This morning, as I came awake, I saw out the window a little red something fluttering in a tree. Without my glasses, I could not note whether it was an autumnal leaf or a bit of plastic, but it summoned me into the day as it twirled in the breeze.

October is usually one of my favorite months, but this has been a bad one. Bad as in REALLY BAD. I just spent several days working on a tirade that I haven’t posted because it was too sad and angry to bear, and it was absurd to think that I have that much to be sad and angry about when so many billions of people around the world are so much worse off. (Yes, it is one of THOSE Octobers, one that I can face only with a fistful of prescriptions and the horrified realization that I have no choice.)

I don’t know if the little red something was a cheerful reminder that I am alive and well or a flashing alert of things to come, but I got out of bed, reluctantly, to find out.