A love letter to October
'I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers'
“Are you a libra?” Someone asked me, yesterday. I’d known her for approximately four hours. We got on instantly, laughter igniting as we prepared to work together for one evening and one evening only. “Yes,” I said. “I thought so,” she said. “You give libra energy.” I looked at her quizzically. “I will not be expanding on that statement,” she said, with a whisper of a smile, and I thought: that’s a compliment, but I don’t know what kind.
I am a Libra; but I don’t understand – or particularly believe in – star signs. What I do believe in, however, is the magic of October. The lilting promise of it, as the cold descends and jumpers are pulled from their hiding places and cats reign supreme on Pinterest boards. My earliest memories are in October: standing in the kitchen, looking up at my father who was making tea and arranging biscuits on a tray, saying: “is it my birthday tomorrow?” because I could see the leaves drifting onto sodden grass in the garden, and to me, this could only mean one thing. “No,” he said, “not until next week.” And I remember finding this confusing. I had no concept of time – of days, or weeks – I could think only in minutes, in moments, in sleeps. But what I did feel, in that moment, was intense anticipation. Because yes, it was coming, this magical, unique, beautiful thing. My birthday.
For a long time, that’s what October was, to me. Anticipation, in a month. But the older I get, the more I notice that its beauty comes (in the western hemisphere at least) partly from the fact that October is about decay. It’s called ‘fall’ for a reason. It is – quite literally – falling. Summer falls to winter; day falls to night; leaves wither, crisp and fall.
And yet, it’s just so beautiful. More than any other time of year, autumn feels like stepping into a painting. Each landscape subtly different from the next: leaves falling, as Taylor Swift once put it, ‘like pieces into place.’ It is one of the only times that we, as a society, celebrate loss, and decay; the fact that some things must end for others to flourish.
We spend a lot of time, as a society, trying to deny the existence of death. When my best friend’s mum died, she was struck by how often people would skirt the topic. It’s ironic, really, that the one thing we know for sure that we all have in common – that every single one of us will experience – we absolutely cannot face.
Until it comes for the natural world, that is, and finally, finally, we can notice the poignant beauty of this process. That nothing is meant to last forever; that part of life comes with its wrinkling, its slow fall from youth to wizened, crinkled beauty. That sometimes the best thing we can do in life is let go; of grudges, of losses, of unlived dreams with past lovers who turned out to be mean as opposed to meaningful.
October is for shades of red: maroon, burgundy, cherry, cerise. It’s for the song ‘cardigan’ (Taylor Swift), ‘Love Me In Chapters’ (Chrissi) and ‘Take Me To Church’ (Hozier). It’s for bright lips and large scarves and incense trailing beside bookshelves. It’s for white wine dinner parties: pumpkin risotto with lots of butter and parmesan, followed by something chocolatey for dessert. Mousse, perhaps. Or tiramisu. If it were a place, October would be New York. If it were a scent, it would be something musky: pomegranate noir by Jo Malone. If it were a lipstick, it’d be Chanel’s Rouge Allure (shade Rouge Noir). If it were a material, it’d be crinkled velvet. If it were a story, it’d be written by Nora Ephron: there would be love, and loss, balanced just so and sprinkled with humour and beauty and timeless fashion.
October is for the writers; for the readers; for the hopeless romantics. For the many lonely, beating hearts who reach to literature and lyrics, to feel that hand of hope reach out to them through the words of a stranger: I feel it too, you’re not alone, really, you’re not. You’re fragile in the best way; you crumble in the right places; you feel, and this is part of your power. Never stop feeling; never stop hoping; never stop, never stop, never stop.
October is, for me, a time to reflect. On my fashion choices and my financial choices and my political choices. On how I exist in the world. On what to let go of; and what to hold onto. To grip, with fierce, enduring hope. With that in mind, here are some October ins and outs (because I’m nothing if not sentimental):
Ins:
Pumpkin spiced everything
Burgundy
Comfy chic
Skincare as makeup
Doing things just because you want to, not because they will benefit your career/fitness/reading goals
Sending love letters to friends
Celebrating every tiny thing that happens to you, or your loved ones
Celebrating every tiny thing that happens in the world
Celebrating just to celebrate, because this life is precious and we are so lucky to live it
Lana Del Rey
Lit Girl Fall
Being cynical about social media trends whilst also engaging in them (nuance is everything)
Following illustrators and artists and people who create beautiful things online
Donating
Complimenting strangers
Radical self-compassion
Buying magazines
White wine spritzers
Loafers, and velvet, and trench coats, and blunt bobs, and saying ‘yes’
Outs:
Doomscrolling
Saying ‘no’ to plans to protect my ‘peace’ (what peace? Life is short; go to the party)
Feeling self-conscious
Drinking too much caffeine
Doing something just for Instagram (ew)
Complaining about things you can’t change
Aperol Spritzes (they had their time)
Going out in the rain without an umbrella/raincoat
Luke-warm tea
Literary snobbery
Wearing uncomfortable things (clothes, shoes, friendships)
Not listening to the news because it’s ‘depressing’ (come on!)
