One of my and maybe your ongoing problems with fall as well as spring — especially in these regions where we have four distinct seasons — is that a whole lot happens in the big social world. It tends to be when lots of places I work with hold events, classes, happenings, and celebrations. Unlike summer, when many of us are braving 102 degrees while a wall of cicadas makes us feel like we’re going out of our minds, or winter, when tiptoeing from house to car in an ice storm to get the phone is a treacherous journey, these better-weather seasons make too much possible. Add to this the weight of the school year shaping calendars, and things can get far too fast and furious to truly absorb the beautiful quiet and openness of changing seasonal cycles.
For me, this translates into big-gig time: September to mid-November, and March to May are the seasons where I’m working more than usualpiling miles on the car to stop in small towns to lead a book discussion or give a poetry reading while trying to figure out where the strongest coffee might be. While I try not to calendarize myself into oblivion or a bad cold, let’s just say learning to balance self-care with the work I love is a dynamic story in progress.
There’s the chaos at times of my travels and talks, mid-day fatigue and late-night wakefulness seeking some kind of balance. Then there’s the chaos of the world, which seems increasingly like an alternate reality based on a dystopian novel we thought was too fictional to become true. I won’t recount the news headlines, and the small stories of big and little dangers sometimes hiding behind those headaches and headlines, except to say a whole lot seems beyond repair at moments. At the same time, exposed for how damaging it truly is in vivid and
But then there’s this being brought to the forefront: sweet breezes and dark orange leaves as the day tips shorter. The southern horizon is lined with soft pink streaks between the waving fingers of the cedar trees, and to the west, the orange glow of the day’s ending is quietly dimming itself. I join myself with that peace by watching and writing about the moment before it, too, slips into the future when it’s time to make dinner.
If this writing speaks to you, get a copy of Caryn’s new book, Everyday Magic: Fieldnotes on the Mundane and Miraculous, based on over 10 years of this blog. Details here.
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