the return of the rain
Forgive me dear readers. I’ve been awfully absent these past summer months.
I hope you too have been too distracted by the fullness of your life to remember to check your emails.
Like so many, I’ve been craving this turning of the seasons. Affronted by the relentless sunshine and dry earth. So when the daily rains began, my whole body sighed with relief that the world was being put back to rights.
Few soundscapes are more comforting than lying in a bed piled high with cloudy linens, warm under the covers but the room is cool with the crisp air that whispers of winter coming, listening to the drops of water play on the foliage outside like keys on a noteless piano as you drift off to sleep.
Instinctually, I found myself nesting. Rearranging the furniture in my office, pulling out my knitting to finish a project forgotten in the haze of heat, and reorganized all my potted plant to the front porch to create an autumnal nook where I can enjoy morning coffee bundled up in sweaters re-emerging from the trunk in my closet.
I feel guilty that I haven’t “been consistent” with these essays but am already leaning towards forgiving myself. As a creature made of earth I too must be made for cyclical seasonality.
Summer is for doing.
Autumn is for making.
Pressing cider from the old Apple Tree in the yard.
Knitting blankets for babies that the world has yet to meet.
Carving squash to greet your neighbors on their daily walks.
Assembling a centerpiece for your dining room table because looking at a beautiful arrangement everyday is a simple, caring gift to give yourself and your home.
Embroidering stained shirts that beg for reinvention in return for all the use they’ve given you.
Brewing tea and making fires to meet the cold as it comes.
Mending dog toys that have been loved too hard one time too many.
It’s time to put my vegetable garden to bed and plant bulbs for the spring.
It’s time to harvest cocoons from my mason bee house but I’ve been procrastinating because I’m nervous I won’t get it right.
It’s time to read books made of paper and glue and the stories hatched in someone else’s imagination.
It’s time to shed the busy, fervent pace of adventure and make way for the slow rest we - that is you, me, and the earth - need.
It’s time to snooze my alarm well past when I should so that I can soak up that extra hour of cuddles with the pups.
It’s time to make banana bread and quiche and waffles from scratch.
It’s time to sink back into the need for quiet creation.
The cold and grey seem to encourage us to recall the tendrils of our energy back into ourselves into those private laboratories of our artistic daydreams.
Just last week I found myself mapping out a new world for a fantasy novel I pretend I will finish writing someday. For hours I captured notes about the people, cultures, and challenges that populated in this new landscape. Each idea a thread I could pull at and follow to discover and learn more about an emerging cast and place.
Such a private and delightful journey to steal for one’s self on a Saturday afternoon.
Art is hard to make when all of our energy is being pulled into worry.
Art is hard to make when the weight of uncertainty is too heavy.
Art is hard to make when there isn’t time and space to be bored, to become restless, to have to wonder.
Art is all that which makes life a breathing poem of one moment to the next.
Art is essential to being human.
Your art may be tangible like some of mine - writing, cooking, gardening, sewing, knitting…
Or your art may be more invisible. Found in the intention and nuance with which you cultivate connection with others or it may emerge as reverence for a film that reaches into your heart and plays the notes of your tenderness.
Or it may be in the readiness with which you conjure compassion and forgive so generously.
Or it may simply be how you remember to let someone know you made it home.
Art is the incalculable.
You can’t capture it in a spreadsheet or ledger.
You can only capture it in the noticing and in moment experienced.
This is your reminder to let this autumn brim over with your own art.
The noticing and the moment experienced.
Bold and quiet.
Bright and subtle.
Small and shared.
Invitation:
My sweet mother pointed out that if I am to invite people to sponsor this writing (which I would very much love if you did!), then I must in fact write. So here we are once more. She delivered her commentary with the perfect mixture reproach and warmth, that I couldn’t protest as I too have been missing you - my dear reader - and the attention that brings us together.
If you feel compelled, please share this essay or another you’ve liked with someone who you think will enjoy it.Are you a journaler? Would you like journal prompts? I’ve been thinking about creating a year long journal journey where each day you receive a prompt of something to write about and consider… Let me know in the comments if you would love something like this… and in the meantime I will share one with you.
"What song or musical artist reminds you of a beloved memory or time in your life? What story would you want people to know about it?”
For me Neil Young reminds me of the end of summer after my junior year of high school. I had my driver’s license and the permission to use my dad’s green, manual transmission Subaru Outback. This was when we still drove everywhere by memory. I had burned myself a CD and was listening to it on the stereo, windows down, slide guitar serenading me on my way to meet up with friends to play frisbee and explore philosophies back when it still felt novel and expansive to do so. I had just emerged from a particularly fraught year of self-doubt and insecurity and was slowly finding my way towards my own voice and mind. It was a good summer.
This past weekend’s full moon was a Super Harvest Moon and the song found it’s way back to me again. This time I was driving between farmhouses and cattle pastures in the San Juan Islands in a moment very reminiscent of that young, formative August. That young woman is still so alive and loud within me. I’m so proud of everything she chose to value and work towards. I am who I am because of her courage and willingness to figure out how to love herself. What a sweet kid.
From Me to You:
If you haven’t yet, check out Love at First Sight on Netflix. It’s a romcom and love story is a bit unhinged (albeit in an endearing way) but the story of the family of the leading man brought me so fully and fiercely into my own heart that I must recommend the movie to anyone who loves to feel deeply.
A Banana Bread Recipe that is moist and rarely survives more than a couple of days in our kitchen. It’s wonderfully moist and we mix in a small handful of chocolate chips so that every couple bites you get a bittersweet surprise (gluten free and dairy free).
A new take on a beloved classic:
Until next month,
