Papa Hemingway Knows What I'm Talking About

You expected to be sad in the fall.

Part of you died each year
when the leaves fell from the trees
and their branches were bare against the wind
and the cold, wintry light.

But you knew there would always be the spring,
as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.

-Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway gets it. It’s not autumn, or even winter; it’s the transition, the dying off, little by little.

Part of me is dying; that exuberant part that I discovered in spring when I became hypersensitive to the renewal of the earth around me.

As the days go by and there is less and less new life to chronicle, I lose a little bit of that sensitivity, that enthusiasm. It falls from me like petals, like fiery leaves in the wind.

But that’s OK, I guess. In part because that sort of energy is unsustainable long-term, not to mention exhausting to those who have to live with me.

The days grow shorter, I slow down and mellow. I cook. I snuggle. I catch up on long-neglected reading.

I look more carefully for little things to take joy in.

Mushrooms growing out of tree trunks.
Birds’ nests revealed in the absence of leaves.