"I'm So Glad I Live in a World Where There Are Octobers"

Finally. Finally, we are firmly rooted in fall. That's not to say there won't be a spiteful day or 5 of summer weather still to come. Summer is a clingy bitch and she refuses to go to therapy. I have a hate/hate relationship with her. The heat, the humidity, the clothing, the sensory nightmare of sunscreen/pool/beach/sweat, the lack of external structure and routine. In the words of of the great Randy Jackson, It's a no for me, dawg. Moving to Georgia added to my longsuffering. I've been here for 15 summers now, and I still feel indignant about being landlocked in Atlanta, the giant bugs, the even worse humidity and the extra 2-3 months of 90 degree heat.

Surely these feelings find their roots in my Polish and Swedish ancestry. There's a reason my great, great, great (I have no idea how many greats back) grandparents chose Michigan as their settling spot and not the deep south. And growing up along Lake Michigan with her sand dunes and her lake effect snow certainly formed my internal thermostat.

But summer also holds my hardest memories. My most traumatic experiences happened in summer. As a kid, my loneliest moments were in summer. And growing up with undiagnosed ADHD and anxiety, the complete lack of external scaffolding was overstimulating and sent me into a self-soothing anxious state. I often ended up planted in front of the T.V. with a plate of pizza rolls trying to escape any awareness of myself. (Maybe I still do. Maybe I did that last week.)

But fall! Glorious fall. The return of regularly scheduled programming. The fresh start of a new year. The leaves, the pumpkins, the cider. Crisp, cool air and sweaters. Oh the sweaters!

I've had a life long love for Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and she is always close to me in fall. I imagine Anne spinning around in some glorious Prince Edward Island field, biting into a crunchy apple as she said, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!" Not only did we share a name but, like Anne Shirley, I also felt like an outsider for most of my childhood. However, unlike her, I did not have that inner confidence and pluck that seemed to make her impervious to surrendering her sense of self. No matter the cost, Anne was always her true self. I, on the other hand, would have handed my true self over in a heartbeat if it meant feeling like I belonged. Heck, I would have traded it for a pair of peach, high top, Converse and some Guess jeans. But I so, so wanted to be like Anne. I wanted to link arms with her and stroll through that gorgeous Canadian fall, being just who God made us to be, whether the world liked it or not.

This way of being feels possible in the fall. There's something in the air that makes my true self feel like home. In the summer, the thick, wet heat holds an anxious mystery. The mystery of summer feels like something is wrong but I don't know what it is. But in the fall, the crisp, shimmering cool brings a luminous mystery. The mystery of fall feels like something is very right, even though I don't know what it is.

Each of us has a geography inside us, full of places and times, seasons, temperatures and humidity indexes. The lands where our ancestors walked are there. So is the way the light fell through the window during that time of day when you were young and alone. And the way the grass or the sand dune or the muddy marsh felt beneath your feet when you first fell in love. Yours is different than mine.

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think." - Anne of Green Gables

This is why I love the liturgical calendar and the melding of spiritual practice with the marking of time and the seasons and the rhythms of the natural world. Each season has it's own rituals, it's own plants and foods and moods to find God in. It feels natural to heal our internal geography as we move through the map of our present moment.

If that resonates with you, we should talk. I'd love to learn about your map and your Octobers. We might even be kindred spirits.