Le vent fera craquer les branches
La brume viendra dans sa robe blanche
Y’aura des feuilles partout
Couchées sur les cailloux
Octobre tiendra sa revanche

I’ve got this meditation app on my phone that I do my best to use regularly. It helps me get going with my day, and as the days start to feel earlier I feel like I need it even more. This morning I brought up the table of contents, and I noticed a new category that you could choose that had a beautiful burnt sienna leaf on it with the words “Fall Dread” emblazoned across the image.  Ugh, I thought as I immediately felt recognized. It’s like the song goes: The branches will creak in the wind/The mist will come in its white dress/There will be leaves everywhere/laying in the stones/October will hold its revenge. And me, in not time at all, I was pressing on the autumn leaf icon and diving into that particular library of meditations.

I know what this season is about, and so I’ll put whatever seems healthy and helpful into my arsenal of strategies for existence.

Since we’re at the end of September, and I am situated fairly well north of the equator, I’ve already exited from the denial phase when it comes to greeting the shifting season. It’s dark in the morning when I wake up, and the inertia to stay in bed feels stronger than what was even a month ago. I find it hard to shake my brain from sleep when there isn’t 5am light shining through– but yet once again, here we are.

Je t'offrirai des fleurs
Et des nappes en couleurs
Pour ne pas qu'octobre nous prenne

October is tomorrow and with it I will of course adapt the same transitional strategies that I always take. Not just dreading the fall, but also welcoming the other parts that come with it. The habits that I don’t realize that I am doing, but I still do them anyway. I listen to Francis Cabrel’s Octobre and think about the lyrics. I will give you flowers and colorful tablecloths/so that October doesn’t get us. Like the Fall Dread, it’s a song that lets the rest of humanity know that we’re all in the same mousetrap. Living the same challenges that come with change outside of our control. 

And as I go into my music catalog and search for the Cabrel song, I have to stop and try to remember which way “October” is spelled in French. This is because my I am no longer immersed in French Every Day, and I reflexively favor Italian. No matter, because I know that Italians have their own strategies and celebrations for this time of the year. Like I remember that come at this time of the year, I will do as they do in Rome and and partake in some ottobrate romane– or day trips not far from the city. It’s a way of making quality time of still quality days. Remind ourselves that the summer may be over, but there are still a great many hours of the day to be spent. It’s not all about dread. 

I’m not going to lie, though. I’m an adult and the dread is still there. Maybe not from the northern hemisphere now losing in the sunlight game—but more because the state of the planet continues to be in a state of ugh. “I kind of feel like today we could be at End of Days,” said my coworker today. He was kind of kidding—but then again, he wasn’t. Far worse than trying to adjust your body to a seasonal shift, many folks my age and older are still trying to reconcile two images in their head: one of Gorbachev resigning with a Christmas speechwhere he proclaims, “We are open to the world, and we are no longer interfering in other countries’ affairs. We are not using our national force outside the country and people reciprocate with trust, solidarity and respect.”

The other image is the one that is starkly different, with today’s latest culmination looking ever more ominous—the exact opposite 30-plus more years later—the exact opposite. The world is not stagnant, and indeed you’re certainly getting the sense that there is plenty more darkness covering this hemisphere right now.

Vous, vous jouerez dehors
Comme les enfants du nord
Octobre restera peut-être

My aim in writing this was to think about mind-escaping weekend trips outside of Rome. Something light and easy and stupid. Those are the easy things that I’d prefer to think about, but unfortunately the grist mill of living combined with the uncertainties of the civilized world can make it hard to get back to those easy topics. It can be easy to feel overcome by it all and not do anything at all.

But my aim next month is to get out and indeed feel how the slanty tilt of the fall sun actually feels. You will play outside/Like the children from the north/October will maybe it will stick around. I’ll do my morning meditations to get me out the door, most likely paired with two cups of espresso for good measure. I’ll remember that I’m not the only person wading through this experience, and that in itself makes it all feel doable.