A MONTH OF MAGIC

If Halloween is a day of magic, surely October is a month of magic.

If you squeeze October really closely, you can feel the occult almost everywhere. Copper-burnished suns in the morning, bloody-harvest moons at night. The spectacle of the afternoon leaves, the sudden burst of the midnight winds. Scampering kids with quirky looks in their eyes when they meet yours. I'm sure of it -- witchery, voodoo, talismans, and sorcery are all loose in the land. And if you don't notice it, you've grown up too much too fast!

To allay any doubts, travel the aisles of neighborhood stores where knots of small children giggle secretively in front of orgies of masks and costumes, hoods and capes, evil gadgets and unearthly noise-makers. Something is going one, you can be sure. Exactly what, though, is impossible to know; for as the song has it, once you've passed the borders of childhood, you can ne'er return again.

Plato long ago tried to explain we come from a previous life. As children we can occasionally catch its cadence, and ride its emotions. As adults -- well, at this stage of the journey, parents and teachers and clergy have taught us how to "grow up." Even Saint Paul insisted, "I have put away the things of a child."

To be sure, there are hints of our child. Its splendid little loves and lies and liberties. This happens especially around Christmas time when we actually can feel full-force those little gurgles of kiddish joys in our tummies as we watch the children watch the tree, tear open the gifts, squeal their unbearable happiness.

However, this is still October, and October has its own ecstasies. It's the warm-up to Halloween. The prologue to Thanksgiving. The first of the great year-end trilogy. Thirty-one days to feel and smell and taste stuff your intellect has been instructed to keep under control. We are rational creatures, and in an age of so much spectacular science and technology, being a kid again is untoward. Quite unacceptable.

On the other hand -- or is that, on the other brain lobe? -- there are peculiar little things that stir inside all adults during all Octobers. A curiosity? An envy? An admiration? Yes, that's it! An admiration for all things small. Children. Candy. Dreams. Giggles. The admiration is of course unspoken. Adults don't tell children how much they are envied. Adults don't slosh around in the gush of sentimentality. I mean, living as a grown up in a complicated world is damn serious stuff!

Still....

October just has to be some of the best 31 days in the year!