Tag: fall

To Everything There is a Season

Tomorrow is the fall equinox. This timing is not lost on me. My husband and I are about to enter the threshhold of the “true” autumn of our own lives together. This year emphatically marked the end of the robust summer season of our adult lives together. When our youngest, and our only daughter, moved out this summer, it pronounced the final period of raising our family, and the rearranging of our nest, to make the most of its new emptier, quieter spaces.

Recently, I have found myself uncharacteristically nostalgic about the past seasons of my life. I have collected some old toys and dolls from the springtime of my childhood, telling myself that they are for my future grandchildren . . . but are they? I think that my inner child is fully enjoying them for the time being.

I have unabashedly celebrated the joyous occasions of our sons’ weddings, marking the beginning of the summer seasons of their own lives, with their own wives. My reliable, nagging foresight told me that this was all in the near horizon, and so thankfully, my husband and I made the changes to our living situation, preparing our nest to be more suitable for just the two of us, after long living in the fun, chaotic, messy, loud, revolving door of a houseful of six (plus always a menagerie of pets). We walk through these large wooden doors of Autumn, prepared as we can be.

I am witnessing the stoic, resound, elegant winters of my elders, with a mix of awe, appreciation, and even a little confusion and sadness that the seasons change for all of us. There is no stopping time. There is no freezing children in their innocence. There is no preserving our wise, steady ones in robust, non-aging bodies. There is no Energizer Bunny keeping me as sharp and vigorous as the beginning of my blossoming adulthood in the early summer season of my life. Sigh.

And yet, it is all so beautiful. Every season is just so breathtakingly lovely, in its own unique way. And that’s what gets to me every time. That is what has my eyes filled and my throat choked as I write this. . . . . The poignancy. The masterful plan of Mother Nature. The Spirit that holds each and every one of us, walking with us, through each unique season of our lives. It is all so beautiful to experience, if we take the time to behold and reflect on the wonders that each season of our lives offers to us.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die.
A time to plant, a time to reap.
A time to kill, a time to heal.
A time to laugh, a time to weep.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to build up, a time to break down.
A time to dance, a time to mourn.
A time to cast away stones.
A time to gather stones together.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time of love, a time of hate.
A time of war, a time of peace.
A time you may embrace.
A time to refrain from embracing.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to gain, a time to lose.
A time to rend, a time to sow.
A time for love, a time for hate.
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.

– lyrics from Turn, Turn, Turn by The Byrds

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Fleeting

Good morning! Happy First Day of Fall! I had a little gut punch earlier this week. I walked into the Fresh Market and they had their cinnamon brooms up front. Every year since my daughter was probably in middle school, I would buy her one of those brooms for her room because she loves the smell of them. She would hang it on her ceiling fan and I would whack my head on it, more times than I can count, but I loved that the aromatic broom made her happy. I am not sure that her college roommate would love the strong scent of cinnamon as much as she does, but I’ll have to check in, to see if we should keep the tradition alive.

The Fresh Market also had their pumpkins in full display, right at the store’s entrance. Every year since middle school, my daughter had a tradition with a friend to meet at our home to carve pumpkins before Halloween. They always had elaborate and difficult designs in mind, but at the end of all, the girls usually got giggly and settled for simpler, conventional jack-o-lantern faces, along with good conversation and fancy coffees from Starbucks. This friend of my daughter’s wasn’t in her tightest circle. They never had classes together, and her friend was busy with the swim team, while my daughter was entrenched in the tennis team. Still, they always made time to get together to carve pumpkins, every single year.

Both of these young ladies now go to separate colleges far from each other. The carving tradition will no longer be possible to be kept. My daughter and her friend may see each other in passing, during future holiday outings – those occasional times when kids who went to high school together often reconnect. The friendship has changed, as all relationships do. Still, the memories will remain happy ones, for all of us.

