This post was written in fall 2020. Due to the pandemic themes, I am choosing to publish it vs. waiting for fall 2021, which I’m hopeful will be an entirely different set of circumstances!
Fall is my favorite time of the year. I find contentment and in everything from sweatshirts and campfires. Some of the happiest times in my life are fall festivals where crisp mornings wrapped in scarves and mittens are made magic by the warm crullers covered in cinnamon sugar handed out piping hot by the volunteers at the Catholic Church booth. This fall though, we had a global pandemic. No fall festivals, strangely altered attempts at outdoor gatherings from camping to sports. No Michigan cider donut crawl with dear friends where we laugh ourselves sick, caravan, buy apples and fall produce and rate cider donuts on texture, flavor, crispness and cinnamon sugar coatings. This is, for many of us, a year together, apart.
This fall, instead of the usual celebrations of spirit and season that fall has always been to me, I find myself preparing for winter. Fall has been about the work of my ancestors: filling the pantry for winter, filling the freezer with summer and fall produce for winter soups and stews, getting cuts of meat into the deep freeze for roasting. Even now, as I type, green beans are slow cooking in the crock pot with ham ends and vegetable stock while a chicken cooks down in the instant pot to become rich broth for soups and chicken with noodles for weeknight suppers.
I am preparing for winter. I am laying in supplies for projects: the organizing of household spaces, art projects, making blankets and baby gifts. The new 2021 calendar has been purchased to keep track of goals, planning, appointments and online groups to stay in touch with friends, community and rehab. The pantry is stocked with teas, the sunny yellow teapot and green Harrods of London tea pot cozy at the ready, carafe handy to carry to my writing space. The deep, rich aroma of freshly roasted Needmore Coffee beans to make our daily sustenance fills the pantry.
This year, more than ever, the usual celebration that is fall, has evolved into the anticipation of winter. I heard it whispering in late July. It began calling to me in early August. This year, long before fall ever arrived, the feeling that “winter is coming” called to me with a deep need to prepare to hunker down. Flannel sheets went on the bed earlier than usual. The idea of holiday cooking and treat making was surpassed by planning for winter meals and knowing that spring, this year especially, was a long way out.
I am preparing for winter. A presidential election lies before us. We continue to witness daily abuses of a narcissist-in-chief surrounded by sycophants, our nation seemingly divided around the most fundamental issues of humanity: who is human and how are they treated? Unrelenting abuse of migrant children and families, unrestricted violence against people of color and women, unchecked political power all demonstrate how fragile, how broken, we are as a nation. Pandora’s Box is wide open for every hate group identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, all a foundation for global pandemic where many feel no regard for their fellow community members, instead vowing to go mask free and politicize a public health issue with known ways to mitigate.
I am preparing for winter. Responsible for the support of elder parents, ranging from later 70’s to weeks away from 90, we are not at liberty in our home to act in cavalier fashion. Our household and family members have high risk factors. We dare not endanger those we love. Holidays scaled back or cancelled entirely, limited exclusively to the “pods” we have long since committed to, we focus on respecting the virus.
The world will continue to unfold. In our home we will hunker down. We will work from home, light the fire, write, read, cook slowly and gently, nest into our home that never got the move in care and organizing we wanted to provide, focus on rehab activities to support my healing brain. Spring will come. We will take stock again then.
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