Wow, how time does fly between when I start a post and when I finish it… We have been graced with absolutely perfect early fall weather, allowing me to stay outside in summer mode almost the whole month, until today, really. 80 two days ago, 60 today. But that is New England, wait a minute or two, and it will change.

Despite the warmer temps though, it is certainly feeling like fall, both within and without. The Celtic holiday of Mabon and the Autumnal Equinox were last week, ushering in the harvest season and the time to sink our roots firmly in the ground for the coming winter. Fittingly enough, the same day was also my father’s birthday, and he is the most grounded person I know, from his devotion to our family farm and its yearly patterns, to stubbornly refusing to allow my brother and I to take on and decide more of what goes on here daily—he is truly enough to smother all of my airy ambitions. But strangely enough, his presence often can bring me back from my daydreamy aspirations onto the solid ground of “just get it done.” So here I am- gettin’ IT done.

Late August has perennially been a time of emotional unrest for me, one who is, by nature, not emotionally inclined. It may be harvest season, with pumpkin spice everything and mums and asters on every doorstep, but I get restless and start feeling stuck. The simplest way I can explain it is that school is starting for the younger set, and I feel like I should be starting something new too. I have felt for a long time (namely the 20+ years I have been out of college) that New Year’s Day should actually be where Labor Day is in the calendar. Everything new starts in the fall—school, college, football, basketball, and hockey seasons, television series, new car models are released, so many things. And yet I am just doing the same things as the month before. Yeah, it makes me crazy…

But I suppose the real way to look at this enigma is that I am the one keeping myself the same—so why don’t I do something about it? Well, in a roundabout way, I think I did, cause before I knew what was happening, I had two new projects to embark on, and my angst faded overnight. I had just decided early in September that I would use the harvest season energy toward finishing my business website and launching it, and start looking into preparation for NaNoWriMo in November (if I am brave enough to attempt it?). About a day or two later, I found myself with two new horticultural endeavors—one quicker re-design, and one very substantial grounds reclamation project that could go on indefinitely. Both of these types of projects still satisfy something deep inside me, so I accepted them and dove in headfirst. Problem solved, right?

Yes. I sort of think that the universe responded to that sort of restless energy I put out there and crafted me a solution, but only after I had decided to create my own. Most years I have continued to rail against the end of summer, giving in to those restless feelings and letting them make me agitated and cross when no avenue appears for them. But when I accepted that angst-filled energy and aimed to turn it into something positive, outlets materialized immediately. Suddenly I find myself with my fingers in way too many pies, with the opposite problem—not enough hours in the day to do all I want to. But hey, that is the problem to have, especially for the harvest season, that “just get it done” time of year. Cause the next season that comes is the dark one, when time feels interminable in the New England winter. So I’m gonna take it as it comes now, and do it while I can. All of it.~