You are so connected to the land and the seasons Susie, it is almost as if you are speaking for the golden folded stalks or soon to fall leaves. Beautiful writing 🍂
Ahh, how lovely to see your name pop up Alex, apologies for not replying sooner, its been quite a week, a Covid(y) week which sadly isn't over yet! I do hope you are well and steering clear, every other person at school has it right now and I don't think Ive escaped!
Thank you for your lovely comment, I have needed to feel closer to nature than I have been able this week, making your affirmation of my connectedness all the more welcome... Soon those leaves will be falling golden brown in the days to come and I don't want to miss a second, I hope only that the lack of summer days are compensated for by a long and glorious
Autumn seems to have come early this year. It seems more emotional and poetic too. Every fading, soon to fall leaf seems to be playing its own melancholy tune. 🍂
The feeling of unsettled, even a glimpse of loss, reminders of how the summer moments were each cherished and filling. Just within reach are more stretches of the joy of the hill and what she shares.
Thank you Stacy, you understood perfectly my message, perhaps you are feeling those same unsettled days? I wait in impatience now for the warm coloured clothes of autumn to wrap themselves over the hill and pray hard they are long and beautiful...
I am absolutely blown away by the caption on the first photo. It's a stunning poem that so perfectly captures the feelings at the end of a favorite season.
"Farewell summer days, farewell bare feet and arms and legs, cut off Levis and soft linen tops. Farewell late evening walks, cicadas and bees, farewell meadow flowers and tiny occupants hidden within, farewell golden light, you were fleeting and beautiful and you made my summer soul giddy with drunken delight but it’s time to sober up."
I too am a summer person. It's the only season when I can get deep into the mountains that feed my soul, and every year I stand at a last pass or viewpoint in September and say farewell to all the mountains and I have shared. The details I speak of are different, but the feeling is the same as your poem. Thank you for sharing it.
Sarah, firstly my apologies for such a tardy reply. No excuses bar life happening, which I think is better than the option!
I am more than delighted to meet another summer girl! We seem to outnumbered by those autumn lovers of all that's cosy and, well, let's say more coppery than golden!
You speak of your mountains in a way that I recognise deeply, I am sure you feel as fortunate as I do to know and love a place with such profound affinity - we are so very fortunate! I don't know about you but I am amazed almost every day by something, this evening it was the house Martens swooping in the fields... I was immediately calmed after a fretful week.
I give my humble thanks in appreciation, to you and nature - enjoy the weekend, I hope you find a little summer residue lurking in autumn cool!
This is lovely, Susie, and resonates on many levels. I, too, long to get outside and wander, my whole being NEEDS it to feel at all, but, at a minimum to even feel right (write?). And, no, there is nothing better than a child's laughter and you're right, it feels like no time has passed once we get back into the routine of caring for and teaching these little ones!! Beautiful post!! Thanks for sharing and bringing this to the surface for me. XO
Thank you Danielle, I fear a dose of cabin fever creeping up on me it feels so long since I had the time to really appreciate the great outdoors in all its fabulous glory... I pray hard for a few hours of liberty but I fear my prayers are blown into the void. Maybe this weekend will be different?
I must ask, do you teach children too? I am a hopeless teacher, I fail in so many respects to be disciplinary believing life is too short. What is the point, when the years of our youth pass so quickly, of being too harsh on them? Hence, there is much laughter when I am present because I am powerless to stop their and my enjoyment! I am reprimanded often and would surely be 'let go' if the contract laws weren't so strict here! thank goodness for small mercies!
I TOTALLY understand the cabin fever thing. I get crazy when I can't be outdoors. Its an addiction for me, but the best kind. I am looking forward to this weekend, also, so I can get outside. The weather has been blazing hot in the Pacific Northwest these last few days and it is unbearable.
I do teach children. I work in an elementary school in Special Education - mostly students with autism. I am kind of a behavior specialist. I can work with kids from kindergarten up to 6th grade, depending on the need for me each year. It is beautiful work and I am honored to serve that population of students and their families.
Every chance I get, I like to be silly with the kids and do unexpected things. I LOVE hanging upside down on the monkey bars at recess because this confuses students. They always say something like wait...you can't do that cuz you're an adult or something equally silly, but then at the end they ask, can you teach me how? LOL
I'll say my prayers you get a chance to be outdoors. Enjoy yourself!! XO
Danielle, firstly my apologies for such a very late reply, its been quite a week!
