything can happen. Even the things you yearn for.