Fallow

Autumn has always, always been my favorite season. Even when I was growing up in a state where "Fall" meant "tear another page off of the calendar, you can't tell any other way," I knew when it really happened. Maybe it's day length sensitivity or something.

Later, living somewhere with a cliched greeting-card version of the season, I almost got hit by cars walking along looking up at trees (changing!) and clouds (scudding!) just sort of humming happily to myself. Probably equinox-drunk.

And it's happening again now, only I'm a little confused because there wasn't much "summer" to indicate that "fall" would be the coming attraction, and anyone who has ever watched a movie with me knows that I'm all about the previews. And I still love it.

But lately, it's become clear that not only am I not going to make twelve sweaters this year, I may not knit again this year. Combinations of stress have just driven any knitting sort of underground. Lots of work, which is a blessing; my dad has been doing the hospital/rehab place roller coaster, which is also a blessing, in many ways; watching those around me deal with their own troubles in graceful, attractive ways has taught me so much -- hey look! another blessing; and the kids are terrific and very very busy. Blessings all (easier to say now that they're asleep).

Instead of fighting it, which I do sometimes, the concept of letting this lay fallow is growing in me. Spinning has become my evening activity of choice, when I'm not ferreting out blatant plagiarism, and the soothing pull of the yarn and the sliding of the fiber heal whatever is jagged from the day. I even spun in public the other day, horrifying Thing 1, but fascinating everyone from little kids to old people.

While I'd rather be finishing the sweaters begun earlier, and I'd love to be casting on for new projects, it's probably better not to fight the inevitable. In the garden, for example, it's time to plant lettuce and kale, to rake over the old beds and put in the carrots. To plant tomatoes and melons now would be to doom them to misery. Likewise, if I rushed my still-healing body into the gym and pumped weights as though there had been no hiatus, I'd become seriously laid up. Waiting and listening have their own wisdom, and I'm lucky to get to be still in the middle of doing a lot and receive them.