Journaling Fall Of Every Kind

“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light." - Ernest Hemmingway

Autumn's Beautiful Ache

Pumpkin pie air, gingerbread land,
stitch of birds on a line

Ducks, falling like rain on a crowded lake,
geese folding up the sky

Corn husk rattle and squirrel’s brown prattle,
mole harvest tunnels to underbrush den

Leafy last hurrahs and weedy rustle
sound of loon on his leaving

Warmth in a green apple kitchen,
steam window covering goodbye.

©Carol Desjarlais 2007

Fall used to be a favorite, but life changed that.  Fall and a harvest moon August 2015 changed all that for me.  Fall, now, has me so nostalgic and I feel Loss so much more present.  As the weather turns night-chill, I feel myself slipping into the deadfall and watch Mother Nature lose her summer dressing;  the gardens with and turn brown and look sad;  no longer rise to go outside to listen to the summer birds;  listen more closely for our resident toad in the evenings.  Yes, the sense of loss is more poignant. There are different kinds of sadness that can hit at the precipice of Fall.

Some begin to feel anxious, when fall sets in, because they know that there is a sense of loss in Nature.  They miss their summer flings and days of long walks in warm summer nights, the activities of summer, the dances, the busyness of gathering.  For those who do not enjoy winter, there is the anxiousness of having to deal with being shut-in more, being unable to get out and about, and resist anything winter, so the anxiety is all about the future.  The first gold and burnished red leaves begin to dance some can sense a nervousness emerging.

As well, I have met and loved people with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) at different levels.  SAD is a depression that hits at the same time as late Fall, every year.  It can be debilitating for some.  It affects sleep, energy, and mood and, for those who suffer from it, it can affect relationships and even a sense of worth.  Their joyous summer self becomes more morose, becomes tense, and a sense of joy wings away with the geese.  

Changes of season can also kick off a myriad of behaviors, feelings, and, like vehicles seem to have trouble at change of seasons, so do some of us.  I greatly loved a man who, when moving way up North, had the most incredibly horrible thing happen, The seasonal change set off mid-life paranoid schizophrenia.  He was famous for inventing keyboards for paraplegics and a voice program for those who could not speak.  He was deeply service oriented.  And then his second fall came and took him with it as winter came barging in.  He went from all he was, to all he was not:  A tragedy, truly.  

Settlement In Fall

This orange settlement of fall; soft streets

and children are chattering in playgrounds

muffled in warm sweaters from crisp chill,

light gathered in leafy shadows like aster

bouquet passed over from friend to friend

across a picket fence, and when lake stalls

at lazy stroke of canoeists on their last skim

before mammoth winter rolls in on ancient breath.

This is when we need to be still and listen,

to see how nature takes this wonder of gold

wounding by sharp knife of season, and curls in

on herself to take time to heal in changing times

when god would have all meditate on ways

we weave like weather through our time.

Crackling ashes surround us and we are wrapped

in thought of life’s listless leanings

to have quiet, even if it means a downing

for a time, in order that we might know

blessing from the brow beaten scurry

of harvest gathered and set to wait

for a winter’s hard brush with earth’s famine.

Bless these times of solitude and shush

and brush with death, all take, so reach

of gentle hand of God’s prescribed love

in even these downtimes of dear things, is felt.

Wait and feel being administered to

by things we often forget to pay mind to

and rise, when rising hurts the least, to give gratitude

for miracles that hover on the edge of illness.

©Carol Desjarlais 2007

Another thing that can get a second wind is grief.  It is not just a complicated grief or unresolved grief.  It may be a re-visitation from Grief.  Of course, grief ends up coming in waves, years later, long after you have accepted that a loved one is gone and never to return.  I remember searching for what comes after death because I had heard they go to heaven, but then, someone had corrected me in saying that Christians believe that after death there is a long sleep before a resurrection en masse.  I felt better about accepting the long sleep.  And, I wonder how people started believing in immediate heave.. or hell, of course.  I also do not believe in hell or the devils or St. Peter, etc.  But, whatever it takes for someone to find a sense of peace with a loved one's death is right for them.  

I have known that our feelings are a conscious choice we make.  I concur, so when Fall comes, I have a plan A,B,C to get by what  sadness I feel.  This has been termed "Autumn Anxiety" and is fleeting once we gain control of our emotions.  Autumn is a time we have finished, or are finishing, off our harvesting and busyness.  Our mood can change with our seasonal clothing.  But, as we put aside our summer things, decorations, our outside areas, rake down our garden and flower plots, and finish many things, so do I find I must finish off any leftover 'stuff' that I might to brush away.  Anything we hang on to will be 'cling-ons' longer than another season and I cannot lug more than I already lug on through winter and into my following spring and summer.  Fall is a time I try to de-stress more, get organized for winter; find some new challenges, projects, etc., to get involved in.  I try to find Fall things that I love like making pumpkin and apple pies, doing an October art journal, prepare a dayplanner book for the new years, maybe even find a crochet pattern I might try.  And I spend more time with friends.

We do not know what people are suffering.  It is a quiet sense of loss in so many ways.  Be kind to each other as we do not even have a clue what they might be feeling.  As you work on an art journal page, how could you express your own feelings about Fall?  Mine is all about leaving; the geese flying off without me.  This art piece was done following a tutorial on Van Gogh.  You can do it!

©Carol Desjarlais 9.23.19