Down the Rabbit Hole

Child of Autumn

I have always been a child of autumn, enchanted more by the harvest moon than the long, sparkling days of summer. For me, it has always been paradoxical season when the bright and colorful New England landscape coincided with the darkest moments of grief. The months of my autumn echo with footsteps of phantoms. In October of 1993, my grandfather committed suicide in what remains the worse family tragedy and personal loss on record. Then, years later, the fall claimed another victim when, in the very last week in September, my friend and former lover succumbed to alcoholism after a long and ugly battle.

We buried my grandfather amid what remains the most exquisite fall I’d ever seen. There has not been an autumn since that has ever bloomed with such rich and devastatingly beautiful reds, gold’s and oranges. Though our hearts were sick and heavy, it was hard not to notice the transformation in the world outside. It was as if our pain and loss had been translated into a panorama of vivid color. Those colors carried us through, the leaves seeming to rally against the inevitable fall to earth. It was nearly Christmas before the last stubborn traces of autumn yielded to soft, drifting snowflakes.

This October afternoon, the muted scenery of a dying summer is punctuated by the fiery reds and singsong yellows of a season at last awake and on the rise. Parked with the windows open, I watch the waves rolling into the bay at the college on the shore. The large green lawn and cool breeze prove too much to resist and I hop from the car, leaving my cell phone and heels on the front seat. I make my way to the brick walkway that leads along the shore, cutting across campus where it terminates at a small stone lighthouse on a hill. I linger, delighting in feel of the warm bricks under my bare feet. I follow the path a little ways, pausing to watch the people fishing off the rock outcroppings and the lobster pot buoys bouncing on the ocean.

I pass the tree, the one that was a mere sapling all those years ago when I walked here hand and hand with Seth. It had once looked so fragile, growing out from the side of the cliff, tugged and torn at by the wind as it whipped across the sound. We often stopped to take a break near it, sinking into soft grass to watch the clouds. We debated the saplings chances of survival in such a hostile environment in its home above the sea. Today it stands stoically, nearly a foot across. Its leaves are still a deep shade of green but will soon blossom to a golden orange canopy. I wonder briefly, if he’s passed by here and been cheered by our little tree's resilience. I hope he’s not lingered long. Having lived a life tragically bound by the demon of his addiction, I hope he has found freedom and peace and does not desire to spend his days traversing the paths he once did.

The sun reflects off the surface of the water, almost impossible bright. Seabirds swoop and dive. The air has not yet lost the heat of summer but hints at that particular brisk autumn chill. Days like this make you want to take deep grateful breaths. Days like this make you seek hours of unrestricted time to wander alone and think in rolling ribbons of ideas. Days like this are so beautiful and perfect that they more than make up for darkness and the grief. If there were ever a time when my ghosts would walk beside me, I would wish for it to be on days like these. I would love to stroll along this footpath by the sea, sharing this bright October afternoon with my lost ones walking in a world of light and hope.