Lessons in Autumn

I wrote this essay two years ago now, the first fall after my dad's death.  For a variety of reasons I never published it.  Each year, as the season start to to change I think back on this essay and the little scraps of hope that came with it.  Today I noticed for the first time that the leaves on the parkway of our street were starting to turn yellow and red and I thought now might be the right time to share a lesson I learned a few years ago.  

I’m not a fall person.  I’m a summer girl.  I love everything about it.  The flip flops, the sundresses, the warmth, the sun, the general happiness in the air.  If I could live in summer year round I would do in a heart beat.  I don’t really get people who need seasons.  I’d be perfectly happy in San Diego.  Except that all my people are in the Midwest.

And in the Midwest we have fall.  And people here love fall for some reason.  I don’t get it, but without fail the Tuesday after Labor day brings out The Autumns.  The Autumns love fall, love Pumpkin Spice Lattes and boots, and most of all love reveling in the end of summer because it means fall is coming. 

And I don’t get it.

Once at a dinner party one of The Autumns started on about his excitement for fall and I kind of lost it.  “How can you like fall????  Fall is death.  Everyone goes on and on about how beautiful fall is but all those leaves are changing colors because they are dying!  Fall is just one slow death!” 

Later, he confessed to me that all fall he couldn’t look at the beautiful trees without thinking about death.

I felt kind of bad about that one.  I mean, I pretty much ruined an entire season for him.  It was not my finest moment.

This year, on this side of death, I anticipated feeling extra scroogey towards fall.  I’ve lived in the thick of winter for close to a year now and I didn’t need all those leaves changing color and reminding me of dying.  I have enough reminders.

But something funny happened this year.  I don’t know if it was because we had a particularly beautiful fall, or if it was precisely because I am on this side of death, having experienced it so intimately this year, but I found myself marveling at the beauty of fall these past few months.  I couldn’t help myself.  I’d be out walking with the kids and a tree would literally take my breath away.  Drives around town were fraught with  beautiful colors and trees in full bloom.  

I felt guilty at first.  I tried to shove down this acknowledgement of fall’s beauty.  But it kept coming.  I couldn’t stop marveling.   There was something about those beautiful trees.  It was like death wasn’t going down without a fight.  Yes, the leaves were dying and falling away, but they were going to die beautifully, damnit.  They weren’t going quietly.  They weren’t about to leave without bringing a final bit of beauty into the world.

Which of course made me think of my dad’s death.  When I looked, I saw the beauty in it.  His death was traumatic and shocking and so very painful.  But there was beauty, damnit.  There was beauty in the community of people who showed up and loved us immediately after his death and continued to care for us throughout this year.  There was beauty in the way it knit us closer.  And there was so much beauty in the tributes made to my dad.  For weeks after his death people told his stories, the stories of his beautiful life, the things that they loved about him and the ways that he had lived a good story.  It was death that wasn’t going down without a fight.  The beauty of his life wasn’t going away untold. 

And it’s in our love for him.  Our love for him and the ways we carry him with us and try to keep him alive bears witness to this notion of death not going down without a fight.  We speak his name and tell his stories so that in his death, his life still blooms boldly.  His legacy and his love is so deeply embedded in our hearts that he will not die quietly.  There is beauty and color in remembering him and what was so wonderful about his life.

And so maybe I’m changing my mind about fall.  Maybe I’m finding some beauty in the dying.  Or rather I respect the beauty in the dying.  We all die right?  But our legacies, our life’s work.  That’s not going down without a fight, without a final bloom of beautiful.

Summer Season

Summer=Ice Cream.  Always.

It’s summer.  This summer, more than ever before I’m finally feeling like I’m enjoying it.  Like I’m really in summer.  When I think back on the last few summers I can see why.  In 2012 I had a newborn.  In 2013 we had just moved in with  my parents and I was experiencing all sorts of “living with my parents with two kids” adjustment stress.  In 2014 I had another newborn.  And we’d just moved.  Last summer I was pregnant.  Summers, despite their status as my favorite season, have been hard around here for the last few years.  They haven’t felt like the sweet relief that summer should feel like.

Maybe because I have two kids in school now, or maybe because this summer is the first one in 8 or 9 years that I haven’t been working, or maybe because I’m not experiencing any of the aforementioned transitions this year, but this summer feels like a break.  I was really careful not to schedule us too much.  We took two weeks of swim lessons and that was it.  I didn’t do any camps, or classes and aside from Liam’s  4 day a week for 5 weeks summer school session (which was kind of a bummer) we have had nowhere to be and nothing to wake up for.

