31Days of Transitioning to Autumn: day 5 {A Simpler Life}

I spent yesterday logging on a hillside, maneuvering the tractor between ruts of an old logging trail, as I skidded trees to the plateau below. 100 footers crashed down right in front of me, blowing leaves into my face. You feel the wind from them as they land. 

 (image from pinterest)

I took a break and tried to doze off for a minute on the Kabota seat about three o’clock.  My worn boots propped up on the steering wheel.  Getting more and more worn with each job. Each treck up the mountain side.

Yesterday I thought about work and the warmth it brings to your heart. I wrote that life begins in work and transitions into love. Be it our jobs, our relationships, our homes. It’s a union of work and time that brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction in accomplishment. That’s how a life is built. My very first post in this series I spoke of my fear of change and my epiphany that it’s not change I have a problem with… it’s transition.

This morning I fed the dogs… squeezing in a few moments to hold the puppies. They’re just learning to walk! I wandered into the hoop-houses and hung my quilted denim jacket on the hook… it’s nice and warm inside. I watered the greens and got my hands dirty doing some weeding in the salad beds.

The cows are mooing out back. The sun is glowing. I hear the crickets….

Am I delving too deeply into the ambiance of farm-life here? I promise I’m not exaggerating.

Farms wake you up in new ways. Not just in the morning but in your soul. They wake your senses to every small sensational pleasure.

They take you new places you never knew you wanted to go.

And slowly I begin to make the transition to a simpler life.

Don’t we all want that? We don’t want to Change… we don’t want to transition daily. Buy less, spend less, breathe more, slow down, cook for our families, blister our hands… but ultimately once we pass through the time of transition we’re happy to find ourselves in a more peaceful state of simplicity. One where suddenly we can ‘take this morning’ and savor the sunlight of a Saturday, write what’s on our hearts, slowly pull on our boots and a flannel shirt, make our way out and water the hoop-houses and feed the puppies. Stop and hold them. Quietly cook and eat breakfast with the ones we love. The ones who have built this with us. Sip our coffee and do our devotions together.

Not rush off to appointments. Not get angry calls from the boss. Not worry about whether or not our clothes are office presentable.

Simple work. Simple love. Simple life. Simple change.

“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.” – Leonardo Da Vinci

So tell me…. is it worth some sacrifice to transition into a life with more simplicity?

“Going back to a simpler life is not a step backward.”

Can this be a change we learn to love?

(photo stolen from this post)

Simplicity:

love without strings attached.  Someone holding your hand.  Honey on home baked bread.  Sunflowers in a mason jar.  Coffee in the morning.  A good book.  Visiting with friends over a glass of sweet tea on the front porch.   Weeding a garden bed.  Cutting hay.  Logging a hillside.

31 Days of Transistioning to Autumn: day 3 {Mr. Fox}

So, I pretty much felt that this fall would have no credence to it without a fox sweater. I’ve been wanting one sooo long. I think I wrote about my obsession a while back right here when I found a great handmade one on Etsy.

Well, I finally wised up and just made one.

I still have a few finishing touches to put on but I thought I’d go ahead and share with y’all. Is there anything more ‘Autumn’ than a good sweater? I love sweaters.

You can find a DIY Fox Sweater tutorial here.

 

31 Days of Transitioning to Autumn: day 1 (The Tenderness of Change)

When you’re from Florida fall really means nothing more than scouting for a good price on turkey for Thanksgiving and wearing fall colored shorts instead of summer colored shorts.

I was ten years old when we moved to Tennessee (our favorite vacation spot) and it totally changed my perception of fall. Transition came about, too, from girlhood to something else. Womanhood, maybe?? Hmmm….

Fall: leaves turning golden brown, burnt orange, mustard yellow, beet red, and all shades in between. Oak and Maple leaves fluttering down all around you like summer’s snowflakes. Hearing them make that crackling sound as the wind rustles them in the late afternoon.

Fall: magical time when your heart warms with expectation and all your food takes on pumpkin and cinnamon flavors…. whether it is logical or not. Pies and autumn dances and hayrides and bonfires.

Fall: friends sharing stories over cups of coffee while adorned in denim jackets and scarfs.

Fall: that gentle touch in the air that says ‘Don’t worry… each day is a new day.’ and that’s when you know it’s coming. There are still hot days. There is still warm summer sun at noon, for which you’re glad, it’s not quite time yet. But there is the “touch” in the air. That northern wind through the trees.

