Dear Almost-Autumn

Your sister Summer, she is like a sprint—fast, feet hitting hard hot pavement, heart racing. Your time is the last slow heavy steps and the thud in my chest and ears of the blood pumping slower and slower to return to resting.

In the morning I stumble to the crisper drawer and then pad around the house with a pair of ripe plums . . . sometimes in the afternoon, too. (And maybe once, even past midnight.)

Some folks tidy in the Spring, but for me the clearing is most natural now, as the evening light fades faster and the days become more frequently overcast and breezy. My new year begs to begin with the harvest, with the early decay of summers fruits, with school days, with readying to celebrate my own birthday and the holy days where the veil is thin. The season’s wheel may have no beginning or end, but this is where my year premieres.

So far, this preparation looks like 13 full to bursting lawn bags of items going to thrift. It’s a still messy studio desk waiting patiently for me to start over, to ready my art space for the coming months and envision the year ahead.

Today is the day for wishing, but also for what manifested these past dozen moons. Today Luna is pregnant and laboring for the equinox. There is an eclipse. She is full, and whole and nurturing future possibilities.

I am pressing pause on the urges fueled by guilt and necessity.
— the piles of dishes in the kitchen and cat hair in the already dusty corners
— the immensely cluttered coffee table with half finished coloring pages, a thrice ripped out knitting project, two pairs of glasses, q-tips, a holiday potholder and two remotes with dying batteries
— even the plants who could really use a drink will have to wait one more day

This day is being written and lived in ways that don’t include sweeping the porch or doing the laundry. I will rest, because Almost-Autumn, I love you, but you make my sleep fit-full. And your mosquito friends are desperate in their imminent undoing and have made my blood their wine for their farewell celebration.

I will catch up with friends, eat good food and study the lunar wonder when the sun sets.

Until tomorrow
when I return to the sacred mundane.

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