Hike up to the top of most any lookout in the fall and it feels as though you managed to freeze time. Standing at the brink, it's as if your presence at the overlook pushed the pause button on life and the shifting leaves. If only one could replicate this feeling away from the summit. A moment to still the deluge that comes barreling in on the heels of end of summer and start of school. It's high hiking season and I am not prepared for the month that comes.
Blessings shower me like falling leaves yet I sink under the heaviness of their responsibility, a sodden leaf pile chilled and suffocating. I've found myself buried in the season I love best and the raking continues. And as forcefully as it began, just like that it's over, a fit and flurry of fallen leaves. I look back on October hunched over and panting, a runner crossing the line, chest bursting and gulping for air. What to do now that it's done?
Reflect: On the remarkable realization that receiving the things you've dreamt of isn't just being handed a basket of puppies. Those puppies need to be walked and fed, and they will shit all over the floor.
Recharge: Nature. Sunrises. Library visits and nights on the couch. Baking. Books. Cats in laps and unhurried hugs.
Rejoice: It would be too easy to slide into the stressy-madness the holidays often become. But I'm delighted to approach it with a different intention. After a month of deadlines and to dos, I'm celebrating maintaining the bare minimum of boxes to be checked.
Shoulder season is here. A pause before the cold settles. There's pressure to shoulder up and bare the weight of what's to come. Sometimes we must brace up and put it to the wheel. But we can't neglect to take it off again.
"Now I wake on stubborn fall days that resist the cold. I wake before the sun, the world wet with anticipation, and I feel this ache, the way the Earth feels its core grind about that central fire that no one sees. It is the slight burn of being here." — Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Books I'm reading:
How To Do Nothing, Jenny Odell (nonfiction) *sounds promising, no?*
Home Ground: Language For An American Landscape, Barry Lopez (nonfiction)
Go Tell The Bees I'm Gone, Diana Gabaldon (fiction) *Yup. I'm still reading this.*
Place we've been exploring: October Mountain State Forest in Becket and Lee, Shaker Mountain Trails in Hancock
Something that gave me pause: Why Some of Us Don't Have One True Calling
October's Playlist >> Autumn-aton
Current obsessions:
Great British Bake Off, Season 13
Salted Caramel Perfect Bars (preferably frozen)
Heidi Klum's worm costume (and the subsequent memes)
Catching the tang of woodsmoke in the air at midday
Stay in motion,
Tay
taylor@berkshirefamilyhikes.com