And to me, I guess fall represents something else. The way the trees live. The way seasons of life come and go. First they are graced in the spring with new leaves, bright and green. They drink up the air. They live and thrive. Then through summer they’re at their fullest. But as the hot summer months linger they begin to feel a little burnt. They seem to ache. October creeps in and they slowly begin to fall away. Each leaf shed from it’s owner until Pines and Sycamores alike, have been undone. Until they are all equal. Until they stand side by side stripped of ego and beauty. As if silently acknowledging ‘This is me. All I am. It is time to rest. To strip away the old. To take time. To rebuild. To renew.’  And there is beauty in that also. That is the truest transition in the fall. There is allegory.. metaphor in the change of the leaves, to me.

Here we remain, for a brief time, caught up in the moment. In the transition. In the death of old and wind of change. Of new. We remain here, caught up in the transition. Perhaps the hardest place to be. The most barren. The tenderness of change. The acknowledgement of loss, of humility, of inability to be more than what we are… lovely in our weakness. There inlays  the gift of change, that split-second before it happens when you shed your pride, side by side, perhaps, with another, and open yourself up to the scary newness of the next season of life.

transition.

I’ve dwelt on ‘change’ a lot the past year. I’ve thought about how must gusto I had when I was very young. Anything new was enticing. Then, in recent years, I’ve found change more and more difficult. I had an epiphany one day as I considered just what it was that bothered me about change. It’s not the change itself it is the transition.  And that, I suppose, is why I decided to make my series: 31 Days of TRANSITIONING to Autumn. Because Autumn is symbolic, as I mentioned, of transition to me. I love Autumn. Could I learn to love change?

So, join me this October as I post every. single. day on the many small, seemingly insignificant, changes and transitions taking place. Whether it be in nature, clothing, food, home, or heart.

Black On Black

“To those who stay put the world is but an imaginary place. But to the movers, the makers, and the shakers the world is all around them. An endless invitation.”

You know those days when you wake up in the morning feeling like a lovely movie star? Delicate and beautiful? You then go to your closet and desire to wear pink. Many many wonderful shades of pink? Then you give yourself a manicure and your ready for your day? A day at the office, maybe.

(image found on Pinterest)

hahaha. No! Me either!!! However, I do know those days when you wake up to clouds and a little house nestled into Tennessee woods and you flip on Lana Del Rey, set it to repeat, and search out every black staple you own. You throw yourself together in a quest for an ‘elegant grunge’ effect that says to the world… today, I will be tough. Don’t mess with me. I promise! I’m not joking! I really. am. tough. Believe it! Here I come. Today, I will make art. Today, I will explore. Today will be different and special. Nothing will be mundane. I will not allow it.

Black on black on black. Some wanderlust thrown in here as I imagine what the weather in Montana is like this time of year. Some layered vintage necklaces, too. One with a broken clock. Because who really wants to know what time it is? Life is too short for that.

“I have a vision of making my life a work of art” -Lana Del Rey

“Being brave means knowing that when you fail, you don’t fail forever.” -Lana Del Rey

Grace with Me {anticipating 31 Days}

I’m sitting here shamelessly drinking coffee without having had any breakfast wearing a huge sweater because to a girl from the sunshine state even a mild September in Tennessee is chilling.

I’m listening to ZZ Ward and Shovels and Rope…. is it too early in the morning for that?? I think not. It’s never too early for tunes. (not to me anyway.)

Tomorrow is the start of 31 Days of Transitioning to Autumn.

I have to be honest… I’m super nervous. I don’t quite know why other than the fact that it’s a 31 day commitment (yup, that’s right, a full month) in what happens to be one of the busiest months of the year.

So, I’m going to sit here and continue to drink coffee on an empty stomach, snuggled in a ridiculously frumpy sweater, listening to rockabilly folk and ask you one thing. Yes, you, my faithful sweet generous reader.

Have a little grace with me. Please. Oh, thank you!! Thank you for being so understanding. Here’s the thing… I might mess up. Well, I know I will. I always do. I might miss a day here and there and I’m plenty sure that my series will fall short of my expectation for it. It certainly wont compare to that of some of the incredible inspiring veteran bloggers out there participating. But that’s not the point is it? I will learn from them and this will be a growing experience.

Are we ready? Yes we are! You and I together, writer and reader, can take October! A post a day here we come!

Love y’all!