And it’s been glorious.

I’m appreciating the slower pace and the shorter to do list.  I don’t have as many appointments to keep track of or regularly scheduled life things to attend.  I’m enjoying the extra cup of coffee and the way our morning unwinds a bit before we set about our day.  Rory still naps from 9-10am, so we can’t really do anything or go anywhere until she’s up.  Which means for the first three hours of the day, we’re slow.  

I was worried at first.  Outside of our routine of school would the days stretch out until forever and feel like a long, hot crawl to death with lots of kids fighting for my attention and not enough personal space?  There have been moments of that, yes, but really, mostly it’s been awesome.  This is the summer where our chaotic years of babies born so close together is starting to pay off.  They are pals this summer and the big three disappear together for long stretches of time, lost in imaginary worlds they’ve created.  I’m so thankful we didn’t schedule any camps or lessons.  Dinners have been pretty low key as my usual routine of trying mostly new recipes all the time is on hiatus for a while.  It’s been a lot of tacos and grilled chicken with salad, and last week after we all stayed late at the pool I attempted the open faced bread, cheese, tomato and bacon sandwiches that my parents used to make when I was a kid.  My kids loved them, as my siblings and I did before us and this easy meal will be a new part of the rotation, likely to stick around long after summer.  For us, this break from all the things has been really necessary.

Cheap baseball games is another must this season.

Since my dad passed away I’ve found that I’ve paid more attention to the seasons.  It’s weird, but he died the day before the first snowfall of a brutal winter.  In that way the winter season ushered in the winter of my grief.  While the winter of my soul stuck around though the literal spring and summer that first year I couldn’t help but notice the seasons.  At first this was because the metaphorical seasons of my grief were so misaligned with the physical seasons.  But then, because my grief had caused me to notice the changing of time in a new way, I found myself aware of how a new season could help me transition through a new rhythm.  This summer, for the first time, I’m finding that life’s circumstance and my own intentionality, have allowed me to maintain the right rhythm for the right season.  After the chaos and business of spring (May is the new December when it comes to ALL THE THINGS!) June, July and August absolutely needed to be the unhurried bliss they’ve been.  Rory’s nap has kept me from rushing out the door in an attempt to tackle the to do list (which is really just a way of keeping us busy because some days I buy into the lie that busy=better).  My kids needed this season to discover their built in playmate statuses.  

I’ve needed this season, probably as much as them.  Our new summer rhythms gave me the space to create necessary margins in my day so that I’m not crazy mom by 4:15.  With all the kids home it would have been easy to feel like I needed to be cruise director mom, entertaining and occupying all day long.  But I know myself and that, friends, would be a disaster.  Cruise director mom would throw everyone overboard by noon.  Instead I started waking at six and giving myself an hour to read and drink coffee before the kids wake up.  During Rory’s first nap I shooed the big kids downstairs so that I could write for 30-60 minutes.  And in the afternoons while Rory and Lou both nap I instituted quiet time for Liam and Ry.  I set a timer and make them play together quietly for an hour or so and then let them watch a show as a reward.  It buys me about 90 minutes to tackle the few things on my to do list or just read a book by myself.  I need that time of not talking to anyone so I can reset for the afternoon.  These margins are important and they are helping to prevent me from becoming crazy eyed mom when Tommy comes home (most days anyway).

I know we can’t maintain this lackadaisical rhythm come fall.  We don’t live in a beach town where it’s summer year round.  The changing of the leaves and start of school will stop our slow mornings, and Rory will drop that first nap soon, ending my writing time (or forcing me to find a new time for it.  Optimistically I’m hopeful that when the seasons change my soul will be ready for the change too and that I’ll look forward to the structure and the productivity.  

I’m also trying to figure out how to take the lessons of my summer margins into fall.  I’m looking for ways to build in those spaces that will keep me sane.  I’m pondering how to take a piece of the summer rhythm into fall.  I know it’s doable but it may take a few weeks to gain my footing.

At any rate I’m going to lap up every last drop of this glorious summer season, both in the air and in my soul.  This has been exactly what it needed to be.  There’s been lightness and fun, adventure and rest.  We are all thankful for summer life and all looking forward to the sweetness this season can bring year after year.