Seasonal shifts

all else being equal

Happy fall equinox.

Summer is becoming fall and you can feel it in the balmy air. Today marks the official tipping point over into shorter days and longer nights, but already the days have been shortening and the weather has been shifting. And my emotional weather has been shifting as well. I have been trying to cling to the last of summer, and I have been trying to stop clinging so tight. 

Earlier this month, I was in Michigan for what I had intended to be a summer last hurrah, and instead turned into a first taste of fall. My family gathered at a house on the edge of a lake, in the hopes of spending the day out in the sun and in the water. But the sun didn’t show itself and it rained all afternoon, so we traded our bathing suits for sweat suits and still made the most of it. 

In town, the farm stand was selling pumpkins and apples, next to the last of the peaches and corn. The barrels of tomatoes were for canning, no longer destined to be eaten raw on toast with mayonnaise and salt. Which is what we had for lunch regardless: one final plate of Harriet sandwiches for all. The grocery store aisles was full of fall flavor combinations, the packaging now different shades of brown and orange. August teased me about the changing of the seasons and my refusal to accept it, and bought a pumpkin to make his point. It worked. (My cousin August, I mean, not the month, although the double meaning is fitting here.) 

The thing is, I planned this trip while in the throws of my summer disorientation, so I was really vying for a final dose of summer. I was seeing this as a way to close out summer, and in so many ways it did. One final swim, one final trip, a lot of restorative time with family, like in summers past. I just forgot that closing out summer required welcoming in fall. Summer ends, fall arrives, the season shift, it’s inevitable, I know this. It happens every year. The problem is, if fall arrives, I feel like I need to be responsible and studious again. If fall arrives, I need to set my carefree summer energy aside. Fall is formal in a way summer isn’t, fall is focused. And I wasn’t quite ready to get focused. I wasn’t sure what I should be focused on.

It’s silly how hung up I get on seasons. It’s silly how I continually write my way to the same conclusions. But just like we have an internal Circadian rhythm, I’m sure we have an internal seasonal rhythm as well. And just like we disrupt our Circadian rhythm with screen time and blue light, I’m sure we disrupt our seasonal rhythm with year-round work and year-round fresh produce in the fluorescent, misted grocery store cases. And just like we try to reset our body’s clock with melatonin and specialty glasses, we need to reset our body’s calendar, too. 

But I am accepting that fall is here, and I am ready to get studious again. Somewhat. And I’m going to celebrate the transition instead of resenting it. Summer isn't over until I say so, or until I gather friends around a bonfire for a sunset at the beach. I wasn’t ready to give summer up, and then I went and checked all the items off my summer bucket list, and made room for a fall to do-list instead. Today is a cusp, where all is equal and held in the balance, and then we tip over. So I’m reorienting towards fall and what’s ahead.

Because the seasons keep coming, regardless of how we fill them.