We’ve said hello to several months this year (four so far, I think), but we haven’t yet said any goodbyes. At least not out loud.
Today seems like the right moment to revisit Hello, October and then make my farewells.
What I loved about October this year…
So many things.
Some of them October Things:
- The last of the tomatoes from the garden.
- Sun! Lots and lots of sun.
- Sukkot! The holiday of blanket forts…
- The return of the red flannel sheets.
- Crunching leaves.
- The last hurrah of the last of the roses.
- Dahlias. Ohmylord.
- Roasted sweet potato. Fresh baked pumpkin seed bread.
- Hats! Time for hats. I look great in hats.
- Borrowing the gentleman’s giant warm hoodie.
- Hot yummy fall food from the food carts.
- The first wearing of the rainboots.
- Crisp air.
- October means that Deschutes puts out the Jubelale, and all is good in the world.
And some of them things that just happened to be in October:
- My new hiding space and blanket fort just for me!
- Redecorating the Playground.
- The outrageously great people and experiences from Crossing the Line. password: haulaway
- Having Barbara Sher come teach at my Kitchen Table program.
- Three new forum boards at the KT.
- Massive depiling.
- Bathtime.
- Learning Thriller.
- Making a new friend.
- Discovering that the people who go to dance class with me have become my community.
- Finding ways for things to happen way in advance, and feeling what that’s like.
- Miraculously choosing the just-right present for someone.
- Walking through the streets holding a giant fuzzy monster and meeting all sorts of interesting people as a result.
- Buying make-up. And kind of liking it. I know!
- “I’ve got it! There are two of everything!”
What was hard about this October?
Busy busy busy busy.
Getting dark early.
Missing lots of dance class due to being sick.
Depletion.
An attack of someone else’s stuff masquerading as an attack of my stuff. Dizziness and fear that did not belong to me.
What about the dancing Revue?
I dislike reviews because they’re super stressful (for me!), and so we have a dancing spangly Revue instead.
And, for the record, I’m totally picturing kooky 1930s cartoon mice doing some sort of vaguely obscene chorus line.
The Revue always has two questions:
1) What worked? 2) What might I want to try in the future?
What worked this October?
My new quarters at the Playground. Having a place just for me. Taking iron. Going for walks. Getting a new coat.
The amazing Board of Surprisers convening, and doing Show & Tell.
Practicing wanting what I want.
Getting ridiculous amounts of things done before the Crossing.
What might I want to try in the future?
More entry. More exit. More time and spaciousness. More vitamin C.
More setting things up in advance for slightly future me.
Looking back at Hello, October.
What do I notice?
I wanted to practice Wanting the Wanting, and that was a big part of this month.
There was a gwish about rituals and 16-16. Both of these were useful. And challenging.
There was something that needed the perfect name, and that name came to me.
I wanted Plum Duff magic, and that was a fascinating experiment.
Then I wanted blanket forts everywhere and a month full of Elongated Entrances and Exits, and both of those things came true in just the right way. You know what? I’m actually feeling kind of surprised and pleased right now with my gwishing and with the unexpected results. Huh. Cool!
Goodbye, October.
I am appreciating the good.
I am learning from the hard.
Thank you for this month. And for zombie Thriller.
Fair Winds, October! I will see you in one year when you are new and I am new and we are both new versions of ourselves.
Play with me! Comment zen in the giant collective blanket fort.
I’m putting this all into the pot with love.
If you would like to leave some noticings about this October or your relationship with October, that would be lovely. Here in the comments or quietly just for you.
As always: we all have stuff. So we take responsibility for our stuff and let other people have their stuff. We practice this by not giving other people advice or telling them what to do or how to feel.
Kisses to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
Postscripting! I actually remembered to send out an announcement to my very occasional Havi’s Announcing a Thing list last week. So if you’re not on that, you might want to be. Sign-up is on the events page.
Follow
Oh beautiful.
A goodbye moment to the month.
A day just to appreciate the way things were.
