From inside the air-conditioned house, the light through my windows looks the way October light is supposed to look—mild, quiet, entirely unlike the thin light of winter or the sparkling light of spring or the unrelenting light of summer. In normal years, October is a month for open windows in Middle Tennessee. For cool, damp mornings. For colored leaves that quake in the wind before letting go and lifting away. For afternoon shadows so poignant they fill me with a longing I can’t even name.
