October Song

 

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

     Ex.   "I was overcome with acute nostalgia for my days in college"

 

The calendar page has turned yet again to October, mine with a lovely photo of Fall in the North Carolina mountains. I put on the recording of one of my favorite groups in those college years, The Incredible String Band and listen to their poignant October Song. It brings me straight to the heart of that long-ago time and the sample sentence above from the online Oxford Dictionary is ringing true. 

 

Following the theme of these last few posts, it’s not a longing for the “good old days” that suggests my unhappiness with this present day. On the contrary, it’s simply a re-awakening of the timeless feelings that that song and time evoke. A time of innocence, of unbridled hope, of a sweet aching for life and love and happiness amidst the “falling leaves that jewel the ground and know the art of dying, and leave with joy their glad-gold hearts in the scarlet shadows lying.” (From the above song— does anyone write such poetic lyrics anymore?) 

 

The music builds a bridge to that young man with his unrequited love for Mary Giordano, that wanderer through the woods of Glen Helen choosing catching leaves over going to class, that young musician playing the middle movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Piano Sonata to express the aching beauty I felt. What was long ago is also now, that certainty amidst so much uncertainty that this world is a place of quiet magnificence and exuberant splendor. That we belong to it and we are meant to be here. And all we need to remember it is a few notes from a young friend I would never meet. A brother seeker of mystery and wonder and delight. 

 

And here we still are, our bodies thick with years, our faces lined with the thousand and one stories we’ve lived, our hearts still beating and still open to receive it all. The leaves are falling from our limbs, but ablaze in color and rich with smell and dancing through the air in their descent. Welcome, October!