Would you believe, if I were to describe my work, this is what I would write;
"I do teach children. I work in an elementary school in Special Education - mostly students with autism. I am kind of a behavior specialist. I can work with kids from kindergarten up to 6th grade, depending on the need for me each year. It is beautiful work and I am honored to serve that population of students and their families." We have exactly the same job, differing only by the country we live in!
I have a similar attitude to you, I try to make them laugh and smile, I teach them odd facts about nature and life they would never be taught in class 5and Im often in trouble with the hierarchy for it) I run and play with them, any game they want and if there were bars to hang on,I would undoubtedly do that too - at least Id try! Its over 45 years since I hung upside down on bars!
I always feel humbled by the honour of teaching these kids too!
Namaste my friend - may your weekend be filled with natures calm ready for Monday! xox
Holy moly, Susie! What are the chances? Whoa. Truly wonderful and bizarre in all the best ways!!! Glad to know we have yet another tether that binds us together in this big Universe!
I tend to get grouped with the littles because I am a big hugger, and it is still appropriate to hug and love on the littles. But, I love on the staff, too.
Thank you. I pray that you get some time to refill your bucket outdoors before Monday. XO
The melancholy is barely recognisable over the exhaustion today Jo, what a week! Not that the first week back is ever easy and anticipated difficulties are halved difficulties usually.
Thank you always, Im hoping that perhaps I may still throw on a linen shirt and shorts before the dark evenings really descend - even if its just for the memory of summer! X💫X
I can feel the mood of the changing season, weather, temperature, sounds... you capture it all so well! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this beautifully written post. 🙏 💕
Love the photo of your plums/ prunes too... we didn't get many this year. The grape harvest was destroyed by a hailstorm in June. But our apple trees had a good year, the ever reliable fig trees drop their fruit into our hands, dehydrator and larder by the bucket loads, and our raspberries have decided to produce a second flush in September...
The season is also turning here in Portugal, but not as drastically autumnal yet as your hill in France. Enjoying evening meals al fresco, listening to cricket concerts, the cooler temperatures offer a welcome respite after the hot summer.
I envy your Indian summer temperatures Veronika. September is usually such a gentle month here with the worst of the heat gone and the morning mists lingering just that while longer before the sun burns through. It is slightly (make that very) alarming just how quickly the season has changed here this year. I am trying to remain optimistic though, even after reading that truly horrible long range report, that we may still have a few such lovely days to come.
I wish I could send you some of our plums, perhaps we could make an exchange, plums for figs? I have not eaten one fig from any one of our four trees, they have all fallen still hard and unripe, a first for us.
Enjoy your gentle September days, thank you so much for commenting, I will listen to the cricket concerts vicariously !
that sudden change of seasons does sound alarming!
I was thinking exactly the same – would love to swap figs for plums!! We better enjoy the bounty of our trees while we can. Who knows what other sudden changes are in store?
A minky grey cloud...that is indeed how September started here. After the odd summer, that served for me as a false respite from global warming worries, I was hoping for a gorgeous autumn as we so often have here. I don't look at long-range weather forecasts. Say it ain't so!
We certainly have no fear of drought for the time being Betty! 🙄
As for the long range forecast, to avoid the bleakness of a depression (pun intended) I am remaining optimistic for autumn/winter based on the fact that day to day the meteorology office is often wrong! However, pinky grey clouds still seem to be taking the limelight this week..
Thank you for reading John, it is hard to hide the melancholy when one wished so hard for an Indian summer. I hope you enjoy the recommended writers too.
It is a truly beautiful feeling to feel so close to so many kindred souls here - I am forever thankful for you sweet soul - I wish I could send you some prunes Fotini, it breaks my heart to see them rotting on the ground and there are kilos and kilos of them after this weeks rain... xx
The space of your words feels like home. I once had a substack of random vignettes, but a friend knocked the wind from my sails. I deleted it all. I don't know how how to forgive her. We don't talk about it. I've tried to begin again, but with little results. Thank you for sharing your hill with us.
Nicole, firstly, thank you for reading, also, can I just say, begin again! Don't tell your friend(?) I have been where you are - a member of my family no less - and it nearly broke me but I believe that if our head tells us to do something, because we enjoy it, because it makes our hearts sing and our creative souls dance, the words/pictures/art must flow. Try again, don't be swayed by the ill manners, envy, of others. Substack is so filled with support and encouragement! I'm counting on you! X
Thank you. I like substack, but I get overwhelmed with everything I want to read. I wrote online for many years and I miss the days when blogs were more like narrative journals and not about influencing. Look forward to reading more from you. ♡♡♡
Susie, thanks for your notes from 'the small hours' in unsettling time. I am reminded of 'unimaginable zero summer'. These are memorable sketches that you have given us.
