Making Sense Of October, The Year’s Fastest Month
As we try to cram everything we’d hoped to accomplish this annum into this last quarter, it invariably seems more hectic than the preceding three. October is replete with so many reminders that time is rushing forward. What festivities are all about, after all, in whichever corner of the world you reside, is marking the passage of time — the waxing of the moon, the waning of the sun, and vice versa
This October I find myself especially pressed for time.
With a near-complete manuscript to deliver to a big-name publisher, a bird you might have heard of, several new writing commissions from hither and thither, and, most importantly, two growing children with burgeoning careers who need Mommy as manager, not to mention the many domestic and admin chores that pile up, time is vanishingly small! I wouldn’t dare complain about being busy and in-demand, which is infinitely better than the reverse, but have I had time to luxuriate in it? Nup. Even this column, always an enjoyable jaunt, is a race to the finish this month!
As we try to cram everything we’d hoped to accomplish this annum into this last quarter, it invariably seems more hectic than the preceding three. October is replete with so many reminders that time is rushing forward. What festivities are all about, after all, in whichever corner of the world you reside, is marking the passage of time — the waxing of the moon, the waning of the sun, and vice versa. Whether it’s the Day of the Dead, Día de los Muertos, in Mexico, or Halloween across the Western world, it’s that time of the year that puts a nip in the air and humans celebrate closure. Durga Pujas too are homecomings, without the darker undertones perhaps, but as much of a punctuation. And what is Diwali but shining a light in the encroaching murk?
With October we arrive at the penultimate chapter to the Book of The Year; the bleaker mornings recalling the ledger that must be balanced before the sun is snuffed. These tasks we set ourselves at the start of the year, resolutions for even those who make none, stare us down in their need to be settled, making us feel inadequate and anxious. Worse, it multiplies as the year diminishes, becoming inversely proportional.
It could well be Seasonal Affective Disorder impacting you, if you live in colder climes; your mood oscillating with the vagaries of sunshine. But our perception of what time we have at our disposal is determined by the wiring of our minds.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, my neurodivergent brain never stops. Consequently, deadlines not only loom larger, they also appear closer than they are (as atypical as the next artiste, Meatloaf would’ve agreed). I am that worried that my weirdly wired brain might miss cutoff dates that I circumvent it by being miles ahead of time (yet finding space, as is our wont, to finetune every last bit). When I declare the impossibility of finishing “by the 23rd” and my editor thinks I mean the day of the month, I’m really talking about the hour before midnight on the very day of our conversation, and voilà, the deed is done!
Unlike the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, I’m almost never “late for a very important date”, but equally reliant on props. The calendars, diaries, schedules and lists keeping me on track are my life’s levers. Not only that, I get great satisfaction from crossing items off my to-do list as I go along. Should I manage to complete every chore and commission within my self-imposed timeframe, I will doodle all over my obliterated inventories in a self-congratulatory gush, setting flowers blooming and birds on wing as Tagore famously had. And just as with his creations (in his case, actually art), the British Museum will want to exhibit my inky efflorescence someday, surely, but will have to prise them out of my cold, dead hands (I’d give it away happily in reality, but that isn’t the BM’s favoured modus operandi, is it?)!
Yes, time holds me in thrall, but I would rather dance to its dictates than never be in the right place, like former British PM David Cameron. Repeatedly on holiday when disasters struck the UK, akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burnt, he was also well-known for refusing to say the necessary when an occasion was crying out for it, such as the nearly-a-century late apology he FAILED to make on his 2013 India trip, to the thousand-plus victims of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by the British. In fact, many a political heavy would benefit from taking a leaf out of my sprouting, neurodivergent diary, if all it did was give them a healthy respect for Father Time.
Yet, one must never crow about having anything remotely under control, because, of course, I DON’T. The early bird occasionally gets the worm, sure, but more often than not, time and tide wait for no man. Nor for birds (feathered or otherwise). And to the modicum of order I’ve brought to my world, why would I want to attract Trouble, that green-eyed monster rampaging through life’s minor alignments? So, to the universe, I say, look away, s'il vous plaît, I’m not so deluded as to try and make a dent on your cosmic arrangements! Leave me to my own humble micromanagement systems.
In fact, as I wrap up this piece, I will stop a moment from attempting to complete objectives, put aside even my doodling pen, to watch my children, two human and one golden retriever, loping in our rust-and-mustard autumnal garden. It may be October, with the days shortening and months drawing in, and unfinished jobs aplenty left on the roster, but isn’t another year just round the corner? With a whole new brace of deadlines to both dread and delight in?!
