Written on 9/19/26 at my favorite swim spot.
It always feels at this time of the year that winter is just rushing toward us. It’s still summer, for another few days, before the equinox takes us and moves us toward the coming cold. The leaves have barely started to change, and the sun still beats down hot into the evenings. And yet, I can feel a stirring in the wind, a crisp smell on the air, something that delights me and terrifies me all at once. The bees still buzz through the tall grasses and flowers, late-season pollinators out and about. If one had never lived this before, they might not know what’s coming. But for me, this is the land of my youth, and I can feel the changes in my body coming with the changes in the land. It’s almost like I am part of this earth and this earth is part of me. It’s almost like it was designed like that.
Despite my connection to this land, I will always be a warm-weather wanderer, seeking to find those shoals of sandy beaches or grassy slopes dipping into refreshing water. That is what I love about the summer, which, in this moment, clings onto life with an eerie reluctance, only the gentle tilting of the Earth changing anything at all. Yet, every year around the same time, I find myself in a melancholy, missing what is still here, and yearning for what will come again, surely.
What is it about this time of year? The movement toward relinquishment and letting go, the composting apples that litter the ground, and the smell of leaves and mulch. What is it about the cool in the air when the sun passes behind the clouds, instead of the hot sweltering heat of humid August? September. The changing of the seasons, the dying of the zeniths. There is a loss here, as well as a normalcy, and the most beautiful colors that I have ever seen. Not yet, but I know that they’re coming. And always, this is actually my favorite time of year, melancholy and all. It seems like the time of year to start slowing down, to open up that good book again, to find one’s way into their own heart and feel the generosity of the Earth.
For epochs, this time of year has also been the time of the harvest. That time to look back on the year, on the work that’s been done, and enrich oneself with the fruits of their labor. This is the time to start storing away, preparing for the bitterness and cold. It’s a time to take stock, see how far we’ve come. But it is also the time of much work, for the harvest does not harvest itself. It is the time to pull in the barrels of fruit, store them away in the root cellar, and prepare the fields for next year. It is the time to gather up the fungi and feast upon what was once dead.
And weren’t we all once dead? Weren’t we all just the dirt? Weren’t we all once the colored leaves that spiraled down, arcing toward the Earth? Perhaps the veil at this time of year is thin between the world of life and death. Perhaps this is why the melancholy awakes in my heart. Perhaps this is the calling of the owl, echoing across the shimmering water. Perhaps it all could be open here, and we could remember and realize all at once that we are not that different from the trees, the goldenrod, which is so bright, the phragmites and cattails, the buzzing bees and the gently billowing wind. Perhaps this time of year is meant to remind us that the abundance of life flows through us, just as the certainty of death moves us always toward a new cycle of evolution.
And as much as that might scare me, it’s also a welcome return. For to be alone, floating through life without the rootedness of knowing that we will inevitably return to the Earth, is a separation from truth, and a loss of the real sense of self. I am not only me, but a confluence of realities which have all drawn themselves into an infinity of complexities to become this walking form, which I have the greatest gift to embody for a while. But among the grasses, without any other humans around, with the reflection of the maple tree across the pond, I find myself coming back into a sense of connection, alone, but less alone than I have ever felt. There is no answer, but this.
We are alive. All of us. All of life. Spiraling, soaring, slipping, and surrendering back into the certainty of cycles. Sure, the leaves might fall, the snows will come again, but could there be anything as beautiful as the welcoming arms of love and certainty that we are home on this blessed earth? For me, I can’t think of anything else that could light my soul, breathe life into my lungs, or gently cradle my heart, more than the presence that draws me ever closer to the truth of the moment. And this is the truth of the moment. I’m certain; trellises of meaning which carried winding vines of blooming wisteria. An echoed memory of the first realization. A cycle near its end. We are allowed grief, and loss is ordinary. For always, water will carve out deeper canyons into the Earth, and always those canyons will again fill.
So, I approach my heart with ever softer kindness, allowing the certainty to flow through me, drawing me closer and closer to the Earth. I remember. I recall. I place my palm into the moss and grass, I see the sun, flaming from millions of miles away, flickering through the tall grasses and casting shadows and light onto my skin. My hairs grow ever so slowly, my eyes follow the light, curiosity bearing down on each bit of effervescent meaning, the ephemeral nature of being, and the constant being of nature. Clarity. And yet, indefinable. A culture. A blessing. A burgeoning. Reflections on the still water. The call of the blue jay. The last bits of summer, here, lingering with gracious benevolence. Could there be anything more beautiful?
And yet, as I finally move to put my clothes back on, and feel the chill breeze of approaching dusk foreshadowing the fall, there is this earnest longing for the sun to always feel warm, and for the breeze to always be cool. I am, after all, a warmth-loving wanderer, a jungle cat in a ray.
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