You live in the Pacific Northwest if you find yourself wishing July was October. Today my soul called for 45 degrees and flannel pajama bottoms and s'mores made in the microwave. It wanted a campfire and a guitar and crisp autumn air without mosquitoes. My innermost being cried out for the crunch of leaves, a wool scarf, red/orange/yellow vine maples on Highway 2, a cold nose and red cheeks.

I can picture the bend in the river near the washed-out campground on the Wenatchee River; the huge tree in the water has a deep swimming hole that I swam in when I was a kid. It's amazing that tree is still there, despite flood and wildfire and the neglect it must feel at being abandoned by summers full of swimming children.

I once wrote about the summer days and the river and the blonde-halo days of childhood. In a family picture I have, my sister was about 5 years old, dressed in a red patterned little-kid bikini, standing in a calm pool near the river's shore at my great uncle's cabin. The sun illuminated her blonde hair stunningly. My family has since sold the cabin, and it's been a few years since I swam in the s-curves of the North Fork of the Skykomish River. I took Tim there, and Debby and John once; it was a perfect place for body surfing!

Sure, there are other rivers and other illuminated days. But that place just resonates. Gray boulders, caddisfly larvae, "jesus" bugs, the river flowing between two high hills covered in pines and firs, water you could drink without getting giardia. Sack lunches. Moss. The backwater creek. Maples. The woodpecker door knocker.

It was October, and it was glorious.