After almost six weeks of energy and planning, which is my typical response to the close of summer, my mood is quickly changing. It could be the rain and the cold outside my window.
Along with a shift in emotional priorities, I experience twinges of guilt and frustration. What about the projects outlined in early fall? What about the excitement of getting ready for winter. What about the sense of purpose that I had just a short time ago.
I keep trying to carry over the mood of one season into the mood of another. I keep insisting that the lessons of one month apply to other months, but they do not.
I really would – at least I think I would – like to be the way I was in September when the sky was so clear and promising.
But this new inner rhythm, the heavy pulse of rain and November, keeps interrupting all that, obscures the energetic, linear signals of early autumn, pushing them out of time and pulling me down to a slower, brooding meter that tells me caution, contemplation and retreat.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the fourth week of late fall. In the meantime, slow down. It’s the right thing to do for now.
