Beneath Brokenness and Blessing…

The September Garden, 2023

Surely the garden is lovely in spring when the world of it wakes up so softly…a bursting out of winter. I love to see it. Surely the garden’s eyes are fully awake in the thick of summer. Heavy with bloom. Heavy with fruit. Heavy with light. I cannot deny the breadth of it…how it delights!

But neither claim my heart the way September does.

The garden looks like the laugh-lines in an old face. The early breeze is warm with promise and ever quietly, without fuss, it becomes cooler then lifts you away without permission to the excitement of autumn. The first leaf falls. Then another. Another. You’re lucky if one falls on your head. What a smile that brings!

The sun sets pink over the hillside and frames your world from the kitchen window in candlelit orange. The soup bubbles in the crockpot and it’s still often too warm outside for soup, but you can’t help getting excited about soup season, cozy season, pumpkin season. Soon all those rich Thanksgiving smells will fill your home on an average weeknight. What a treat!

But September sits between you an the next thing. And you’re glad. You love it here. Long garden afternoons in the in-between have you thinking back to its bright burst, all the hard work done, how it feels to see the remnants of brilliance, and that brilliant blooming season etched deep into your memories like roots.

The children will play long and happy. You’ll be barefoot, catching the sun in all its glory. The garden stones still feel like jubilation. The roses bloom as they can. The mums look like stars in the night sky. You can feel life slowing down, the quiet months approaching. And you’re ready. Filled with anticipation.

But first, but first, but first!

September. Warm sunny afternoons. Birdsong that hasn’t burrowed yet.

Tree frogs making their way. Shorts and dump trucks filled with happy childhood. Autumn playlist on repeat.

Breeze lifting you away. Am I flying? (Surely I am.)

Star-gazing the mums. Thoughts of apple pie. Zinnias in their heyday.

Soft, long hours in a seasoned, old, and happy garden.

And I much the same–soft, seasoned, old, and happy.

I feel most myself here in the September garden as it bends beneath its brokenness and blessing. (Me too.)

The last full breath after the bustle of summer and before the bluster of the holidays goes September…and it has my heart. But I’ll be swept up soon in all the happy exclamations of October, the depth of Thanksgiving, the joyous nostalgia and Good Tidings of Christmas.

Life is too good to stay put. Or for time to stand still. I’m all for flying with it as long as I can make a few stops along the way.