There are times when extreme loyalty to one season or place or endeavor in life prevents the ender that comes before the opener.
My dear friend Susan has a lovely intuition for and acceptance of a season ending to make way for another.
The fine artist Paula Plott Amos resisted the urge to move to a steadier climate because, she said once to me, my work is inspired by the seasons. Years ago, one of my best pals and I fun-tussled for one of Amos’s exquisite wooden Christmas ornaments in a (literal) Santa steal among friends. Not many months ago, I saw one, now tagged “vintage,” in a crystal bowl in one of my favorite spaces at Glenwood Antique Mall.
Our daughters, by birth and marriage, have infinitely more wisdom than I did at their ages. They practice restraint, understanding that the season they are in with their children must close before a new season, in which they elevate some of their own interests or tackle every desire on their long heart-to-home checklists, opens.
It’s now fall, and I continue to water the things that must, in the close of their season, fade. But I am older and wiser. Today, I’ll trade the fertilizer I’m itching to feed them for food for thought.