'Cool' has retained its original meaning our summer in these islands, even more so where Scotland inclines steeply into the Atlantic. We have had some few sunlit days and the big machines snatched the local oil seed, the oats, even the peas for freezing between the grey days. The heavy gloom is back for a week or more but early this week we had old friends we have not seen in years come on a sunlit day bearing baskets of plums from Edinburgh that they, like you, could not bear so much go to waste. The news 'on the wires' as we used to say is not easily bearable unless laughter return with children.
And 'cool' has not only regained meaning here but is winning the race by fathoms Philip, my husband has succumbed to igniting stove, even it is grumbling at such a rudely early awakening from slumber. An almost unimaginable happening here in the nearly South of France in September when the maize is still standing and big machines have still yet to pass through. The mind shrivels at the 'what ever is next' scenario...
My gratitude to you for reading, and yet more for that hauntingly beautiful last line.
Thank you kindly. I am peering at our logpile but oddly the grey turns milky and warmer at times. The old farm steadings used to have a weather cock which might help. But I guess it is odd enough these days to confuse a barometer.
The moments of shift are liminal, thresholds where the old hasn't yet left (plums and tomatoes) but the new hasn't yet settled in (dry logs and soup). That liminality leaves us unsettled, rudderless. Drifting sounds like a very appropriate response and I'm going to follow your lead as best I can.
Enjoy your drifting Caroline, I have a profound feeling this liminal shift may become habit with the seasons... we no longer have any defined periods of adjustment which is so very discombobulating!
Thank you so much for reading, your comments are very appreciated - I wish you a weekend adrift somewhere calm and peaceful 🌿
You are so connected to the land and the seasons Susie, it is almost as if you are speaking for the golden folded stalks or soon to fall leaves. Beautiful writing 🍂
Ahh, how lovely to see your name pop up Alex, apologies for not replying sooner, its been quite a week, a Covid(y) week which sadly isn't over yet! I do hope you are well and steering clear, every other person at school has it right now and I don't think Ive escaped!
Thank you for your lovely comment, I have needed to feel closer to nature than I have been able this week, making your affirmation of my connectedness all the more welcome... Soon those leaves will be falling golden brown in the days to come and I don't want to miss a second, I hope only that the lack of summer days are compensated for by a long and glorious
autumn. Sending love and thanks 🍂x
I hope you recover quickly Susie!
Autumn seems to have come early this year. It seems more emotional and poetic too. Every fading, soon to fall leaf seems to be playing its own melancholy tune. 🍂
The feeling of unsettled, even a glimpse of loss, reminders of how the summer moments were each cherished and filling. Just within reach are more stretches of the joy of the hill and what she shares.
Thank you Stacy, you understood perfectly my message, perhaps you are feeling those same unsettled days? I wait in impatience now for the warm coloured clothes of autumn to wrap themselves over the hill and pray hard they are long and beautiful...
I hope the weekend is kind to you! 🍁x
I am absolutely blown away by the caption on the first photo. It's a stunning poem that so perfectly captures the feelings at the end of a favorite season.
"Farewell summer days, farewell bare feet and arms and legs, cut off Levis and soft linen tops. Farewell late evening walks, cicadas and bees, farewell meadow flowers and tiny occupants hidden within, farewell golden light, you were fleeting and beautiful and you made my summer soul giddy with drunken delight but it’s time to sober up."
I too am a summer person. It's the only season when I can get deep into the mountains that feed my soul, and every year I stand at a last pass or viewpoint in September and say farewell to all the mountains and I have shared. The details I speak of are different, but the feeling is the same as your poem. Thank you for sharing it.
Sarah, firstly my apologies for such a tardy reply. No excuses bar life happening, which I think is better than the option!
I am more than delighted to meet another summer girl! We seem to outnumbered by those autumn lovers of all that's cosy and, well, let's say more coppery than golden!
You speak of your mountains in a way that I recognise deeply, I am sure you feel as fortunate as I do to know and love a place with such profound affinity - we are so very fortunate! I don't know about you but I am amazed almost every day by something, this evening it was the house Martens swooping in the fields... I was immediately calmed after a fretful week.
I give my humble thanks in appreciation, to you and nature - enjoy the weekend, I hope you find a little summer residue lurking in autumn cool!
I know I have said this before but your writing always makes me feel like I'm right there with you. Thanks for this.
Always in the hope the transportation helps in some small way Deirdre, my thanks for reading.
Thank you
💚
Beautiful
Thank you for reading Poala.
