Harvesting Friendship & Learning

Yesterday I finally put away the deck chairs. I could have done that two weeks ago, but I kept hoping for another deck day.

It has been a beautiful autumn, even though the deck days ended too soon and too abruptly. They always do. You never know when you are sitting there, in dry air, that this day is the last one on the deck.

Autumn is so beautiful to get us ready for winter. Early retirement is like autumn, and we think it will last forever

As a child, of all the seasons, I loved autumn best. The dry air, the bright leaves, the smell of wood smoke. And school.

We lived in the country, without a car, so I rarely got to see my friends in summer time. School meant I got to see my friends again. School also meant that I got to learn new things, advance in knowledge and wisdom. Friends and knowledge—school meant life.

Now I still like autumn because winter follows, and my life is in winter.

Autumn is harvest time, but it’s also startup time. Autumn is the start of the fallow season, the season of rest for the soil, so that it is ready to spring forth into newness after winter.

Winter is the season of rest, but that rest is preparation for new life.

In the winter our world becomes smaller, closed in, and we get through it on what we harvest in the fall, what we harvested in friendship and in learning.

The farther we got into school, the more I learned. The farther we get into winter, the more I learn.