Happy Autumn, y’all! Lots of things are happening around here, and yet at the same time, it feels strangely calm. Something about the changing of the seasons and the cooling of the weather brings a stillness that isn’t present in the warmer months. 

My son wakes up quite early, between 5:30 and 6:30 most mornings. During the summer I kept wanting to crawl back into bed and sleep just a few moments longer. I thought that the cooler, darker mornings would make that even harder, but I have found that I am a bit excited to get up so early. I love to wake up and feel the cool air as I open the back door to let the dog in the backyard. The soft yellow light of the stove light as I prepare breakfast for my son and husband feels comforting. Even switching the laundry and lifting the blinds feels romantic as darkness sits beyond the windows. 

Occasionally I light a beeswax candle as I unload the dishwasher and make our breakfast. This is something I never do in the summer. Lately, I’ve been playing Celtic music quietly as the sun begins to poke above the horizon ever so slightly. I’m not sure what it is, but there is a level of nostalgia that I feel on dark mornings. Maybe it comes from waking early to catch the bus as a child in cold Ohio winters. Waiting at the bottom of our driveway in my parents’ car, the freshness, and newness of the school routine. 

The season of school has passed for me, and it will be several years before we experience it again with our children. Here in the Pacific Northwest, autumn means rain. We have long droughts all throughout the summer months, and when it begins to mist again in late September or early October, it means autumn has arrived. I think that adds to the ambiance. I love the cozy, dreary mornings that start out dark and slowly turn into lighter shades of stormy. When we first moved here I couldn’t stand the rain. I thought it kept me from doing anything, that it was a sentence to remain inside for the rest of the year.

Now in our third year here, it is a welcome rest from the sweltering heat and the restorative but exhausting summer sun. I am already making plans to take my son on hikes and nature walks and puddle-jumping excursions once we get him a rain suit!

Autumn is a trademark season, one that we look to with anticipation. Partially because it is a drastic change of season, which brings along changes in routines, meals, and events. Also partially because of the marketing we face, full of Pumpkin Spice Lattes, faux pumpkins, candy galore, and new decorative throw pillows for dirt cheap. This year I am trying to focus on the real, consistent aspects of autumn. Traditions I can hand down to our children. Events rather than things that we preserve in our family culture for years to come. I will share some of these traditions with you all as we develop them as well. 

For now, I am delighting in the seasonal thrills autumn brings. Cool, romantic mornings. Cozy rainy days are perfect for reading and blogging and snuggling my baby, Apples galore. Pumpkin patches and corn mazes. Family dinners. Warm apple pie. Game nights with friends. Festivals at church. Lit candles as we do our daily homemaking tasks. More time to sew. A chance to slow down and appreciate the beauty around us. 

I love summer and all that it brings, I love the feeling of the hot sun on my skin, of the warm breeze on my cheeks. Yet I do not mourn summer. I look forward to fully embracing autumn, not wishing it away for Christmas time and snow but truly embracing it. I’m sure I heard this said elsewhere and that I am not the original author of this thought; but I feel as though if the seasons were breath, autumn would be a sigh of relief. A time to pause and appreciate. A time for quiet growth and restoration. I hope you join me in appreciating all this season has to offer and relaxing into the natural rhythm of the season and the slowing of Creation.

“The trees are in their autumn beauty, the woodland paths are dry, Under the October twillight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamourous wings… But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they buils, By what lake’s edge or pool Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day To find they have flow away?”

William Butler Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole