Autumn Appreciation Rampage

An attempt to come into the present.

I have been dreading winter more or less since I made my way back to the Fargo-Moorhead area late Febrary earlier this year. In other words, I have literally been dreading winter since winter. It’s not at all how I want to be, but I’ve been struggling to be present.

This dread has been so pervasive and my windows so small, that I’ve come into awareness that I’m missing my absolute favorite season. It’s slipping away while I sit inside feeling miserable about the oncoming winter and my current situation. So, I’m sharing an appreciation rampage:

I love that the weather is cooling down and the air is drying out. I love layers. I love wearing a hat and a thin neck gaiter. I love the crunch accumulating under my feet and the rustling of leaves when the wind blows. I love that sweaters are in play. Is my focus starting to come back? My step lighter?

I love rustling autumn grasses in the middle of the city.

I love wearing shoes that cover my feet, particularly the black canvas low-tops I got from Mukishoes a couple of years ago that now have wool liners in them, keeping my feet warm and dry.

I love the photos and reels of autumn leaves coating the wet London streets and dispersed among the British fields as I scroll Instagram. I have a well-honed algorithm and autumn is everyone’s favorite season.

I love the feeling of crisp, cool air filtering into my light jacket. And the mist covering my glasses. The sound the trees make when overtaken by wind.

I loved autumn 2009, home after nine months in the UK, and from the coffee shop I worked at, I watched rain fall the entire month of October as if I had created a cosmic connection to the city I’d just left. (This October has been fretfully dry.)

I love the shifting angle and quality of the light. I love the darker evenings. I love the feeling of sinking in. The shift in energy. The going inward. I love remembering that I’ve always found the dark invigorating. I love the nostalgia I feel for my misspent youth.

I love feeling where I’m at now in life: living in a relatively regulated nervous system, the confidence I’ve developed, the self-assuredness I’ve come into. I like feeling that I’m worthy of feeling good (I didn’t before). I like feeling relaxed in my body. I like moving toward experiences and activities that feel good and away from those that feel bad. I love that I have the awareness to tell the difference (I didn’t before).

I love that once again, a desire to visit New England as soon as the first signs of autumn came over me. I love imagining sitting on a train rolling through Connecticut and Massachusetts, watching the leaves. Staying in small towns with stone houses. Walking through the woods.

But mostly, I simply love that I’m not sweating all of the time.

Yours Truly,

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Invitation for Reflection

An Appreciation Rampage is a list of things to love or like or feel warm and fuzzy about. It has the ability to bring practitioners into the present and lift the mood. Give one a try, if you’re so inclined, keeping in mind that you can’t fake it. If you list a bunch of things you think you should love or want to love, but don’t love, it will feel discordant to do so rather than pleasant.