Fall in a Summer World

I can smell in the air fall is coming. It smells like the color the leaves will be soon, which is also the color of the light coming in my window, slanting deeper and more golden than yesterday.

I have a feeling I'll look up tomorrow and see it's winter, or even spring 2020. It makes me squirm, this pace of life that leaves me breathless, this whirling machine of life churning at breakneck speed for efficiency no matter the season.

Fall and winter say "slow down," which is a problem because I don't think we are prepared to accept something so arcane. We are going to have to make our choice soon: fight it and work in the dark, or fall a little behind.

But for now it's hot outside still. 
September 15th.
I don't want to hurry.

I want to savor the last drops of summer like an upside down maple syrup bottle drip, dripping onto my tongue. Sweet summer, with its late nights and bright days and blooming gardens and pollen trees. Backyard string lights, evening serenades. Trips for ice cream. Green, forested runs deep in the parks. Ice water in the late afternoon. 

This summer-fall transition is a push-pull with which I am familiar. I'm drawn to the simple, the quiet, the everyday, the spaciousness of having time to waste; my academic life demands frenzy, fancy words, innovation, the constant weightiness  of never-enough. My soul feels at home in the outdoors, and in physical movement; my career depends on the hours spent at my desk, hunched over a laptop. I have the most to say when I'm in the safety of solitude, where after enough settling my best thoughts emerge; to succeed at school I'm asked to speak nearly constantly and in front of everyone.

How do we pay attention to the life of our souls, which are asking (like the seasons) for some push and then pull?
Can we savor the lingering summer, and then gradually welcome rest?

The cyclical earth is no whirring machine. It does not rush, yet waits for no one. It rotates in a wisdom that may or may not conform to our calendar. To live inside its womb is to resist the incessant push for better and more, to reclaim rest and reflection in the quick, overachieving lives we are asked to live.


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