What I loved
– the good weather & sunshine
– the being at home-home-home
– joining festival of the blanket fort
– pinteresting
– reading ‘the great gatsby’ for the very first time
– watching old movies
– meeting people in the guesthouse, at breakfast, in the evening
What was hard
– acknowledging – where i am and what has to change
– still being where i don’t want to be while being so so ready for a new chapter
– an ’empty well’ – little ideas or energy or inspiration left
-taking a distance from a project i loved
What worked and didn’t work?
– taking a break works. lowering the expectations and standards. accepting the unknown a bit more.
– traveling by train doesn’t work anymore.
What happened with ‘hello october’?
– I wanted calm, calm assertiveness, and I am getting so much better at it
– i wanted a narrative timeline, which was so much harder than anticipated but I wrote 6000 words on it.
– i wanted some orientation and clues about what will happen next & the process got started.
Goodbye, October!
Thank you for the good weather and the blanket forts and the new boots and the wardrobe change.
Let’s meet again next year and have a ball.
I love this. I have to do this; no, I want to do this. October has been so fabulous by itself, but also as the anniversary of a fabulous year. And tomorrow is the start of a new NaNo blitz except this year it is also the launch of one year dedicated to writing my book. So I’m off to write the fondest of farewells to October 2011. Happy Goblins!
Havi – I’m consciously practicing kindness (www.helpothers.org) and today I’m prompted to thank a mentor. You are that mentor.
A long time ago, (two years? three?)I stumbled (via Naomi, cause I needed to make money) on your website (where I found my life’s work instead of a job).
I was on dialysis & waiting to have kidney transplant surgery.
Your blog was a voice in the wilderness. The concepts were so foreign. But I got hooked.
I left comments and you actually responded! I bought some of the materials (Dissolving Procrastination, Dance of Shiva). And life has never been the same.
Just wanted to tell you how meaningful your journey is to meblahblahblah…
All right, I can’t find the words.
But seriously, I can trace a long chain of compassionate and kind ‘happenings’ directly to you and the work you’re doing.
You gave me permission (when I thought I needed it from someone else – LOL) to be compassionate (to myself!) via little baby steps.
Thank you! And thanks to all the helper mice, too…
Goodbye, October! So many of the things I love about the month, so many of the things I wanted in October, so much goodness to remember… There was hard because sometimes life is hard, but life is also good and October was a good month.
I got a black and pink wig for Halloween and for projectizing. You’ve got to love a month that gives you an awesome wig. And one that includes wearing costumes!
Goodbye, goodbye! See you in a year!
I’m so grateful for October having Crossing the Line in it, and for being able to participate. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Also I’m thrilled to read that your dance class people have become your community. Hiro sigh.
*whispering audibly*
Ohhh, this October has been so lovely. Beauty, magic, peace, and growth. Releasing things, reclaiming things. Thank you, October. Thank you too, Havi. Thank you all.
Also, the end of October is a New Year’s celebration for me, so, farewell, year. It has been quite a ride. I’m ready to rest, and incubate, and prepare for new adventures.
Into the pot…
Good bye October, (and hello halloween!)
The Good
October stuff
– Halloween party was great fun and went well
– crunching leaves under my feet
–
stuff that just happened in october
– getting off of surplus status (10/6)
– medical tests came back negative for my theory so I do not have lupus.
– made a website for husband’s business – looks great, even though right now i have it in “under construction” mode for anyone who sees it. i should have the content cleaned up so that I can turn that off tonight or tomorrow, then we will be live OMG 🙂 completely related question, is there a way to make it email you when someone completes your google form?
– Vegas! particularly the shows and the spa 🙂
– A- on my midterm for class I am auditing.
The Hard
– getting back on surplus status (10/26). i felt safe in my job for a whole three weeks.
– achy sickness with fatigue… still unnamed. but it’s not lupus
October we had much fun and I started my pushups thing. yay 🙂 and went running once. I did not quite find the spaciousness and the time I was hoping for (husband blocked off then piled stuff on the desk… I cleared it off yesterday and we’re trying again now) back into the caracol spiral. The hurtness of being back on surplus kind of made me a bit more blunt and brutal with my words than normal, but that is a form of communication.
