A New Season

The air is starting to feel cooler and more crisp. The leaves are shifting from shades of vibrant green to deep burgundy and mustard yellow. School has started for some, and about to start for others. It’s hard to believe it’s already that time of year.

As a Minnesotan, I wait (and wait, and wait) all winter long for those precious days when the warm sun glistens and bathes my body, and the sweet smell of blooming flowers permeates the air.

The approach of Fall has always feels bittersweet. The beauty of the season tickles my senses — the sound of crunching leaves, the smell of burning wood, the vision of colorful leaves adorning trees and dancing their way through the breeze as they descend to the street.

For me, Fall means apple-picking, hayrides, family birthday celebrations, Halloween fun, my husband’s excitement for Vikings football. But Fall has also always signified the impending cold (and long, dark months), as well as the end to the warm, casual, easy-going days of summer.

Here we are, on the brink of another new season — Fall — a season that has, in years past, triggered a certain amount of anxiety and dread. A season that has historically meant that blustering cold, constant illness, short days and loads of indoor time are coming.

But this year, I’m trying something new. I’m accepting Fall, in all its beautiful glory, for exactly what it is: Fall; not the segue to Winter. Fall does not have to cause sorrow because I fear (despise?) what follows it. I can learn (or really try) to live in and enjoy its moments.

This Fall also brings a whole lot of “new” — new beginnings and experiences. My oldest will start Pre-K, and her twin sisters are now old enough to appreciate the joys the season brings (playing in the leaves, and eventually the snow, dressing up for Halloween, their big sis’s birthday, etc.). And then there’s me — I feel reinvigorated by a steady flow of work that I love (#grateful), and a new sense of physical and mental strength I haven’t felt in years (thanks to two bouts of Postpartum Depression, two c-sections and two hip surgeries all within the last six years).

So here we are, on the brink of a new season, and another one after that. And to these new seasons, I say “welcome”. I cannot prevent those frosty, dim days from coming, but perhaps this year they will only be dim in hue, and not emotion.