I read an article over the weekend by Pema Chödrön, the proflic writer and Buddhist nun. She says this:

“Realizing the fleeting nature of everything and the freshness of every moment is equivalent to realizing that we’re always in a state of transition, an in-between state . . . Like a shooting star, a visual fault, a candle flame, an illusion, a dewdrop, a water bubble, a dream, lightning, a cloud . . . “

Chödrön teaches the importance of understanding that all phenomena is the same in our lives. Everything that we experience has a beginning, and then immediately starts the continuous process of changing, and at a certain point, will inevitably end. The nature of life is its “fleeting quality.” In other words, “change is the only constant.”

I don’t think that it’s in our human nature to gracefully accept life’s fleeting quality. The things which we love, we don’t want to be fleeting. And the things which we hate, we struggle against, and we resist, and then we try to force the fleeting to go faster. We have so much trouble letting go of control, and just being and experiencing. It’s the dual nature of our analytical minds. It’s the underbelly of being able to think and reason.

Right now, I am enjoying a peaceful morning, my dogs at my feet, as I write this post on my beloved blog. It is a still, calm, sun-filled morning here. I smile to myself, remembering the waft of cinnamon sticks, every past autumn day when I would wander into my daughter’s room. I smile at the memory of the crooked smiles of jolly jack-o-lanterns made by two young ladies who enjoyed each other’s company enough to make a point of inventing this tradition of “crafting” together every Halloween. This morning is well on its way of passing. It’s been a good morning. This morning is in the process of phasing into hopefully, an enjoyable, peaceful afternoon, and then at sunset, the day will draw to its inevitable close. This morning, this afternoon, this whole day will transform into a memory, as all things do. And that is the way of the fleeting nature of life and all things in it. But beautifully, the memories stay alive.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

It is Fall

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.” – John Donne

Today is the first full day of fall.  I love this season.  I know so many people who say that autumn is their favorite season.  I live in Florida, but I grew up in Pennsylvania and I went to college in Virginia.  Both of those states admittedly have much prettier fall leaves than what we get in Florida.  Still, even Florida has its change of seasons.  My house has a lake behind it and behind that is a nature preserve.  In the fall, the light of the sun is finally able to poke through the preserve’s thick wall of trees and brush, hinting at the light that lives inside all of existence.  The Japanese people call this beautiful sight of “sunshine filtering through leaves”, komorebi.  I’m surprised that we English speakers don’t have just one word for that phenomenon because it is so lovely to behold.

“I love autumn, the season of the year that God seemed to have just put there for the beauty of it.” – Lee Maynard

When my son was on a travel soccer team trip a few years ago, we headed up north for a soccer tournament and one of the mothers, a native Floridian asked me timidly if I thought that it would be okay for her to bring back some colored leaves.  I said, “Honey, they will give you as many Hefty bags as you want.”  I remember the hours spent raking up the beautiful leaves in all of their splendor.  I remember all of the different school assignments and crafts involving the lovely leaves.  For some reason, those chores and assignments never seemed as agonizing as picking up fallen apples covered in bees in the summer or shoveling snow in the winter.  There is just something so comforting in all things relating to fall.  The gorgeous colored leaves, pumpkins, pumpkin spice, Halloween and Thanksgiving, swirling light winds, back to school, the start of football season, light sweaters and throws, etc. are all things of autumn and things that are almost universally appreciated.

“Autumn is the mellow season and what we lose in flowers, we more than gain in fruits.” – Samuel Butler

Second Halfers, we are autumn.  We have gone through the spring of our childhoods and the summer of becoming an adult.  We are in our full-color prime, bearing the fruits of who we really are and showing the world the beauty of the banquet of what we have to give.  We are calmer than in our previous seasons.  Our colors don’t necessarily burst, but our colors are vivid and show all that we have lived through and experienced, making our season’s colors the most beautiful of all – the colors that all of the world celebrates.  How blessed we are to be in this lovely season of our lives!

“Fall has always been my favorite season.  The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature has been saving all year for the grand finale.” – Lauren Destefano