Finding so many small lingering summer moments in our garden right now. Choosing to notice them before the season fully wraps. I won’t say I’m NOT burning a fall candle right now. Fall is my favorite. But there is a conscious effort to be present in these transitional weeks.
I think at times we can feel caught by our choices, but slowing down for even a minute is absolutely within our wheelhouse. When so much is important, don’t let the moments be robbed by a franticness. That’s another goal of mine as school starts up and we dive in to a full schedule.
I met my niece for the first time a couple weeks ago. She’s around 5 months old, and growing like a weed. She was a bundle of reminders about time, and parenthood, and the intangible feelings we have around love. I can’t hold my own kids like I held her anymore. While I loved that time, this now is a good thing.
They’ve grown and are growing, hopefully, with a presence of mind and expanding sense of self, security, and love. I was present for them in my arms, I want to continue this while they’re in my reach.
So, slowing down to look at the garden becomes a practice for other parts of my life. It becomes an exercise for understanding moments and how they are not permanent. It’s a practice for realizing that if nothing ever changed, we’d lose the freedom we love. We’d lose the capacity to understand how a point in time can be so precious. This slowing down is essential. There are no hard rules around it, and it looks different for every season, person, situation. The only nonnegotiable is it cannot be skipped.