Edit 61: Seasons of Change
On Autumn and Life’s Changing Seasons
What does a Saturday in fall look like for you? For my husband and me, it’s like a Saturday in June: warm but not hot, humid but not overly so. There’s a slight breeze if you stand still long enough, and neighbors dress in layers as the temperature rises and falls with the sun. It’s very green with a few dabs of murky brown (especially if you have that Carolina fescue in your yard). A few leaves at the tops of our trees have started hinting at the change, and after a storm, wet and shiny browns, reds, and yellows marked our driveway.
But overall? It’s the South—North Carolina specifically. If you’re not in the mountains, you’re not allowed to cross the velvet rope into the autumn club yet.
Strangely, I’m fine with that. There’s a slow and steady pace that seems to have taken over since August. Our Saturdays look a little different. No marching band or parade practices. No senior activities or college application reminders. I miss the season those things belonged to, but there’s something lovely in the way life has shifted along with this one. Outside, nothing seems to have changed with the calendar. But inside—our home and our lives—things have.
We are busy, traveling, volunteering, working—socializing, too. But it’s the little things in the middle, that delicious in-between, that mark the days with moments worth remembering.
It’s sharing an apple-filled pastry punctuated by dashes of cinnamon and cardamom with a friend, sipping the almost too-sweet s’mores milkshake from Chick-fil-A. It’s lighting the terracotta pumpkins on a console and watching the flickering candles dance across the charcoal facades, the gnarled branches within a wicker cauldron casting shadowy spells in the early morning light.
It’s friends who’ve become clients and the golden-hour photographs in a city I’m still figuring out. It’s a quick day trip to Memphis to pick up someone’s 50th birthday present, and getting clothes tailored for an off-season getaway. It’s my rule to never answer texts or emails until after Pilates and a cup of Cafe du Monde—a non-negotiable for this empty nester.
It’s fall, and maybe it sounds a little corny, but I feel like life is on the rise. Doors are opening, hotels and flights have been booked, and I have found my circle—my people—that I get to share it all with. Not just on Saturdays, but every day.
Soon there will be pumpkins spilling down our entrance like an autumnal welcome mat. Ghostly candles will hang alongside floating pumpkins. But for now, it’s a pretty simple Saturday. One filled with sweet sips, one firm rule, and the smaller moments that are making this season feel like ours, velvet rope or not.
