This morning, the horizon was flushed with pink when I emerged from the shower at around 6:15. The world was yet mostly dark, but soon, the sun promised, day would break.

Remember when the sun was up before my alarm went off at 5:50? Wasn’t that just yesterday?

I exercised along with my usual video, which is accompanied by a sound track including the calming sound of birds and such. And I realized those pre-recorded birds were all I could hear, because our windows are shut tight and probably the only birds to hear are Canada geese, anyway.

Remember when every morning was greeted with bird song of every variety? When did that stop?

I set up my Bible and notebook at the kitchen table, ready to dive into my morning routine, and then wondered when I suddenly stopped heading out to the picnic table each morning. All summer long, for months, watching the birds and smelling the grass and enjoying the humid dawning of a summer day.

Remember? When did that stop? Was it too dark, too cold? I’m not even sure, but all at once we’re all tucked safely inside with slippers and blankets, waiting for the sun rather than the sun waiting for us.

It’s October, suddenly.

*****

Turkey families are everywhere, while the deer are (cleverly) disappearing from sight. The sky has once again become a thoroughfare for migration. Hydrangeas are settling into their deepest pink hue, while the rest of the garden begins to shrivel, having been touched by frost. Football lines are painted in the yard, and fingers and cheeks are pink at the end of playtime. I dug out mittens for my morning walk yesterday. Already, school sessions on the picnic table are rarely an option; stiff fingers make for poor penmanship. Winter squash is in the CSA rotation, and Christmas music has joined the stack on the piano. Here we are, the glowing end of summer. Up here, it means days more glorious than any July can boast, and tinged each evening with the scent and knowing of goodbye. Winter is coming.

*****

I love every season of the Northeast, but I only wish they could slow down a bit. Doesn’t this crazy spinning earth know that every rotation ages my babies another day, every revolution brings us closer to them leaving? One thousand miles an hour around its axis, and I believe it; my head is spinning.

*****

It’s a scramble to quickly bring in every last thing from the vegetable gardens this time of year. There’s a hard STOP looming, a frost that will bring an end to the season of harvest. It is a reminder to me, too: I don’t just get to fiddle around in my garden forever. There’s a hard end to each season, and the time to work is now. The time to sow my life into a future generation is now. Dig, sow, water, weed, prune, stake, spray, tend.

My friend tells me, “They say the best thing a farmer can put on his garden is his shadow,” meaning, don’t plant and forget. I let that sink into my heart. Every day, let the shadow of my invested presence linger over the hearts of my children. Don’t plant and forget. Tend daily.

Tend my own soul: taking in the Word, pouring out my heart, listening to Him speak, walking out obedience.
Tend their souls: bodies, souls, spirits.

Tend now. This is our season.