October

https://youtu.be/JKmqyQUDehs?si=cKV9K40jF5tQuxgM

“Oh, Marilla, I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!”
~L.M.Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables~

 “Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties:
  it was the difference between August and October,
between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn,
between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.”
~Jan Struthers, Mrs. Miniver~

This month’s suggested listening is among my favorites of American pianists. George Winston’s eclectic and percussive piano sounds make his folk style engaging, while at the same time giving you a warm and cozy ambience, perfect for fall. This changing of the seasons is a poignant reminder that there is stability in an unstable world, the casting off old attitudes and stepping into a new creation, year after year.

This October stands out for me as an epoch in my life for a couple reasons, the first being that my parents are relocating to within minutes of our home. The change has felt like a long and frightening, albeit exciting, shift; I’m more concerned for their well-being than my own. Consider the unique position of living in one location for eighty-plus years, especially given our specific culture and generation that moves at a pace so quickly that one can rarely feel rooted. The homestead my dad grew up on was about a half mile away, from hilltop to hilltop. I would ride the lawn mower or four-wheeler from the top of our hill down to the stop sign, then up the shorter hill to Grandma’s. I would mow her lawn, or give her a perm and a haircut, followed by a game of Scrabble (lunch with Grandma was never complete without a saucer of home-cooked pudding, butterscotch being my favorite!). My mom grew up just a pace down from Dad’s homestead, and when they married, they built their own farmhouse on family farmland, now a “Century Farm.” As I would sit on the tractor, waiting for the wagon to fill with silage, my eyes would wander over the miles of rolling acres of farmland:  forests, fields, and pastures. I would ponder what lies beyond those hills, beyond the ebb of the present and into the future of our lives. And now we are at the cusp of Tomorrow’s horizon looking over the Next Tomorrow. And I think the only way for me to process the memories of Yesterday, the domesticity of Today, and the dreams of Tomorrow are best described by Jan Struthers:

“It was just what she had needed to round off the scene for her and to make its memory enduring.
Words were the only net to catch a mood,
the only sure weapon against oblivion…
Eternity framed in domesticity.
Never mind.
One had to frame it in something, to see it at all …
“You cannot successfully navigate the future unless you keep always framed beside it a small clear image of the past.”
~Jan Struthers, Mrs. Miniver~

The second reason this October is singular for me is because of a devotional that I am having published. You can view the promotional video here:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10163203517683197&id=579013196

A Thyme to Grow has been a birthing process of over three years. And so I find myself at the brink of the next phase in this particular publishing journey of my life, tentative and curious, willing to unmask the fear that would prevent me from publishing in the first place.

This October, in whatever you’re facing in this “deciduous” world, may you find yourself ready and willing to embrace the changes, rememebering that change is inevitable for growth.

“The old beautiful painted aristocracy of the leaves…
had fallen in a night,
overthrown by outward pressure and inward decadence.
What remained were the essential masses of the tree…
There is no other way, it seems, in a deciduous world.”
Jan Struthers, Mrs. Miniver, P.172

“Embrace change.
It’s inevitable for growth.
 Together we can shift pain into wonder and love,
but it is up to us to consciously and intentionally create that connection.”
~Franz Kafka~