.....first fall

Yogis,
I am on my final beach vacation of the year. By the time I leave after Labor Day, summer 2023 will be a wrap.

This was the week we stepped into our beach house as owners again, while the last renters packed up the car and headed home to get kids back in school and themselves back to work. I organize, I clean, I walk the rooms, rearrange and make the beds.....all to make it mine once again.

Happy to be back.

On my drive down I listened to the podcast Wiser Than Me, where Julia Louis-Dreyfus interviews women who have much wisdom to share. Before she introduces her guest she always speaks about what the theme of the show is and this week's was the beautiful, complicated, sacred, and sometimes messy relationship between a mother and her children. 

These past couple of weeks I have been spending time with my grandchildren and in the process have had the joy of watching my own children now parent. 

Memories flood in of those days with my three young boys. One image in particular came to mind on this final summer week……. Walking the beach alone with my youngest in a snuggly on a morning where we were the renters packing up to head home. My maternity leave was coming to a close. Salty tears rolled down my cheeks as I held him tight.

Julia read this poem and as we begin to see fall off on the horizon I thought I would share it with you. It touched me and I hope it does the same for you.

 

First Fall 

Maggie Smith

 

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark

morning streets, I point and name.

Look, the sycamores, their mottled,

paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves

rusting and crisping at the edges.

I walk through Schiller Park with you

on my chest. Stars smolder well

into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,

the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.

Fall is when the only things you know

because I’ve named them

begin to end. Soon I’ll have another

season to offer you: frost soft

on the window and a porthole

sighed there, ice sleeving the bare

gray branches. The first time you see

something die, you won’t know it might

come back. I’m desperate for you

to love the world because I brought you here.

Om,
SARAH