Because of the drought our heat-stressed trees turned early this year, then dropped most of their leaves in the first heavy rain, happy to be relieved of the burden of supporting them. This fall  reminds me of the year that I learned to appreciate the fall, previously resented as the harbinger of winter and cold.  Fall was the exit of the freedom of summer, long nights, warm breezes, napping in the hammock under the apple trees, and many of my favorite things.

That fall I was pregnant and under orders to slow down.  What my newly lightened schedule gave me was literally the time to stop. To observe instead of racing from chore to chore, treating anything that could distract me as the enemy.  That fall as I walked from our house to the garage, which was way, way back at the end of our deep Chicago lot, I practiced slowing down.  I saw the same things I had seen every year, but had never really seen.  Counterpoint to the exuberant growth of showy spring, now was a more modest time of shutting down, without which there would be no spring.

I saw the manic squirrels and honking chevrons of Canadian geese, but it was the familiar plants of our backyard which captivated me.  Slowly, deliberately, they stopped reaching for the sun.  They turned their energy to the ground, sending food to their roots, not their leaves.  Each day a stroke of the the painters brush changed their colors just a little.  Physical changes followed suit, in harmony.  Now rather than seeing them as friends planning to desert me, I saw them as preparing for a journey, from which their return was already scheduled.  They would be back next year and I could introduce them to my baby.

All winter through a difficult pregnancy this thought comforted me.  I tried to stay grounded, send energy where it was needed most, and be patient for the season when fruit ripens.  The following spring and summer, our backyard was my daughter's favorite place to play, and mine too in all the four seasons.