Good-Bye Old O

Through a glass dabble-blurred by raindrops and the faint presence of the summer screen I see the vague dark roof randomly decorated by wet yellow leaves from a combination of maple and linden. Very distantly it seems a tall dark green mass is the top region of a wide pine or fir; it never sheds. Very far away behind it trees light green and yellow brown stand in line like words that run together; the telephone pole in that direction is a very tall comma or perhaps a dash. Days on end with rain we cannot see but feel when outside even before the first drops touch our face. Halloween is here to put an end to a short October in which, it seems, the highlight came last night in Houston where Our team (we lived there once) (and yes, the oldest, as we are) won the World Series away from home. For some reason the word cilantro wants to be written. My mind wants to spell it with an S and the Internet tells me that it is coriander; confusing in a way. But it’s not even nine o’clock yet I’m already closing on October by wishing for a heat wave in November. With Global Warming here with us, anything is possible and in California already is.

October’s Last Hurrah

How the body matches weather!

Gloomy skies and drizzling rain.

Green is now a shade of heather.

The sweeper’s come to sweep our lane.

Tonight in rain will come a few,

From tiny tot to full-grown teen;

Umbrella-toting parents too

Will come because its Halloween.

The children active, all pragmatic.

“Trick or Treat.” The open bag.

Never mind the Fall thematic,

The costume of the tiny hag.

It is a sort of rushed routine:

Up the stairs. The eyes are hidden.

Candy is what Halloween is…

From our to their kitchen midden.

And depart. “What do you say, Lilly?

What do you say?” “Thank you,” she says.

And then she’s gone.

The Flavor of the Month

The flavor of this month was Turbulence. It is the Bahais who teach, I think, that cultural heterogeneity is no barrier to spiritual coherence—but cultural upheaval, I imagine, one source of turbulence this month, therefore calls for special vigilance. My concentration failed me here and there, therefore that labeling. Debates and torrents of ugly ads and innuendoes at the social level, the highs of victory followed by the depths of defeat in baseball (for us), and Hurricane Sandy’s visit of the East Coast on the planetary plane; her winds reached even into Michigan. But at the very bottom, where we lived, order prevailed. A slurry of medical days came and went, all with wished-for results. And we ended the month with our traditional pumpkin-carving gathering at Wolverine Lake. Of the ten we carved that night, I select the one that best captures the family feelings as we gathered—carved by October’s birthday child, Monique.

Ghulf Pupkins 2011

For night...


For light...

October Ends

Mortimer to Mickey

This time of year tends to remind me that once sacred or serious myths over time morph into children’s tales or entertainments. Long ago, far away—meaning pre-Internet—I once saw an article neatly illustrating this phenomenon by showing how cartoon figures, originally adult and in-your-face, become ever cuter, cuddlier, and lovable. Mickey Mouse was originally Mortimer Mouse, but got renamed, evidently, no sooner baptized, and Mortimer became Mickey’s rival. Thus also All-Hallows-Even, the evening before All Saints’ Day, becomes the trick-n-treating of Halloween. The festival has independent Celtic and Christian roots. In the former it is a festival strongly linked to spirits—and the carved turnip with a candle inside, put in the window, was intended to ward off the evil invisibles. In  the Christian the evening ahead of All Saints’ Day was a vigil. The day itself, November 1, dates to the mid-thirteenth (and the greatest of) centuries.