The temperatures have finally dropped to match the season. We were getting August temperatures clear through the end of September. It was so hot our plants were wilting every day under the relentless rays of the sun, even when I watered them. The ground was parched from more than two months without rain, and the grass was so dry it hardened into brown needles that pierced the soles of my bare feet when I walked over it.
Now, though, I’m wearing flannel pajamas and fleece-lined slippers. It rained a slow, dripping rain all day yesterday. It’s too late to turn the brown grass green, but the garden will drink deeply and be refreshed.
All summer, when the flowers were in bright bloom, and colorful butterflies drifted among the blossoms, and we sailed on the lake under blue skies and white puffy clouds, I wanted it to be summer forever. But in September when the flowers faded, and perennials grew scraggly, and green leaves crisped to brown, yet the heat continued unabated, I realized I only want summer if it’s all the way summer — vivid and alive in the warmth. The heat alone wasn’t enough. I wanted the flowers and the freshness, too.
There’s no stopping the changing of the seasons. It’s useless to resist. I hiked last week to a waterfall, and surrounded by the roar of rushing water, I watched leaves flutter gently down. I sat cross-legged on a rock and accepted that summer is over.
It feels better to stop wishing for something I can’t have. It feels better to go with it, to do what I can to adapt. Now, I write while a cat purrs on my flannel lap. I feel cool crisp air blow through the open windows. I sip my steaming cup of coffee, ready for autumn.
Our daughter gave up her seat in the sailboat this past weekend, and I took it. It was likely to be our last chance to sail before it gets too cold. Already it was chilly for a small, wet boat: sweatshirt and long pants weather rather than sweatshirts and swimsuits.
“I don’t know,” my husband said. “There’s a wind advisory. Gusts to 20 knots.” He looked out the window at the brilliant autumn sky. I sipped coffee and was happy for my slippers.
He looked down at his phone, at the forecast again. “It ends at 6pm though, I think we’ll be okay to go out this afternoon.”
When we arrived at the lake, the sun glittered on its surface, which was free of boats.
Beautiful day for a sail. Or so we thought.
After rowing a short distance from the dock, the wind blew us steadily into the middle of the lake while we hoisted the sails, and then zipped us fast across the dimpled surface.
“It’s not so bad!” I said.
“Yeah, I’m glad we came out,” said my husband.
“The wind is perfect, look how fast we’re going.” It blew splashes of water over the bow, into my face, and down the neck of my sweatshirt.
“The mountains are protecting us from the gusts.” The puddle from the bow splashes grew deeper.
“We’re probably going to regret saying these things.”
Then the sail whipped and snapped and we lost our momentum. We were pointed towards a bend in the lake where we don’t normally go, because there’s not usually wind enough for it. The boat tugged, tipped, took off for a second, and then stalled again.
“The wind is swirly,” said Brian as he pulled the mizzen sheet to fill the main sail to point us where he wanted to go. “Unpredictable.”
I shielded my eyes to look out over the water in the direction we were headed, toward the bend off to the right. The water was getting pretty choppy. “Wow, the wind is tunneling down that part of the lake up there, between the mountains. I see white caps.” Which we were headed towards in our tiny little boat.
My husband looked up at the mountain behind us, where tall trees not blocked by the mountain to our right were twisting and bowing in the wind.
“Coming about,” he said.
The water was not calm any more. The direction of the chop did not match the direction of the wind. My back was soaked. My bare feet were wet and numb in the puddle I sat in. And the boat continued to jerk and snap in gusty air that kept changing direction.
I’ll be honest, I was scared.
We made our way back up the lake in squirrely wind that was growing stronger and more erratic by the minute. We watched the sailing team who had come out onto the water to practice also struggle. They seemed to be having as much trouble as we were. They had jammed rudders and flapping sails, or they’d fly along with their mast at 45° and their rails almost in the water and then suddenly the mast would be straight up and down.
The further we got toward the far side of the lake, the gustier the wind — and it didn’t seem to want to let us turn back. I wanted to turn back. I thought about a crazy thunderstorm I was caught out in a boat with my dad when I was a kid, and how now that it’s over, it seems like a grand adventure.
