Autumn Schizophrenia

Week before last it was 90 degrees. Last week highs struggled to reach 60. This week it's back in the 80s.  It's the same every year, but to hear people talk--including me--you would think it's the first time in the history of the world the temperature has been so schizophrenic. It is summer's last gasp. Now, with the autumnal equinox behind us, fall struggles for a foothold. I suppose we all let go of the past kicking and screaming; and we leave skid marks as we dig in our resistant heels to what is new. Eventually it all evens out. I, for one, don't let go of the southern summer kicking and screaming. I am more than happy to leave it behind; and I love autumn--bring it on! Yesterday, in celebration, I buy beautiful yarn. I am ready to build a fire, wrap in an afghan, and knit. Which reminds me, I need to go to the Farmers' Market and buy firewood.

Staff retreat is this week. We go to our favorite place in Durham, where we love the meeting room rocking chairs and the Sisters. The food is pretty good, too; and we get our own rooms. We are less enamored with the plethora of dead Jesuses. As friend Suzanne says, "You would think it time they resurrected Jesus." I walk the meditation trail twice with my camera, which seeks out the mushrooms. It is a good retreat. Two new staff members, who are as different from one another as two people could be, join us. The new blood is good as we seek better ways to communicate with and care for each other and the congregation.

Speaking of autumn and work... yeah. Lots of work around finances and budgets and program start-up publication needs (my schizophrenic job). But one task I brought on myself this summer, when I spearheaded a refurbishing project in the front office and the hallway outside the office. And now, along with the seasonal busyness, it must be completed. As the finishing touch, a church member and I scored 
a find at Habitat ReStore: a cabinet with work table top to replace the unsightly mishmash that was next to the copier. A volunteer repurposed it beautifully and brings it upstairs mid-week. That leaves me to empty out a large metal cabinet that had been in the office, then moved temporarily to the hallway. Now it's in the soon-to-be new administrator's office. It has been reproducing junk like field mice for a couple decades, and I unilaterally decide it's time to clean out the nest. The new administrator should not have to move into a storage unit. So, I spend Saturday morning purging.

Among the items I find are:

• Enough hanging file folders to supply a large, pre-computer age business
• 17 IBM Selectric ribbons (that's a typewriter in case you have forgotten, or never knew)
• A box of labels for a dot matrix printer
• One quadrillion tabbed notebook dividers
• Tons of miscellaneous hardware (yes, in the business office); some neatly labeled, by a certain anal previous administrator, as to what long-discarded-whatever they belonged to. Others kept by someone(s) who had no idea what they went to, but couldn’t bear to throw anything away, however useless. Reminds me of my dad and his methodically-labeled box of "string too short to save"

I am not a saver. I have seen the consequences of keeping everything that someone somewhere might need someday--or not--and I travel light. When one lives alone, purging is a breeze. But I am not the only stakeholder at the church, so what doesn't get relocated goes back in the cabinet. Staff has two days to rescue what they can't live without and find someplace to keep it; on Wednesday it will be liberated from its decades-long cabinet captivity.

Back home I take stock of what's happening in the garden. I need to cut the grass, but in the past week or so there has been more rain than we have seen all summer. At least more consecutive days. With the ground too wet to mow, I take advantage of the soft earth and pull plantain weed out of the lawn. It has profited greatly from the rain. Eradication is like trying to rid the sky of stars, but I attempt.

I also clear the weedy grasses from the water meter cover. It takes me back to my childhood when it was my family's month as volunteer meter reader for the Seminary Hill Association, which bought water from the city. I love how doing something as simple as exposing the meter in my yard reminds me of going around the hill with my dad recording the meter readings in a little spiral notebook.

I wander through the yard looking for retreating plants, but I am surprised by what is experiencing rebirth. Yep, it's a schizophrenic time of year. Several of my ferns that had long since disappeared in the summer heat and drought, are poking cautiously back up, like it's spring or something! The Japanese painted fern isn't even being cagey. It's just full-out back. My favorite wild phlox that blooms wherever it wants--mostly in the yard--until the heat settles in for good, is up and blooming again. But the surprise that leaves me gasping with delight is that the Prairie Something bulbs I mail-ordered and planted three years ago that has never bloomed, is!

Every growing thing in my garden is my most something. Even the catbrier, which is my most detested something. The flower I love most for its multiple beautiful stages is the hydrangea. From the dead-but-not-dead winter canes, from which green leaves directly sprout in the spring; to its beautiful green, gradually morphing to pink/blue/purple long-lasting-if-you-keep-it-watered summer bloom; to the faded fall color that dries in the house for winter beauty, it is a most amazing plant.

I have been wondering if the toad lily is going to bloom this year--I can't remember its estimated time of arrival. A couple week's ago I notice buds. I check it out again, not blooming yet. Something to anticipate; maybe next week, or the next. I pull more marigolds; they are mostly gone now. Only the black eyes of the black-eyed Susans remain. The zinnias, vinca, and that Annual I Can't Remember the Name Of are blooming like they have no intention of stopping. Ever. The late-planted lantana has finally taken off and the Mexican petunia that struggled this year is blooming. I even spotted some morning glories this week. I keep accidentally pulling the vines with the ivy; I am pleased by their tenacity. The volunteer cosmos just keeps coming. And the sedum that I didn't remember having a bloom is lovely.

I confess I have been lonely this week. Maybe it was the two days and an evening with people at the staff retreat that makes my beautiful home feel temporarily empty. Maybe it's the rain, which I love, but which raises a yearning for a snuggle-buddy. Maybe it's watching the season-opening Grey's Anatomy and Christina's reference to Meredith as her "person" and feeling like my persons have all faded away, and I will never have one again. Being in what I thought would be a garden in full-out retreat, but isn't, reminds me to never say never. Everything is seasonal. The person-drought will come to a close when it's time; and probably when I least expect it.

Autumn. I exchange my spring/summer porch decor for the autumn/winter version. I welcome fall, which will come into fullness in its time. I am glad to cycle along with the seasons. They come, they move on, they return. All is as it is ordained.