Savoring the Season

This time of year makes my socks go up and down....

But it's packed full of activity -- family birthdays, my OWN birthday, the end of Fest followed by all the post-Fest clean-up and the post-Fest art commissions and the post-Fest recovery period. And don't forget my favorite holiday: Halloween.

The season deserves all my attention, though, it's that spectacular. I wish it wasn't so brief.... I could spend whole hours/days/weeks just being still and watching it, feeling the temperature changes, following each leaf as it falls, enjoying the fragrance of loam and woodsmoke, wishing on each milkweed seed as it floats away....

But by the time I stop to do this, it seems I'm already smelling snow. Autumn is curled up and sleeping, and I have yet to rake her leaves! And so I don't.... I don't put the gardens to bed either. I leave them wild and shaggy like little enchanted forests full of burrs and brambles, where rabbits hunker and mice burrow under the leaves....

Maybe it's just that I can't bear to let go of my season. If I rake, if I garden, it's like I've tucked it all away like my Halloween decorations, to be forgotten about until the holiday sneaks up on me again and I hurriedly pull them out and enjoy them briefly without really smelling the candles and tasting the pumpkin spice and wearing the witch's hat....

My season deserves to be savored.

And so THAT is what is on my list today. Savor the season. And do it all again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Join me.

Well, That Might Explain It....

Start with this one.

Not long after I pressed the 'send' button last, I succumbed to whatever crud it was that'd been stalking me. Which might explain why I was so 'something' at the time. (Sorry....)

I'm still up to my sinuses in it and will spare you any details, but I do want to say that I hope whatever this is hasn't found you, your loved ones, your co-workers, or that person who sat next to you on the train and asked to borrow your pen....

Because if it has, then my only suggestion would be to stop EVERYTHING, return to your nest, unplug your land line or turn off your smartphone, brew some hot tea with honey and lemon, grab the closest 'Flavia de Luce' book, and have at it. OK?

In case you're wondering, Flavia is Sherlock Holmes if Holmes was (were?) an 11-year-old girl living in the 1950's on a once-grand estate in the fictional English village of Bishop's Lacey. She's obsessed with chemistry and poisons and death and sleuthing. She has her own laboratory! And a trusty bicycle/steed named 'Gladys.' I was first introduced to her via a library discard that I rescued for 25-cents because I simply liked the title, and it just so happened to be the first in this fabulous series. I've since gone on to read others but I'm careful not to burn through them, they're that perfect. (PLEASE, Mr. Bradley, DO NOT STOP WRITING.)

Once you've found your book (doesn't have to be Flavia, but you'll thank me if it is) unplug, brew, read, repeat until all is well once more. Because you deserve this and because I firmly believe in Time Outs for one's mental and physical health.

Shutting up now and returning you to your regularly-scheduled program and me to my regularly-scheduled Flavia and chicken soup.

Later, my friend.
(((heart)))
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Catching My Breath

Fest is one big thing I love about my year, but it overlaps everything else I love about it, too. It comes just as my favorite season begins. And by its final weekend, Autumn is close to being spent.

Harvesting the garden, canning tomatoes, planning for Halloween, celebrating my birthday, just appreciating the Fall colors at my leisure -- all the things I long to immerse myself in get shelved or rescheduled or just plain crossed off my list as I deal with post-Fest nonsense: shop flotsam, heaps of costumes, boxes of dusty prints, art order follow-ups, the clearing out and closing up and securing of Mayfaire....

This year was no exception. But it was an unusual post-Fest time for me that involved more on my agenda than ever before, and today feels like my first real day to assess where I am in the grand scheme of my season. I'm upright, which is a good thing; but I can feel the annual bout of respiratory 'fest chest' dancing along the edges of my lungs. It's been there since September and greets me every morning, and so far I've managed to hold it at bay somehow while I deal with more important things that have filled up my days and made time speed by. Ups and downs, highs and lows; a rollercoaster Fall. I've tried holding it together, and I think I've done OK at it, too.

But it's already late October. The trees have peaked and shed their leaves. Mayfaire still needs putting to bed! The gardens do, too. My birthday's back there somewhere, and Halloween is already under way. And I can scratch 'canning' off my list again. I'm so behind....

Every year I imagine my Autumn to be a time of cocooning. A time of retreating and re-assessing, moving slow, going within. I look forward to battening down the hatches while outside the seasons change and eventually snow me in with my thoughts and blank paper. That 'nothingness' is the only thing that fills my well, and right now my well is so done.

But one doesn't need a full well to rake leaves, right? Or strip milkweed pods. Or put gardens to bed. There's a 'nothingness' in those tasks that can be fulfilling.

Full-filling....

Best get to them then. This well is bone dry.
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Good Advice

I'm not away. Just busy. And this week has been overly stressful....

My family's been aware of the goings on here, and yesterday my eldest Grandbug told me (complete with wagging finger), "Gramma, just try to forget your troubles and have some fun today!"

Good advice.

So she and I spent the afternoon together at The Pond Near Her House. We sat on the wooden dock and 'took the pond's temperature' by dipping sticks into the icy water. We looked for floating snail shells and fished for mermaids.

Fluffy cotton-candy clouds sailed by and blocked the sun. "Gramma, if you could ride on one of those clouds, which one would you choose?" I picked one and she picked the one right next to it so we could hold hands together while traversing the sky.

My cell phone rang and I answered it. It was Grampa. With a little wrinkle in her forehead, the Grandbug watched me converse, then when I ended the call asked worriedly, "Does this mean you have to go home? Because I don't want you to go home!"

There would be no going home yet.

Hours (and a bit of sunburn) later, there was bubble stuff and sidewalk chalk and the sharing of Freezie Pops. "Gramma, how about you taste my purple and I taste your yellow?" Ants were studied and leaves were picked apart. Airplanes were watched as they cut across the sky. Would they fly through our clouds, we wondered? Nope. Whew!

A most excellent day. And when I returned home again, I discovered my troubles had pretty much taken care of themselves.

Her words were more than just good advice. They were absolutely magickal.
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