I hoped this sail would seem like an adventure once it was over, too. At least the sky was blue and there was no risk of getting struck by lightning. Capsizing in the cold doesn’t seem quite as bad as getting struck by lightning. Maybe.
We finally cruised in close enough to roll up the sails and row to the dock.
“Well,” my husband said, “now we know. If there’s a wind advisory we should listen. That was too much for this boat.”
We’ve got soccer games and swim meets until the weather will be too cold for wet sailing, and now I’m sad we might not be able to sail our little boat until spring. Last weekend was an adventure on a glittering mountain lake under a brilliant October sky. It was gorgeous. I was glad when it was over. Now that it’s over, and we’re safe on land, I want to go out again.
Even at noon in October, the light is beautiful. It shines gold on earth, making the blue sky even bluer.
On my flex day yesterday, I walked the path I used to walk every day when we lived at our old house. I listened to the New Yorker Fiction podcast and snapped photographs of October meadows against a cobalt sky.
The garden is transitioning from summer to fall. The milkweed is mottled and scraggly, the sweet basil is yellowed and setting seeds. The parsley bolted, the Thai basil fell over under its own weight.
It’s time to do some cleanup.
Yesterday it rained all day. It was one of my favorite types of autumn Saturdays: chilly, grey, raw. We spent most of the day running errands. We bought new alarm clocks for the kids, harvest candles for the mantle, pumpkin-pie-scented wax melts to make the house smell autumny, and at the last-minute, mums for the garden.
Our daughter and I spent a good half hour inspecting the different colors of mums, gravitating repeatedly to particular ones (white for our daughter, burgundy for me), thinking about the colors in our garden, looking at pictures of the flower bed on my phone, and brainstorming what we needed to clear out and where we could put our favorite-colored specimens.
Today, the drizzle and pregnant grey are gone. The sun shines bright in a clear blue sky, and raindrops glisten on the green grass. The mums are out there waiting for me. I see our daughter’s white ones in a happy clump where the parsley once was. The wind is chilly right now, though, despite the brilliant sun. I’ll need a jacket and gloves while I work.
For now, I’ve got my slippers on and am sipping coffee from the chair by the window. Leaves shiver on the pear trees across the street, maple branches swing, and coneflowers and salvia nod in the wind. I’ll plant the mums when my cup is empty.
Solo but with others is kind the story of my life right now. As an employee of a distributed company, with teammates all over the world, I am physically alone in my home office, but am mentally together with people all day long. I chatter online at with customers from around the world and with colleagues in California, Florida, Texas, Washington, Canada, Wales, Sweden, England, Austria, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia…
I never feel alone, even though I am the only one in the room.
The same is true of my experience running the annual Worldwide WordPress 5k this year: I could have run a 5K in real life with my co-workers last week at our annual meeting in Utah, but I, um, didn’t.
Instead, I am taking the opportunity to join the worldwide WordPress community in running a 5K together this week — virtually — just like I join my coworkers every day. Starting today and going through November 1, members of the WordPress community will be running, walking, or crawling their own 5Ks and documenting their journeys on blogs using the tag WWWP5k. If you’d like to join, please do! You can find more details in the Automattic Worldwide WP 5K 2015 post on our news blog, Hot Off the Press.
My personal 5K journey was a quiet autumn one — my favorite kind. The air was crisp, and the gold and ruby colored leaves shone brilliant against a grey sky. The hills around here kill my legs and my lungs, but the views of the mountain sides are worth it.
I’ve been waiting for autumn to arrive, and it is here. I’m sitting on the couch in sweatpants, with a wool blanket over my lap and a kitten curled up next to me. The wind whips at our house, and it whistles over the chimney like when you blow air across the top of a glass bottle.
It’s been raining for days. Soccer was cancelled. It’s too wet to mow the lawn. For the first weekend in months, there was not. one. thing. on the calendar. Instead of doing house projects — painting trim, ripping out shrubbery — like we usually do during down time, you know what I did instead? I read an entire book yesterday.
It was a good day.
Today I’m making chicken noodle soup and helping our daughter bake bread. I’m going to wear slippers all day long. And I’ve started my next book, this time set in Illinois. A perfect October book: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.
Butterfly Mind 