Photography by Lori K. Tate
It finally happened. Summer’s fever broke. This past Saturday, I awoke to what can best be described as a crisp fall day, complete with a few rain sprinkles and fallen leaves for extra credit.
As soon as I breathed in the cool air, I began making plans to give my front stoop the makeover I had promised. For weeks, I walked down my front steps while scorched geraniums stared back at me with the expression of “really?” I reassured them that once it was cool I would take them out of their misery, but I refused to replace them with anything that was remotely living until I knew that we were indeed autumn bound.
By Sunday afternoon, the back of my minivan was filled with yellow pansies and orange pumpkins. (If my car weren’t so messy, it would have looked like a Lands’ End ad.) I quickly slipped on my garden gloves and went to work, casting away plants made crunchy by a relentless summer and a lazy waterer. It felt good to rip away the old and replace with the new.
As I tucked the yellow blossoms into their new home, I knew that I wasn’t just planting flowers. I was laying a foundation of hope for the fall — for me and for so many of my friends. Recent conversations (and posts for the matter) have brought me to the conclusion that almost everyone I love is going through something challenging right now.
For some, it’s health issues — big ones. For others, it’s work transitions, complicated marriages or kid troubles. Regardless of the details, it’s all for real, and one of the best ways to show that you believe things can get better is to plant something. By sticking a plant in the ground, you’re telling yourself and the rest of the world that you think it has a chance of becoming something better, something that can make people happy. There’s no reason we can’t think the same of ourselves.
I’ve always looked at the change of seasons as little New Year’s Eves. They offer us a chance to start fresh, make new goals and even dress differently. And the best part is that it’s not a big deal. Yes, people want to scarf down anything pumpkin –flavored as soon as the calendar turns to October (I keep waiting for pumpkin-flavored cough syrup), but the world isn’t forcing you to set resolutions and reinvent yourself every Halloween. This is your little secret, and that makes it a powerful Wink of Goodness.
If things are going well for you, by all means, continue cruising through the calendar. But if your summer was a hot mess, which it literally was if you live in the South, this is your opportunity to go a different way and see what’s down another road. If you’re at an intersection, open your eyes and you’ll see me trying to figure out which way to go. I haven’t charted a course yet, but I have faith that I will. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have planted flowers.