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There is nothing quite like the season of fall; that rapid sense of change that carries us through this month seems to keep me calm. The burst of cool air seems to quiet down my thoughts, the colours inspire me to be outside and the earlier evenings call me to nest at home. For me, there are so many themes I associate with this time of year and as I was driving in my car I felt as though I had finally articulated some of my comfort in this season, so I thought I'd expand that here.
Summer is hard for me. With the anniversary of my mom's passing in late August, the lack of structure for the 4 months off from school, the decline of my students due to the summer holidays ,I just don't feel like myself. Plus, it's hot, uncomfortable, and just too bright outside which seem to only mock my grief stricken heart and I find it hard to think and be. There are times when I really do enjoy the spring and moments of freedom and relaxation that I adore in the summer, but it is not my season. All of this is followed by my birthday in September feels very much like a personal New Years. There's that cycle of death and life that I live through in the late summer, that carries itself out in my surroundings in the fall. With each dying tree come the most beautiful colours; a death and a birth. That quality of something being magical and beyond ourselves always really hits me this time of year and perhaps with some of my seasonal grief lifting, I am able to process this cycle of life having just lived through the anniversary of my mother's death and the celebration of my birth. I find myself craving sisterhood at this time of year; midwives and witches or supernatural women and women in history or historical fiction. I'm reading about these groups of women who just take care of each other and surround themselves with each other and aside from affirming my very feminist brain, I feel part of that sisterhood. The exchange of women caring for each other ; through birth and death, through life and beyond physical life is perhaps a way that I've learned to process the loss of my sisterhood and an attempt to redefine it. Redefining it with my own sister! my beautiful friends, with heroines and role models and stories that don't deny pain but confirm that no one is truly alone in it. Acknowledging the profound appreciation for the women I have in my life physically and spiritually and allowing that to sustain me after the lowest point of grief in my year. That somber but freeing cycle of life and death finally feels real in October and gives me the freedom to truly process and express it; as an artist, as a teacher, as anyone I want to be. It's really about being in the moment and taking it for what it is, as it is!!!!!! Hello, October I am so glad you've arrived.