Why is Fall so Nostalgic? Bring the magical feelings that accompany fall into life and parenthood.
My husband and I were newlyweds when we packed up our gold Saturn and started driving across the country to start medical school. It took us a week to get to Vermont, eating takeout and stopping at cheap motels along the way. When we finally arrived at the beginning of the term, summer was ending. We settled into student housing – repurposed army barracks with creaky floors and hissing water heaters – and started in on a new, totally crazy chapter of our lives.
Fall always triggers these memories for me, and I know I’m not the only one.
This is perhaps the most nostalgic of all the seasons. It is a time of beginnings and endings: School starts but the year winds down. The harvest – whether literal or metaphorical – is called in while a new season gets underway. It is a period defined by opposites; maybe that’s why it invites a certain mindfulness toward creating small but profound changes in our lives.
So many things were different about our life in Vermont. We were starting a challenging new phase (medical school! Relocation!), but it was the magic of that first fall that made us fall in love with New England. Perfect orange and yellow maple leaves were layered on trees and yards – even in the gutters, they looked somehow special. There was a crispness to the air, a sudden chill in the early hours.
The easy summer days were gone, but in their place came a world on fire with color and light. And while 2020 has been TOUGH, there is something about the changing seasons that triggers a timeless sense of hope. Starting school (either remotely or in person) presents a new set of challenges for parents and students alike. Preparing for holidays that look different this year – it can feel overwhelming. But just like that first fall in Vermont, sometimes the harder thing can be even more beautiful.
Years after our move to Vermont, long after my husband and I had relocated to Oregon, fall brought yet another change: the birth of our first daughter. Life, generally speaking, was much easier as a couple than as parents of a newborn. Our baby never slept, she was colicky, she had terrible reflux. (I trashed pretty much all of my closet after that year.) But our daughter’s arrival also made our life together so much more meaningful. Her little smiles, the way she snuggled up on my chest when she was feeding, THOSE GIGGLES.
Change can be scary. It can also bring something better. Harder, yes, but better and more beautiful all the same.
Fall is a season of reckoning – a time to ask ourselves what we want more of and what we want less of. What has worked for you? Where have you found resilience? What has failed? What can you do differently? Pausing to ask these questions of ourselves as individuals and as parents creates a space for powerful positive growth. Maybe it’s time to start a new tradition as a family. Maybe this year you’ll make Thanksgiving dinner for yourselves. Maybe you’ll order it in. Maybe you’ll visit an orchard with the kids or simply spend an hour crafting handprint turkeys together.
For me, I plan to spend more time on the porch reading with my kids about the seasons. And when we’re not doing that, you’ll find me in the kitchen baking (and eating) pumpkin bread. With fewer “I must get this done right now” pressures outside the home, we have an opportunity to think, live and parent differently. How will we use it?
