Sad October
October is the tenth month of the year, according to the Gregorian calendar, which is what organizes our time. But in the Roman calendar it was the eighth month, and that is where its name comes from. From eight, in Latin.
Classes began on the second, because the first was the Day of the Caudillo. And they ended on the day of my patron saint and patron of the city that celebrates it with great fairs and festivities. Saint Narcissus, on the 29th, was still a day in October, but its festivities already stretched into November. And so, the first of November, All Saints' Day, were still fairs and festivities, and the second day, the day of the dead, as well. The festivities ended on the fifth day with a great castle, as they called it, of fireworks, which the people of Girona called “the smokes”, because, since the rockets and firecrackers and cascades and whatever else were lit from the ensign Huarte bridge, the whole Onyar canal was full of smoke, an acrid, thick smoke that did not let you see the lit sign at the end, which said: Glory to Saint Narcissus. I do not need to remind you that in those years everything public was done in Spanish, the language of the victors. Since the fairs and festivities absorbed what they now call Halloween and back then was the chestnut festival, they were days for eating panellets and roasted chestnuts and mushy sweet potatoes which, since it was cold, were very pleasant. For Saint Narcissus, the patron saint's day, all the shops were open, as it was a fair for a reason. If it rained, my grandmother would say that “wet streets, dry drawers”, which at home was not entirely accurate, because, among many other things, we sold umbrellas, trench coats, raincoats. In the morning there was a solemn service at the saint's chapel, at the church of Sant Feliu, with the bishop, the canons of the cathedral, and the civil and military authorities. The councilors wore tailcoats. The military, in uniform. The canons, with their purple cape with the white fur bib, and the bishop, with his long red silk train. The people, that is to say, me and many others, watched the spectacle. Afterwards we would enter the service and, when finished, we would collect, under the saint's tomb, a small white paper bag with a tuft of blessed absorbent cotton inside that they say was good for earaches. The bag said “Donum Sancti Narcissi”, but you had to leave an alms.
They were days of fairs, of livestock markets, of attractions, of eating churros and spun sugar cotton candy. We went up on the ferris wheel, at the whip, at the roller coasters. We shot pellets at the shooting galleries, everything that is done at fairs. After the fireworks, classes returned. The rains began. When we left class in the afternoon, it was already quite dark. The city was damp because it rained a lot there, the cobblestones that paved the streets of the old quarter were slippery. It was cold. When we crossed the Stone Bridge to go home, a cushion of fog rested on the dirty and sparse water. Many days you couldn't see anything. But Thursday afternoons were a holiday and we didn't go to class. Then the sun would shine, the Devesa exploded in the glory of its coppers and golds. The ground was full of dry leaves. But the sun set early and we had to head back home. And that is how November passed. October had passed in the same way, with the hope of the fairs in the background. November passed without any consolation. Christmas was still a long way off.
Now everything has changed. We are already in mid-October and it is still hot. And since it has not rained when it was supposed to rain, there are no mushrooms, which were the consolation for the monotony of October. They were its joy.
The world is full of sadness. Gaza, Ukraine, Tibet. It seems as if what sentimentalists call "nature" has been unleashed against us. Everything is a misfortune. Tropical rains, hurricanes, floods, houses collapsing, trains crashing or burning. The world has become surly, aggressive. Glaciers are melting, the sea level is rising. The young are unhappy and insubordinate. The old are evicted, thrown out of their homes. What they call vulture funds have no bowels. The so-called forces of order beat up anyone who stands in their way. Pity seems to have evaporated from this lost world. A jagged cliff, higher every day, rises and grows before us: it is uncertainty, sadness, pain. Gabriel Ferrater wrote: “the great rock of suffering / that serves as a foundation for us all / the sail always a light sand / of happy affections”. If only happy affections could protect us from suffering, be a balm against the pain of this October.
