October Makes Me Glad to be Alive
October is a healing balm for body and soul
“I’m so glad we live in a world with Octobers.” — L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
October has always been my favorite month. It feels like a love letter from Mother Nature, like pulling a postcard from Heaven out of the mailbox every morning. October is divine among the months, a special dispensation from the weather gods.
I started October this year with a body in need of healing from an unexpected surgery, the trauma of a hurricane that hit my mountains while I was 2700 miles away, and the anguish of being cut off from my husband who was home riding out the storm with no power, no cell service and no internet.
So this year, my October has looked different than I had planned. The hurricane that ravaged my beloved mountains left behind a trail of destruction that may not be repaired in my lifetime. Long meanders up the Blue Ridge Parkway are not an option now, as the whole length of it through North Carolina is closed indefinitely.
Drone footage of the high elevations shows whole mountainsides decimated, with trees on the ground, and the ones left standing with no leaves. The mountains will need many years to heal. This breaks my heart.
