Summer’s Finale

I think I lost heart when Abigail and Izaak snapped a few dozen photos on moving day.

Next in the Digital Detox series, I meant to say things like, “keep what is only useful and beautiful,” advice borrowed from a Robin Jones Gunn character (easily applied to tangible things as well as electronic). Or, “keep only those friends you care to keep up with.” You know, something clever and memorable. We all know about the Algorithm; why not work it from our end?

But we moved this past week, and the word “upheaval” appeared in the wreckage of things, hovered close by as I broke down the first time. Then the second and third times. It was rough, but now with everything clustered under one roof, I find space. To breathe. To muse over a wild summer born of pop-up life storms now gone away.

Maybe the skies are smoked-out vaults where you live. Maybe you could fry an egg on your front porch step. Maybe relentless fog still shrouds your favorite mountain and the heat kicks on at night.

No matter the weather where you live, the last blooms of August always signal summer’s grand finale and the promise of fall. For me it signals the promise of Season Two of the Life Out Here Podcast. Which means I have a big story to write.

As you close out your own Season of Light -as you mourn its fading or rejoice at the notion of cooler days – may you find all the rest and joy you sought at its beginning. May you find in your reflecting that though this season brought its own sorrows, it also blessed you. Perhaps in ways you have yet to perceive.

I plan to close out quietly, to immerse myself in nesting once more, and to record the stories I can hardly wait to share with you this fall.