The Softening
Fossil & Fig is a monthly reflection on psychology, growth, and the quiet work of becoming.
You know fall is coming in the Gorge before anyone says it. The yellow school buses begin their morning rounds. The farmers markets start to feel a little different. Starbucks brings back the pumpkin spice latte, as reliably as the leaves will eventually turn. The mornings are cool enough that you notice when you step outside, and the sharpness of the summer sun has begun to soften around the edges. After a long, hot summer, I welcome it. This year especially.
Oregon has had a difficult fire season. Smoke has settled into our communities, and fires have moved through parts of the Mt. Hood wilderness that so many of us know and love. There is something unsettling about watching a landscape you feel connected to disappear behind smoke. So I find myself especially grateful for this quieter light. For cooler mornings. For the first yellow leaves. For apples and pears and squash and everything that begins to taste a little deeper. For the return of sweaters and earlier evenings. For the feeling that the world is beginning, slowly, to turn inward.
The seasons in the Pacific Northwest are more than weather. They are markers. They give us permission to change pace. Summer asks us outward: Go. Do. Stay outside. Take advantage of the light. Fall asks something different. What can you put down? What can you gather? What are you ready to bring home? I think we sometimes expect ourselves to operate at one speed all year. We make plans in the spring, build momentum through summer, and then wonder why we feel tired when September arrives. But perhaps the slowing down is not a failure of momentum. Perhaps it is part of it.
There is wisdom in a landscape that knows when to soften. Trees do not hold onto their leaves because they are afraid of change. They let go when the season asks them to. I am ready for that kind of season. Not necessarily a season of retreat, but one of discernment. Of noticing what has grown, what has endured, and what no longer needs to be carried forward.
The light is changing. Maybe we can, too.
