Ohio seasons go like this: By the first week of March, we are all lackluster and expressionless, collectively jonesing for Vitamin D and heat therapy. It's as if someone covered the entire state with a hazy, grainy black-and-white photo filter. The weight of a long winter has sufficiently flattened us. We have been cold-pressed, our vitality and color completely removed leaving behind nothing but a washed-out pulpy matter.
Come April, the sun and warmth finally show up but so does the rain. By the end of June, I am a soggy saturated mess, fantasizing of the desert and cursing the clouds. Some of us begin sprouting cattails along our hairlines. I tilt my head and tap the other side so as to empty my waterlogged ears and an entire aquarium spills out. Oh look, I found Nemo. Yet another rainbow manifests through the clouds after the season's 863rd storm and I shake my head with disgust, "Who in the Sam Hill do you think you are showing up here again? Oh I oughta . . . " My fists are clenched but my voice is drowned out by the season's 864th downpour.
By July, the sun finally pulls its head out of the clouds and shows up in all its hot tamale glory. By late August, I am suffocating and sweating. Pathetically I beg Mother Nature for mercy, "Please, just a droplet or a breeze.” I gravitate toward close talkers desperate to be spit on. The earth laughs maniacally and cranks up the furnace. I am delirious, buying deodorant by the case and using it in places for which it was never intended. The air is grossly thick and I consider emptying my refrigerator just so I have somewhere to stick my swamp ass at the end of the day.
I dial my realtor’s number and demand, "Get me out of here. Please find me somewhere - a walk-in freezer or a mortuary chest - I don’t care if I have to sleep next to raw tenderloins or someone’s embalmed Great Aunt Edith, just get me out of this sweltering heat.” Just then, a slow and soft wind stumbles in, bringing with it a gracious gentleness that floats to the surface Mary Poppins style. Mesmerized, I drop the phone, blinking and clearing the crust of sweat that's formed around my eyeballs. I squint, unable to make out the enchantress consuming the space before me. Is it a Hallelujah chorus? Whirling dervishes? Whatever it is, it's euphoric. As I begin to gain focus, a pleasant familiarity surrounds me and I recognize her majesty.
It's October. Rich in color, perfectly pleasant and refreshingly delicate, October is the month of fairytale endings: not too hot, not too cold - it's just right. October is the reason we tolerate volcanic summer heat and endure despairing winter darkness. Though she lasts only 31 days, October covers 11 months worth of sin, and I am drunk on her intoxicating mercy. An Ohio October; I am absolutely smitten. Nothing is better except maybe a wonderfully wild three-year-old riding his balance bike across a carpet of maple leaves under a canopy of trees smack dab in the middle of a delightful October in Ohio.
