Our fall this year was initiated by our spontaneous trip to North Georgia where, for two weeks, time stood still in a picturesque cabin by a lake, and I got to enjoy this completely unexpected vacation with the kids. It brought to light every wonderful thing about each of my kids at this phase of their lives, and I clung to little moments like Nella falling asleep in my lap or Dash still reaching to hold my hand on that trip with utmost gratitude...”Don’t move, Time. Everything stay the same.” When we returned, upon realizing that Irma roughed things up a bit while we were gone, I had the added pleasure of discovering that Brett decided to get rid of our little kids’ table and chairs.
“It takes up too much room,” he explained, “and they’re bigger now, so they can just use the kitchen table.”
In typical fashion, ruled by unreasonably overactive sentimentality, I took some deep breaths and made it a much bigger deal than it is. “This feels like a huge decision,” I argued, “We’ve had a little table in our house since before Lainey could walk. I mean, I can’t believe you just got rid of it without discussing it first.”
I’ll cut to the chase, and give you the moral of the story: I hang on to things pretty tightly–moments, keepsakes, people, time. The benefit of this is that I love deeply and taste every drop of goodness that is intended for us to feel. The drawback of this is that not wanting to let go can sometimes stunt my growth and keep me from moving to bigger and better things intended for me to feel.
I thought of something my sister told me when Nella was born, meant to help me accept challenge, of course, but I think it pertains to good moments as well: “I keep picturing a river with this crazy rushing current. You can hang on and get exhausted struggling to just stay alive, stuck to that rock, or you can let go and be carried by where it’s going to take you. You have to let go, Kelle.”
The great thing is, you can still enjoy every bit of a good moment riding the current as you can clutching that rock, hoping the moment stays forever. In fact, you can enjoy it more when you let go.
There is no more little play table in our living room, but there’s more room to play.
And this season, I’m riding the current, letting go of my grip and free-styling my stroke in the current.
Enjoying lately…
All day pajamas on weekends…
Butterfly dances…
Fall colors…
After school treats…
(Anyone else sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on leftover pie crust and bake them? The best.)
Frogpocalypse friends…
(Naples frog population seems to have quadrupled this past year)
Autumn candles…
Weekend entertaining…
And a DOUBLE COLD FRONT in Naples this weekend! Our doors are open, the kids wore sweaters to school today, and we had our first fire of the season last night. In honor of all this fall goodness, I’m sharing two fall playlists I put together. Those two weeks we spent in Georgia reignited my love for old jazz as every afternoon when we returned from our sight-seeing adventures, we played records from our friends’ vinyl collection and cooked dinner, sipped wine and watched the sunset from the back porch. I’ve always loved “old soul” music, but I’ve been listening to it non stop in our home since we got back, and it sets the perfect cozy tone for fall. My mother-in-law was so inspired by our music scene there, she came back from the trip and promptly bought a turntable and several old jazz records to begin her collection. The second playlist is more folksy–an acoustic playlist that makes me want to smoke a pipe and sip bourbon outside a log cabin, and I don’t even smoke pipes.
I have one rule for listening to these though: light some candles first.
Enjoy!
FALL OLD SOUL
FALL FOLK & ACOUSTIC
