Riddle Moon

I drink my morning coffee in the cool morning air and mull over all of my failures, large and small. It is the season of ghosts and this is what I do. It is a time when I regret not having the necessary language to describe what it is that I secretly wish for, even for myself. October's moon for me is the Riddle Moon. It is the time when I feel the need to figure something out, to name the secret name, to find the answer to a question I cannot articulate. How can I ever hope to find something so abstract that there is no word I know for it? This is always the difficulty I wrestle as the first hints of fall creep up to my doorstep each year. I miss my grandmothers and I prepare for the loss of my only living grandparent. He'll go soon. He told me as much the last time I spoke to him. I tell him there are still things left to do and he gently reminds me that some things will have to be done without him. My mother is the one I worry about most. She minimizes her connections to people so the losing them won't be so hard. I know this about her because it is in this that we are most alike.

October makes me lonely. It is the month when I am acutely aware of the consequences of my solitary nature. Whether it is a person, place, or particular state of mind that would fulfill me, I am at a loss for it in October. In October, I pay the price for being who I am. It is the month where I have to admit to myself that, in spite of the lovely glimmers of understanding here and there, I have yet to find another person who sees all of me. Is it only a matter of language? Is it a matter of recognizing the right sound or inflection? Is it a particular smell or feeling? Or a particular chain of events that will open my eyes to whatever it is I feel has eluded me? The only thing that does not change is my obstinate determination to be watchful for something that I'm not sure even exists. The only thing that has changed is that I am even more impatient with the false starts and missteps to which I have subjected myself and others in my efforts to put a name to what it is I secretly want to find...or what it is I want to find me.

At the same time, this is the month where I am at my best and most connected with everything I love. I never fail to recognize the fullness of this life I am living, even with all its ghosts. I suppose I am no different than anyone else. Our lives are complex and bittersweet chimeras, pieced together from everything that we have and everything we don't. We probably all try, in one way or another, to search out that Rumplestiltskin moment, where we whisper just the right words to make everything finally fall into place.