Sweet, crisp, and melancholy
We’re coming upon my favorite time of year. A time of nostalgia, of endings, of reflection. The scents carried on the breezes are sweeter, sadder. Mornings and evenings grow crisp and cool.
It’s been a wet summer, hasn’t it? The grapevine and kudzu have run rampant, tendrils and vines, slinking and slithering across power lines and spreading like a moisture-maintaining blanket over the forests. I assume, due to the additional dampening fuel prices, I saw more hay left standing in fields this year.
We didn’t have a garden this year, but I have heard that tomatoes disappointed and peppers flourished – as did anything of the vining variety.
I suffered more chigger bites this summer, but I don’t know if that’s due to an increased population, or the fact that I spent more time outdoors. Mattie, our beagle puppy, loves-loves-loves going for walks. She just had her first birthday, and I have a difficult time keeping up with her.
The whole summer has seemed a bit untamed, a little wilder and overgrown than the few summers we endured prior. Our first “post-pandemic” summer in a changed world. Inflation and under-staffing have spread like the grapevine, entwining themselves into our daily lives, cloaking the future and garnishing our dreams. During our quarantining and re-evaluating, we have let some of our former routines run amuck.
Two-Lane Renaissance was meant to be a light. My personal writing presented as a beacon to seek out an audience when I had lost all other writing outlets. It began simply as a writer’s attempt — not just to write again — but to be read as well. A need that exists deep within all writers I think.
But my light isn’t always bright shining. I don’t always have enough energy or the mindset to illuminate the darkness that creeps in beneath the overgrowth. I don’t hide my light under a bushel, but I’m not a lighthouse either. I get angry, frustrated, hurt, and tired. The life lessons I post are often as much for me as for any readers out there. I am working to be a better person, but there’s always room for improvement.
It helps, when I feel a little down and dim, for me to reflect back on the blessings of the year, the time spent with friends and family, the memories made, the stories told and written. I can look back and count accomplishments, milestones, and take this season to be grateful for the past that brought me to this present moment. It helps relieve me of worries about the future.
There’s a lyric in a lullaby by Pentatonix that gives the best advice:
Count your blessings every day. It makes the monsters go away. And everything will be okay. You are not alone…
I started this newsletter/eZine in December 2021, and here we are, eight months later. I have experienced so many blessings since then. I don’t have all the answers concerning the future, but I am working to appreciate the now. I am grateful for our subscribers, site visitors, and for our supporters, and the columnists who have joined me so far. Two-Lane Renaissance is growing, slowly and surely. Our renaissance is on its way.
Technically, we have six more weeks of summer even though the kids are back to school. Summer is ripening, and fleeting. Make sure you take time to just sit, reflect, and soak it in.
~Lisa
My essay about this time of year, “Quiet Cacophony,” was published recently by K’in Literary Journal. You can read it online here.
