A Fall for Fallow Fields

We often want every season to always our best. It isn't that way. And that's ok.

At some point here, I’ll be ready to do a Stoplight Pt. 3 piece (After Green and Red lights, I have thoughts about yellow), but here’s an initial foray on a separate idea.

The end of summer saw a dramatic, furious end to one life chapter, as I finished up school. I’d put a lot of time, energy and effort into that journey - and I know that there are things ahead that await me, but they’re very clearly ahead of me - and not here right now. I wonder what I will want to tell myself when I look back on this period. I’m not sure if that’s clear yet. 

Sometimes the light hits yellow - periods where it might not be clear if we should slam on the brakes or accelerate faster. Restore and re-nourish or pursue something that awaits us further down the road in a distant future. Whether you decide to follow a religious “waiting on the Lord” approach or the more secular era of self-love and investing in yourself.

Back in the spring, Where the Crawdads Sing, came back from the graveyard of past books read to speak to me. Scrolling through my notes app from a table at an Airbnb in Bergen, Norway, I came across thoughts I’d captured while reading the book back in 2023. From the distance of a continent and several countries away - which was one hell of an amazing adventure in its own right - I found a moment of clarity and felt something that resonated with me at the deepest level: the need and idea of letting go. I knew I needed to let go.

To quote Crawdads:  

I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. 

Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight they sail and soar and fluttered on the wind drafts.

Now, summer has passed and the bright, young leaves that were quick to bloom this past spring, now matured, reached their peak and fallen away.

Like autumn leaves, this fall I’ve taken my time to fly - wander - on this, my chance to soar. Even if the journeys have been more local than recent years. I flit and flutter across Manhattan crosswalks, crisscrossing through Central Park and up and down the broad avenues I now call home.

It was a recent drive back to and from Ohio, though, that gave me the chance to take a step away from New York - and step into it again with full purpose and renewal.

I always need to get away to reemerge and engage again. 

Another Crawdad quote:

Much of life is done alone. But I’ve known this. I’ve known a long time that people don’t stay as long as you may want them to.

Talking with a friend the other day on FaceTime, I felt this in my soul.

Another face, another life story, and oh how exhausted I was of telling aspects of my story. I grow tired of looking backward.

It’s not past pain that wears me out, but more often a lack of space to speak the truth without needing to explain the context or give the background. I think one of the things I appreciate about my greatest friendships, is the understanding and knowing each other that comes from being witnesses of each other’s lives.

But in regards to the fatigue - it’s ok - it all makes for good stories so maybe at the end of it all I’ll use that and sell a story or two to Hollywood, making myself out to be who I really think I am. And being far from old friends, just means space to make new ones.

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Why do I need fallow fields? To heal. grow. love. discover. Watch as the spark lights itself again and brings with it that “magic soaking in my spine” feeling.

Whenever I stumble, its travel, the city and my friends and family that always seems to catch me.