Shifts

Oh no, not again. Summer’s ending. Sigh.

I love the sunshine, the bright early dawns, the heat, the beach. But today I woke up to darker than before, and rain. And I felt sad and sorry because summer makes me giddy with the light, the smell of back yard grilling, the tingle of ocean water, the comfort of picnics. I am never ready to let that all go.

But today, I had to admit, summer is done.

Apparently something inside of me shifted with this admission because this morning something different happened: I wrote.

It’s been hard to write. Why write when there’s so much fun to be had? But my fun is geared toward being outside and basking in the light. So today I had to try something else. And it was not easy. It was frustrating and discouraging to see my words fail so utterly to represent what I wanted, to evoke what I was trying to evoke. I realized I’m way out of practice. And after months of play, the writing felt like WORK. And I wanted to give up. I did give up, but I only gave up a little bit. I mean, I quit, but then every time I threw up my hands in disgust at my lack of skill, I brought my eyes back to the page, and I kept going. After a while, I jumped to a whole different project in the middle of trying to conquer some pages that need so much work. That felt like a failure until I realized I didn’t entirely give up. I only shifted.

And I let myself stop after I got tired. (An hour or two of writing wears me out.) I turned away from the words to the mental quiet of household tasks, cooking, washing dishes, folding laundry. I took my breakfast outside where I noticed that the rain made things smell like dark spices and mint. As I sat with my eggs beside the dead daisies and the blooming dahlias, I noticed something. I noticed that my mind had entered a different groove. No longer the linear, rushing, get it done, get it up on the internet, get the messages answered groove that it’s usually in, hurrying to get my work turned in so I can go out and play. A new groove. A groove that was once familiar but I haven’t been in for a while. This groove is wider. It meanders. There is space. There is a floating quality to it that I haven’t felt for a while. It feels good.

So I think I cannot be too sad about the seasonal shift. I must remember that leaving the long, luxurious, sunny days behind is not a total loss, that there is something to be gained in curling into these darker days ahead, the cooler air outside. When winter comes, I will be ready, pen in hand, for more time to create, to be quiet and still, to find space, to explore and listen in to me.

Catharine H. Murray, Author Now You See the Sky (Akashic Books, 2018)

September 20, 2024

Portland, Maine

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