All my life I've believed that spring is the time of new beginnings but I'm starting to see it differently. We've spent the last couple of weekends of this fall out in the yard trying to get things all set for spring. We've tilled the garden and put on manure. We added a border around our front flower and shrub area. We sowed seed on our lawn and have been watering and watering and watering it in. I put pansies in the baskets on my porch railing and I have bulbs in the garage to plant in the next couple of weeks. I am finding out that in order to have a beautiful spring, all the work's gotta be done in the fall.
Maybe I'm noticing the vitality of fall because for the first time in my life I'm in charge of a yard - of managing nature. But I'm also kind of pulled by the idea that it might be because I'm in my 30's now. I feel like my fourth decade is that early part of autumn where you're not quite sure that summer is over yet, but you can't help but vaguely notice the earthy smell of dew when you go out in the morning. And for all the fun that summer was, fall's coolness seems mighty inviting. I'm just starting to sense the power that I have in creating a beautiful spring for my children, a worry free winter for myself, and years of continuance and growth for whoever occupies my space after I'm done tending it. Does it sound like I'm getting ready to die? I'm not, just so you know.
But I am really caught up in setting specific, focused goals for myself now that will stretch to the end of my life and that will make it so when I'm done I'll know my yard's been shaped and left the way I want it to be. I want my effect here to be something that blooms in yellow, white and a little purple even if it's just off in a little corner. And I feel like I need to get everything written out for myself before this fall of 2011 is over. In fact the urgency I feel in writing out these goals reminds me of how I feel about Roth IRAs. Every day and month that goes by without me starting them, I ache for the interest I've lost.
Anybody out there have their falls planned out?
1 comment:
JessicaP,
I have my fall planned out...in my mind. i'm the world's best mind-planner and the world's worst getting it done. it's so much easier to just think about it than actually doing it.
i loved the analogy you painted of your life in seasons. as i read it, i thought to myself 'thirty the autumn of life? perish the thought! she's only half way through her summer'. i on the other hand, at fifty something, am well into the fall of life.
i so enjoy reading your blog. you have a way with words that brings me joy.
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