Living according to your fears instead of your hopes
Impulse spending
Back-handed compliments
This month, I hope you take a photograph you want to frame. The kind of in-motion, sepia-toned blurry shot you’ll look back on in twenty years and remember the exact moment it was taken: all those emotions swirling through time. Starry-eyed love; romantic, platonic, or just between you and the world. I hope you find yourself somewhere unexpected; in a karaoke bar, for example, at 2am on a Saturday (or Sunday) morning, screaming the lyrics to ‘Teenage Dream’ and reminding yourself of the music that accompanied your teenage years (Katy Perry’s ‘Hot n Cold’ is like a time portal). Or perhaps in a new brunch spot, or a new city, or a new friendship. I hope you take a long walk and listen to ‘All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)’ and find new meanings in old lyrics. I hope you do something for someone else; pick up their groceries, write a postcard, throw a surprise party. And I hope you’re able to take some time to look inwards, too. To evaluate, and question, all that you bring to this world – as well as considering what you might want to let go of.
Loss is a part of the human experience; so is grief, and heartbreak, and heartache. And it’s impossible not to feel it, right now, as the news brings us knowledge of colossal humanitarian crises and terrifying, deadly violence. Individuals fleeing their homes, losing their loved ones, forced to live without food, or water, or sanitation. It’s unspeakable. And yet it is happening, right now. And here we are, still existing. Ordering cinnamon-spiced lattes and listening to comedy on our commutes and chopping apples for crumbles and attending parties in dresses that make us feel beautiful. The more I exist in this world, and the more I write about existing in this world, the more I realise that the true challenge of the digital age – or perhaps, of being a human being – is finding how to live in this context, without blocking it all out. How to stay connected, without letting the atrocities swallow you whole.
I think, in 2024, because we have so much access to what’s going on, right now, it’s almost easier to switch off from it. I’ve heard a lot of my friends talk about the impulse to switch off: to stop listening to the news, because it’s all too hard, and what can we do? Well, not much. But more than we might think. We can donate. We can raise our voices. We can support poets like Mohammed Moussa, a Gaza-based writer who curates the Gaza Poets Society. We can stay connected; stay in touch; stay feeling.
Because the thing about life – and I’m about to get deep here, but stay with me – is that we live in relation to the world. Although it may sometimes feel like it, we don’t exist – in any sense – on an island (except, perhaps, the geographical sense). We’re connected not only to people (Sally Rooney made this excellent point only last week, when she spoke about how everything we eat, wear, read etc. is created by other humans, so the idea of being disconnected is absurd), but also to the geopolitical circumstances in which we live.
To quote Kamala Harris (and I seem to be doing this a lot, lately): We ‘exist in the context of all in which we live and all that came before’ us. Yes, Taylor Swift may be wearing red to a Chiefs Game and everyone on the internet might be obsessed with a baby hippo called Moo Deng who apparently has flawless skin, but at the same time, the world is burning. Quite literally, burning. And we must stay connected. We must not switch off. We must never stop trying to help.
We may live between dichotomies - summer vs autumn; blooming vs wrinkling; pop culture vs global politics; joy vs. despair; hope vs. apathy; light vs dark – but we must never forget that it is a privilege to do so. To wake up each day in a safe, warm bed. To listen to music that makes us want to dance and listen to our friends who make us want to hug them and listen to the news which make us want to cry, or perhaps throw something. To make a latte with a dash of cinnamon. To buy flowers from a market stall. To cut cleanly into a ripe tomato on a Thursday evening, a glass of white next to us on the countertop. To tell people we love them. To hear it back.
I love October because it is unapologetic about being in flux. It moves, it dances, it shivers in the wind. It turns the world into an oil painting in the rain. It whispers folded truths (‘there is no beauty without transience; all life is transient’).
It mourns – and celebrates – at the same time. It says: never stop feeling, never stop hoping, never stop, never stop, never stop. And, every single year, I do stop, just briefly. I stop to listen.
I hope, this month, that you do too.
If you want to donate, here are some links:
This is one of the most beautiful things you have ever written - and that is saying a lot.
Your writing feels like October. Hannah, this is beautiful 🥹