well here we are, my favorite month of the year. crisp, cool autumn draped in all it's brilliant colors and bright sunshine. while i'm celebrating autumn's return i am also slightly still pining for summer which is a bit unusual for me but alas true, for it was a good summer.
there was a moment more than a few weeks back when everything was so still and fragrant all at once. a sea of white hydrangea marshmallow puffs and queen anne's swaying in the breezeway. crushed shells beneath my feet. it was golden hour. a stone's throw from the ocean.
how does it happen that summer fades so fast ? hazy days that seemed so endless and then, the long slow goodbye. it's tricky like that. i seemed more invested this year in summer than in the past few or maybe it's just enough time has passed between my former life and the one i'm currently living. or maybe i took it for granted ? anyway, something seemed to shift for me and i took note of the subtle nuances that marked the hours and the days. they were little treasures that revealed themselves at the most unexpected moments. big things happened too. a baby, a birthday and an awakening. "pay attention. be astonished. tell about it."
i've found it hard to write. all summer i kept apologizing for not blogging. i'd like to say it was a conscious decision. it wasn't. i just didn't feel much like talking. i remember a time when i used to sit for hours, thinking, reading, writing, lounging. i could pass the time like this, not a care in the world and be content. i can't sit still for very long anymore. it makes me anxious. "do stuff. be clenched, curious."
August was the month of the Full Sturgeon Moon according to the Native American Indians. i followed the moon chart all summer. i was lucky enough to escape the city limits here and there and see the sky above the clouds and stare out into the starry blue nights and witness that magical moon. away from the clutter everything feels different. i didn't miss the urban sprawl much at all. nature nurtures. "People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do. We need to taste grace and know again that we desire it."
The work i've been doing has highlighted many things. one of which is my desire to be free and untethered. the need for more space and more light. an appreciation for the negative space and solitude. the flip side is a more intense longing for connection, companionship and community. “All those summer drives, no matter where I was going, to a person, a project, an adventure, or home, alone in the car with my social life all before and behind me, I was suspended in the beautiful solitude of the open road, in a kind of introspection that only outdoor space generates, for inside and outside are more intertwined than the usual distinctions allow. The emotion stirred by the landscape is piercing, a joy close to pain when the blue is deepest on the horizon or the clouds are doing those spectacular fleeting things so much easier to recall than to describe."
as i looked forward to my favorite time of year i wished upon a star for many things but mostly for continued growth and the courage to keep digging allowing for grace in my stride.
“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” Wendell Berry
happy autumn friends. // xx
1_mary oliver 2_barbara kingsolver 3_rebecca solnit
