October Winds
For my daughters,
Kristin D, Heather DC, Megan D, and Sara D
Sometimes a cold October wind sweeps in from the north and stirs the dust so thick that the dust can not settle for a long time. It is during these periods one can easily lose sight of where they’ve been and where they’re going – lost, really. The dust gets into your eyes and even tears cannot wash it out, making vision difficult. Loved ones may lose sight of each other, sometimes forever. Still others may choose to never open their eyes again to avoid the dust, preferring to stay lost than endure the discomfort that comes with sight. Some stumble off the road due to the dust, causing injuries to themselves and their travel partners. It can take years to recover from their injuries. Lives can be significantly and irreversibly altered. Some may never fully recover, the pain omnipresent.
October winds remove the beauty from the color-bedecked trees, their leaves falling to the ground, their lives gone after the too-short summer. Now they lie on the forest floor, like gravestones, layering over the leaves fallen from years past. After the October wind passes, the dust may settle revealing the ground littered with debris. Some begin the clearing process right away, working to make things right again, while others become overwhelmed and pretend the debris isn’t there, living their life without really seeing. In rare cases, one October wind ends and another begins before recovery has had a fair chance. In these situations, very few survive with their sense of direction intact and without significant injury. If we named October winds like we do hurricanes, mine would be named Kristin and Sara.
October winds eventually give way to winter, where a numbing cold settles in and travel can be difficult, or even dangerous, due to ferocious blizzard winds. This stirs up a very different form of dust where people have lost their lives in the cold, unable to see a path to safety. Some try to walk to safety through the swirling snow-dust only to succumb yards from their salvation, never knowing how close they were to a warm hearth. For those that do survive winter’s onslaught, spring always comes and thaws the snow.
As spring comes, the roads soften with the strengthening sun and the dirt road turns to mud, and there is no dust. We can see clearly now, but the mud makes travel difficult. Some get stuck and can’t move, spinning wheels and making no progress. Some give up, even with clear sight, not realizing how soon is the coming of summer’s reprieve.
For those that survive, summer returns, and with it, better visibility and easier travels, but the painful memories can remain. How we regard those memories and what we learn from them makes a difference in our future travels. Often, we take a new road, and with it, a new direction. I have survived and I am on a new road now, one that I could never have imagined prior to my own October winds.
On this new road, I still sit and let the dust settle to see where I came from and where I might be going. I know I will have October winds again, but I also know that I will see the beautiful blue skies of October, filled with migrating fowl. I am sure I will again endure the howling blizzards of winter, but I know I can also enjoy winter’s quiet and solitude, wonder at the beauty of the hoarfrost when it encases all in white, stare in amazement at sun dogs, and sit by the warm hearth of the fireplace with friends and family. I know I will again experience the difficulty of muddy spring travel, but I will also be reborn when I witness the abundance of new life, the return of the fowl, emerging of sleeping animals, and the greening of the woods. On this road, I choose to be content and I travel with a new sense of direction and purpose. I embrace it all; the summer roads, the October winds and blue skies, the winter blizzards, quiet and solitude, and spring’s mud and rebirth – these are the circle of life. It is up to me how I interpret and respond to life’s terrible beauty.