Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Late September and fall is upon us.
I was reading a post recently about the loveliness and gloriousness of fall. As a little girl, there was a small Silver Maple at the top of our street. I remember standing in the leaves, marveling at their color. At college in Massachusetts, walking the tree lined paths to class on a fall morning is a favorite memory—puffy vest, back pack, and all.
A decade of living in Vermont bakes fall in. Yes, fall is apples, pumpkins, and leaves. It is also a time to put away, put aside, put by. In fall, the garden needs tending: harvesting, pulling, turning. The yard needs tending: pruning, clipping, raking. Yes, fall is beautiful and cozy. And, it’s more than than that. It’s also a time to put things in order.
It’s time to put things in order.
When I hear “put things in order” this former librarian immediately looks for the organizing principle. Did you want things organized by last name, by subject, by date, by last use, by number of times cited? There is more than one.
What “order” would be meaningful to you?
The beauty of not organizing for others anymore is that the “user” in this instance is myself. I don’t have to discard my own organizing principles to make way for others. Instead, I can center my ways of creating order.
That is if I can find them.
Undoing learned, inherited, and institutionalized ways is no small thing. Martha Beck’s discussion of trauma and socialization in The Way of Integrity feel like tools for this work. She breaks it down:
Listen: the problem isn’t how hard you’re working, it’s that you’re working on things that aren’t right for you. Your goals and motivations aren’t harmonizing with your deepest truth. They didn’t come from your natural inclinations. They came from the two forces that drive us all off our true paths: trauma and socialization.
Finding out what you know to be true, what you know to be best, what you know to work - it is harvesting, pulling, and tending. Like closing up the garden for the season, there is hard work there. I’ve pulled my back out more than once pulling out plants whose roots were deep, established, strong.
There is much to take from what I’ve pulled up: food to enjoy, food to put by, nourishment. And nutrients for the compost bin: things that aren’t needed now that are the soil for future plantings. Once done, the soil is rich. Turned over and ready for what I choose to plant. For what I want to grow.
What do I want to grow?
That question has been lingering. It’s a signpost that it is time to get clear. Again, I look to my tools. I look to my vision board that sits to the left of my desk. It too needs tending.
Like a garden, I take my time pulling down my summer vision board. I check in, piece by piece: what has this brought me? In what ways am I closer to what I envisioned for myself? As I dismantle this vision, what is here now?
With the cork board empty, I gaze.
In that quiet moment, I ask: what do I want for myself? With images and words from my thick folder of cut outs strewn across the floor, I wander. I wonder. I ask. Small piles form.
Looking over all the snippets, some of which I’ve used in previous boards, I’m reminded that what I needed then is not what I need now. Now, there is a different vision.
This is a different time.
This is a time of gentle persistence.
Image by image, word by word, I plan. I plan my writing practice as I embark on a new project (more that in a later post). I design a vision for my business in its second year. I invite a deepening in my relationships, especially with my body and my friends.
A picture emerges.
A vision for fall that is in line with what is important to me now, with where I am focusing, with what I am calling in, with what I seek.
It feels both fresh and known. Crisp and comforting.
Happy fall.
Prompts for you:
What is it time for this fall?
What do you want to grow?
What does a vision for fall look like for you?
Thank you for being here.
Share this free post with a friend.
Subscribe to receive posts directly in your inbox.
Loving my work? Say thanks by buying me a “virtual” coffee.
I have space for one new coaching client this fall. Are you that client?
Gentle persistence. I like that.
beautiful vision boards, succinct and inviting. wonderful prompts as well. thank you S. x