This is lovely, Susie, and resonates on many levels. I, too, long to get outside and wander, my whole being NEEDS it to feel at all, but, at a minimum to even feel right (write?). And, no, there is nothing better than a child's laughter and you're right, it feels like no time has passed once we get back into the routine of caring for and teaching these little ones!! Beautiful post!! Thanks for sharing and bringing this to the surface for me. XO
Thank you Danielle, I fear a dose of cabin fever creeping up on me it feels so long since I had the time to really appreciate the great outdoors in all its fabulous glory... I pray hard for a few hours of liberty but I fear my prayers are blown into the void. Maybe this weekend will be different?
I must ask, do you teach children too? I am a hopeless teacher, I fail in so many respects to be disciplinary believing life is too short. What is the point, when the years of our youth pass so quickly, of being too harsh on them? Hence, there is much laughter when I am present because I am powerless to stop their and my enjoyment! I am reprimanded often and would surely be 'let go' if the contract laws weren't so strict here! thank goodness for small mercies!
Wishing you a peaceful weekend dear soul xxoxx
I TOTALLY understand the cabin fever thing. I get crazy when I can't be outdoors. Its an addiction for me, but the best kind. I am looking forward to this weekend, also, so I can get outside. The weather has been blazing hot in the Pacific Northwest these last few days and it is unbearable.
I do teach children. I work in an elementary school in Special Education - mostly students with autism. I am kind of a behavior specialist. I can work with kids from kindergarten up to 6th grade, depending on the need for me each year. It is beautiful work and I am honored to serve that population of students and their families.
Every chance I get, I like to be silly with the kids and do unexpected things. I LOVE hanging upside down on the monkey bars at recess because this confuses students. They always say something like wait...you can't do that cuz you're an adult or something equally silly, but then at the end they ask, can you teach me how? LOL
I'll say my prayers you get a chance to be outdoors. Enjoy yourself!! XO
Danielle, firstly my apologies for such a very late reply, its been quite a week!
Would you believe, if I were to describe my work, this is what I would write;
"I do teach children. I work in an elementary school in Special Education - mostly students with autism. I am kind of a behavior specialist. I can work with kids from kindergarten up to 6th grade, depending on the need for me each year. It is beautiful work and I am honored to serve that population of students and their families." We have exactly the same job, differing only by the country we live in!
I have a similar attitude to you, I try to make them laugh and smile, I teach them odd facts about nature and life they would never be taught in class 5and Im often in trouble with the hierarchy for it) I run and play with them, any game they want and if there were bars to hang on,I would undoubtedly do that too - at least Id try! Its over 45 years since I hung upside down on bars!
I always feel humbled by the honour of teaching these kids too!
Namaste my friend - may your weekend be filled with natures calm ready for Monday! xox
Holy moly, Susie! What are the chances? Whoa. Truly wonderful and bizarre in all the best ways!!! Glad to know we have yet another tether that binds us together in this big Universe!
I tend to get grouped with the littles because I am a big hugger, and it is still appropriate to hug and love on the littles. But, I love on the staff, too.
Thank you. I pray that you get some time to refill your bucket outdoors before Monday. XO
So beautiful Susie despite, and perhaps because of, the dusting of melancholy.
Love your photos as always. Love the images of linen shirts and golden light, the sounds of cicadas and bees.
Thank you Susie and all the best for your 'rentrée’ into both school and autumn days. 🩷🍂
The melancholy is barely recognisable over the exhaustion today Jo, what a week! Not that the first week back is ever easy and anticipated difficulties are halved difficulties usually.
Thank you always, Im hoping that perhaps I may still throw on a linen shirt and shorts before the dark evenings really descend - even if its just for the memory of summer! X💫X
I can feel the mood of the changing season, weather, temperature, sounds... you capture it all so well! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this beautifully written post. 🙏 💕
Love the photo of your plums/ prunes too... we didn't get many this year. The grape harvest was destroyed by a hailstorm in June. But our apple trees had a good year, the ever reliable fig trees drop their fruit into our hands, dehydrator and larder by the bucket loads, and our raspberries have decided to produce a second flush in September...
The season is also turning here in Portugal, but not as drastically autumnal yet as your hill in France. Enjoying evening meals al fresco, listening to cricket concerts, the cooler temperatures offer a welcome respite after the hot summer.
I envy your Indian summer temperatures Veronika. September is usually such a gentle month here with the worst of the heat gone and the morning mists lingering just that while longer before the sun burns through. It is slightly (make that very) alarming just how quickly the season has changed here this year. I am trying to remain optimistic though, even after reading that truly horrible long range report, that we may still have a few such lovely days to come.
