October Light

Did you see the sun this morning?

It was melting gold as large as a pink grapefruit in an orange sky. Just over the horizon, above the mountain ridge. Beyond the quiet bay.

So many gawkers and walkers and talkers, many with their iPhones pointed easterly to capture the magnificent orb. Air temperature was already above 60 and it's mid-October.

Supposed to be 97 today! Is that possible?

No waves. I had already checked for signs of white water during dawn's early light. The ocean is quiet. No storms yet. Earlier in the week there was talk of rain, but that was... a mirage. A meteorological moon dance.

There is no moon at night, only a round shadow and a disappearing crescent.

Tides, pulled by the moon, are becoming extreme -- highs and lows. A good time for beach combing.

I recall that first October in Santa Cruz, 1978, when the air felt like the inside of a refrigerator. Or so it seemed, as I ran along the foot paths, bare-legged, light-shirted, over sidewalks, through the corridors of the Pacific Garden Mall, over the asphalt roads into the Brussels sprout fields. I was Forrest Gump. I just kept running...

I don't run anymore.

October. 

Witches and goblins are appearing, freaky-looking clowns and belligerent pirates with swords _ "arghh"!! Halloween is nigh, bigger than ever. We're dying to celebrate. Anything! The Freak Show in Washington is too scary. We must create our own faux nightmare to replace the real one.

Seventeen days until Election Day. 

Sleepy Hollow. The Headless Horseman. Icabod Crane.

Separated, we stand, amid pandemic and partisan. Together we grieve. We Zoom. What happened to the Beatles? It's been a hard day's night.

The SCOTUS is going 6-3 conservative. RBG has left the room. The originalists are coming! Grab your gun! Hide your children!

Hold on. It's only October. Enjoy the light. Be in the moment.

I am reminded of Thomas Mann's 1924 novel The Magic Mountain whose protagonist, Hans Castorp, is a recent college graduate on his way to his first official job. He stops at a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland to visit his ailing cousin. Castorp develops minor bronchial congestion and is advised to stay and recuperate. He meets a cast of intriguing characters and ends up staying in the sanatorium for seven beguiling years! Among his fellow patients is Mynheer Peeperkorn, a boastful, self-absorbed dandy who speaks in riddles and is unable to finish a complete sentence, a Trumpian persona yet worthy of sympathy.

Peeperkorn drives himself to suicide.

We are stronger and more centered than Peeperkorn.

Did you see the sun this morning?