Out-of-Season October

I am huddled under heather-purple wool, writing about the darkness of fall and the sadness of all these hurricane-stripped trees, when little Ivy (always green) pops in the door of the camper with a handful of forget-me-nots.

Where in this browning world did you find spring blooms?

And she smiles and tells me about a giant cement tunnel and a stream, “You know, THE stream” (but I don’t), and her brother fills out the geographical details, and I nod, knowing, and send him for one of my tiny bottle vases.

I take tender shoots in hand, look at happy yellow centres, like suns in miniature, adored by five (or six – one blossom has exceeded the standard) pale blue petals, open-faced to the end of October, with buds still about to burst like a May morning. 

To be sure, a giant tunnel is a mysterious place (portal to what other world?), but I had not expected this. Not in this past-the-frost remnant of autumn, which already feels like November, this colourless, storm-reeling island. Not this cheerful nosegay that even smells like spring. 

I inhale slowly, absorbing sweetness into my lungs, and the strangeness of this small, out-of-season sacrament. Our reckoning of time is not the only way to mark the meaning of days. 

Who is to say the source of deep-rooted signals sent to push this particular handful of blue into the view of one six year old on a Saturday ramble with dad, and bring it to me in the dimming light? 

I only know that I was, indeed, feeling forgotten, and now I’m not. 

~ Lindsey Gallant
S.D.G.