I wish I could send you some of our plums, perhaps we could make an exchange, plums for figs? I have not eaten one fig from any one of our four trees, they have all fallen still hard and unripe, a first for us.
Enjoy your gentle September days, thank you so much for commenting, I will listen to the cricket concerts vicariously !
that sudden change of seasons does sound alarming!
I was thinking exactly the same – would love to swap figs for plums!! We better enjoy the bounty of our trees while we can. Who knows what other sudden changes are in store?
Sending you gentle September vibes 💗💗
Thank you Veronica, may your weekend be still bountiful and warm! 💛x
A minky grey cloud...that is indeed how September started here. After the odd summer, that served for me as a false respite from global warming worries, I was hoping for a gorgeous autumn as we so often have here. I don't look at long-range weather forecasts. Say it ain't so!
We certainly have no fear of drought for the time being Betty! 🙄
As for the long range forecast, to avoid the bleakness of a depression (pun intended) I am remaining optimistic for autumn/winter based on the fact that day to day the meteorology office is often wrong! However, pinky grey clouds still seem to be taking the limelight this week..
thanks for seeing (and including) me, Susie 🌻
i see (and value) you 🙏🏼
It is always with a smile that I do so Darren... you are very welcome 💚
💚
Lovely, lilting despite a certain melancholy; and thank you for the recommendations too.
Thank you for reading John, it is hard to hide the melancholy when one wished so hard for an Indian summer. I hope you enjoy the recommended writers too.
Every time I read your posts, Susie, I am right there with you -- only a screen away.
Thank you for including me in your loving list, it makes me ridiculously happy :)
P.S. The prunes look so delicious :)
It is a truly beautiful feeling to feel so close to so many kindred souls here - I am forever thankful for you sweet soul - I wish I could send you some prunes Fotini, it breaks my heart to see them rotting on the ground and there are kilos and kilos of them after this weeks rain... xx
We can’t have them all, Susie :)
The space of your words feels like home. I once had a substack of random vignettes, but a friend knocked the wind from my sails. I deleted it all. I don't know how how to forgive her. We don't talk about it. I've tried to begin again, but with little results. Thank you for sharing your hill with us.
Nicole, firstly, thank you for reading, also, can I just say, begin again! Don't tell your friend(?) I have been where you are - a member of my family no less - and it nearly broke me but I believe that if our head tells us to do something, because we enjoy it, because it makes our hearts sing and our creative souls dance, the words/pictures/art must flow. Try again, don't be swayed by the ill manners, envy, of others. Substack is so filled with support and encouragement! I'm counting on you! X
Thank you. I like substack, but I get overwhelmed with everything I want to read. I wrote online for many years and I miss the days when blogs were more like narrative journals and not about influencing. Look forward to reading more from you. ♡♡♡
Susie, thanks for your notes from 'the small hours' in unsettling time. I am reminded of 'unimaginable zero summer'. These are memorable sketches that you have given us.
'Cool' has retained its original meaning our summer in these islands, even more so where Scotland inclines steeply into the Atlantic. We have had some few sunlit days and the big machines snatched the local oil seed, the oats, even the peas for freezing between the grey days. The heavy gloom is back for a week or more but early this week we had old friends we have not seen in years come on a sunlit day bearing baskets of plums from Edinburgh that they, like you, could not bear so much go to waste. The news 'on the wires' as we used to say is not easily bearable unless laughter return with children.
And 'cool' has not only regained meaning here but is winning the race by fathoms Philip, my husband has succumbed to igniting stove, even it is grumbling at such a rudely early awakening from slumber. An almost unimaginable happening here in the nearly South of France in September when the maize is still standing and big machines have still yet to pass through. The mind shrivels at the 'what ever is next' scenario...
My gratitude to you for reading, and yet more for that hauntingly beautiful last line.
May your weekend be a kind one;
Thank you kindly. I am peering at our logpile but oddly the grey turns milky and warmer at times. The old farm steadings used to have a weather cock which might help. But I guess it is odd enough these days to confuse a barometer.
The moments of shift are liminal, thresholds where the old hasn't yet left (plums and tomatoes) but the new hasn't yet settled in (dry logs and soup). That liminality leaves us unsettled, rudderless. Drifting sounds like a very appropriate response and I'm going to follow your lead as best I can.
Enjoy your drifting Caroline, I have a profound feeling this liminal shift may become habit with the seasons... we no longer have any defined periods of adjustment which is so very discombobulating!
Thank you so much for reading, your comments are very appreciated - I wish you a weekend adrift somewhere calm and peaceful 🌿