It’s October, and perhaps you’re tired of hearing the obvious: that leaves are changing their hues, falling from their branches, that the footpaths now crunch and the night comes early. These are the observations we all make this time of year, ad infinitum. Still, as I sit outside to write this, it’s all I can think about. Every year, that same awe. I never seem to tire of it.
I turned 33 a few weeks ago, and as I looked at photos from 2022, I realized how few we’ve taken this year of just me. If our DIY passport photos count, then I have about a dozen deliciously awkward ones, no smile, no glasses. Aside from that, I’m mostly just an extra in photos of my son, Auden. Carrying him on my back for a snow-laden hike. Holding his hand while he ambles over cobblestone. Lifting him to get a good look at roses. As far as daily pictures go, I’ve become a (very) peripheral concern. I’m not sure it’s been good for my social media engagement, but I have to say it’s done wonders for my well-being. There’s a simplicity I long for. It grates against my American soul but heals me nonetheless, and I am trying to put my roots there.
I am brand new to gardening. Alex and I inherited a flowerbed tragedy when we moved into our new home, and decided to replant the entire plot ourselves. There’s been a lot of learning involved, but one of the first things we had to figure out was how to recognize transplant shock.
Both our climbing roses and our dogwood were beautiful when we brought them home, but a few days after planting, they began looking sickly. It’s a better life for them, I think, being unpotted. Free to enroot and expand in the earth-ground. But it’s new. The leaf scorch came on fast, their foliage discolored and dry and wilted. They had plenty of water, plenty of sun, were planted in the right conditions in nutritious soil. But they struggled nonetheless. I learned the cure for this shock is to keep on with water, with care, and to just give them time to adjust. They did.
These days I relate especially to my climbing roses. I share the ambition to outstretch, to extend my limbs and sprawl upwards and outwards in great blooms of color. I share their need for constant pruning. Stripping back all the unnecessary glories so the best branches can grow, and in the right direction. I share their sensitivity. Their prickliness, too. And I relate to the shock felt in change, in transplantation.
This past year of life has held a lot of change for me. It was my first full year in a new city, in a new home with new leaks and old floors that creak in surprising places. A brand new year of motherhood, of caring for a child who suddenly can speak and climb and impolitely decline. In April, I learned I’m autistic, which was revelatory. Full of hard memories I’ve had to unriddle with this new knowledge as my interpreter. In June, I decided to put space between myself and a life online. I’ve mostly held to that, and I’ve mostly been grateful for this. In August, I went abroad with my family and considered what kind of life I want, and whether this country with its gun violence can ever give me the peace I’m so starved for. Now it’s October, and I am 33 years old, contending with my superstitions about outliving Jesus.
I’m leaf-scorched.
Still, I’m here. This place is strange and unfamiliar, but I’m here. And I’m holding out hope my roots will take where I’m at, because I think it’s a good place to settle in a while. I’d like to flourish if I can.
I look around me at the evidence of Autumn. All these wise old trees that were once new to their place in the world too, now doing what they always do come October: bursting like a phoenix into amber and crimson and gold, getting ready for the inevitable changes to come.