Day 241: Autumn Musings

Long has autumn been my siren song.

I love the low rays of morning sun, the brisk afternoon breeze that lights the first trees on fire, and the nighttime chill that shrivels plants, fogs windows, and encases quite ordinary puddles in paper-thin panes of frosted glass. These separate elements join together in a rousing, desperate, half-whispered song that makes autumn my favorite time of year. If the summer sun lulls me to sleep, then the fall wind wakes me up. It makes me want to dream higher, dig deeper, and go farther than I have ever done before.

All this is well and good when you're an unattached teen with apple-pie-in-the-sky dreams, few responsibilities, and no idea what twists and turns the road of life is going to throw your way. But when you're underemployed at an unfulfilling job, rooted in place by a house and a husband and a car payment (or two), the autumn sirens sing in vain. Instead of inspiring passion and zest for life, their song woos and wounds and wrecks the hapless sailor on the rocks.

Long has my blog been silent.

I tried to write several times during this short and busy summer, but the sentences that slithered onto the screen were as bitter as a rotten grapefruit. I was angry and discouraged. I regretted the choices I'd made about my education, and I was all too willing to place the blame for my circumstances on God and on the people around me.

On that first July day that smelled like fall, the crisp air froze my heart instead of freeing it, and the fragile thread of trust that kept my hope intact was overwhelmed by sadness.

The worst day was in August.

EI called me on my half-hour lunch break, and I spent the first 25 minutes fighting with them over money I wasn't even asking for, and the last 5 minutes crying alone on a hill in front of Royal Road Elementary School while the trees whispered my secrets to the wind and my co-workers wondered why my face and eyes were red when I came back in to work.

On my afternoon break, I planned to craft an angry, bitter post about how unfair my life was.

But I was interrupted … by a phone call that offered me not just one job, but several … and I got to pick the one that was perfect for me. It is hard to describe the relief that washes over you when your fear-burden finally breaks open and there is nothing but sunshine inside.

Friday was my last day of painting. I left with two schools full of friends, half-a-dozen enthusiastic references from co-workers and supervisors, and the promise of a summer job next year. I drove home under squashy, marshmallow clouds that scudded across the sky, driven by a brisk autumn breeze. 

Sometimes I forget that God is in the business of growing up our souls for heaven, not building castles for our bodies here on earth. While my body spent the summer doing manual labour, and my mind spent the summer resting, my soul spent the summer being molded by the potter who makes all things well.

This autumn, the sirens call in vain. I mean to be contented with … "the mixed novelty and familiarity of snowdrops this January, sunrise this morning, plum pudding this Christmas." – C.S. Lewis

Me thinks it's time to buy some hot chocolate, bake some gluten-free cookies, and go apple-picking with a certain handsome man and an incredibly cuddlesome Newfoundland dog.

PS. Handsome man is also cuddlesome, but reader, we are never gonna go down that road!

Happy Fall!