Oooo October….a strange and beautiful month this year.
October things of love:
The leaves
Sunshine, and coffee on the beach in a sundress
Beautiful sunsets
Soup!
The good:
Finishing my dissertation!
Going away, and visiting some of my favourite, soul restoring places
Matters of the heart
Strange and beautiful and utterly right and unexpected shifts in perspective
Feeling loved and loving
The hard:
Ugh, sleep deprivation and the general rubbishness of the hotel.
The fall-out from the sleep deprivation.
Rubbish jobs stuff.
Worrying about money, or rather the lack of.
Thank you October.
What I liked: spending quality time at fluentself and committing to Rally! (although committing sounds too boring), learning about pomodoros, making progress at work, crisp days, connecting with people, trampoline time, giving up on one project (no pressure, more exciting chances are coming), visiting babies, the museum, making things that people like, showing pics, friend has returned, boating 2x, epiphany about needing exit time, sunsets, a long hike
The hard: stubborn habit monsters, moods, sugar everywhere, phone-induced rude multitasking, mistakes and misprioritization
Farewell, October. Thank you for the Economy Plus option on the flight to France, for keeping me safe through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods, for the Simchat Torah I’d hoped for, for compliments from longtime friends and conviviality with new ones, and for the heaps of things I’m learning and recording. I could have done without the bug bites and the exhaustion and the varieties of ick amplifying the exhaustion, but I am practicing the self-care necessary to do what needs doing and the rest can wait until November (which is already here, where I am, and how wonderful it is to occupy a space where I am practically seated between you at the same time (what with October on my screen and November on my watch and in the immediate world outside and below).
Just had a beautifully symbolic end to October. Now I finally feel ready to say, hello, November.
The symbol? It taught me that I was desperately looking for signs and gifts and friends and love and acceptance when there were absolute overwhelming floods of it right in front of me. And it started to hide because I kept ignoring it.
So much love. So much warmth. So many thrilling surprises and miracles. It was all right here all along. It’s like floating amid a vast ocean, looking at a faraway lone island and thinking that there is no water because I am imagining myself on the island, ankle-deep in sand. Where in fact, the island is tiny and I’m actually in the middle of an infinite ocean and there is nothing but water as far as the eye can see and as far as the depth beneath me stretches down.
So here’s what I’m putting down. About October.
The good: EVERYTHING.
The bad: Not having been able to see that everything was good. In fact, miraculous.
Hmm, okay, less obnoxious things.
I learned that my balance and my needs are constantly shifting and I’m constantly having to negotiate it. I’m learning that this is Just What Happens. It is getting colder. I need more sleep and more bright colors. This is where I am and I am meeting my needs, which aren’t the same needs that I knew of a month ago.
So here it is.
What i wish for in November: to see that everything is Good. What I had such trouble with in October. I gwish for it to be easier in November.
November is special. November is rallying month. That is a fucking insane miracle in itself. I want to spend the entirety of November in a rallying spirit. That means playfulness, unexpected surprises, silliness, spaciousness, and MIRACLES.
Knowing that when I want to BE Havi, I actually just want the qualities I see and love in her. Sovereignty. Mmmmm. bed time….
Love, love, love to everyone here!
I never said hello to October, but I can still say goodbye.
You were beautiful – full of rest and effort, vacation and working, heavy cream and butter, laughing with friends and feeling alone.
You brought starts and then stops to some things, pain and remembrance and some of the bluest skies of seen. You had swimming in the beginning and then a chilly bike ride at the end.
Good bye October! See you next year!
October was full of healing and color and play and transformation and connection and the blessing of meeting and falling in love with my little niece Savannah and the fun of remembering (yet again) how much I love telling stories.
All in all, it was perfectly perfect in its own way.
This has been such a crazy, superfast, wild, passionate October that I don’t want to say goodbye to it. I want to get back on, like a favorite rollercoaster. Instead, I have to wave like an enthusiastic 12-yr-old and say “See you again soon!”