From the desk of Whitney Lasky
Autumn, the season that marks the transition from summer
into winter. The time when night comes noticeably earlier as the temperature
drops. Also known in America as Fall. The word fall by definition is to drop or come
down freely under the influence of gravity.
Fall is a time when the lush abundance of nature paints it’s canvas with
a pallet of spectacular color. Beautiful.
Bull shit girlfriends. Stuff is dying. Summer is over. If
you garden like me you get to watch everything you planted and nurtured since
spring slowly die. Winter winds are just
around the corner. Forget about wearing anything white.
For many of us fall also means back to school. New schedules
to implement and the monotony of the daily grind. For me it also meant taking
my oldest son out east to school. Blake is 18, this isn’t summer camp it’s
life. He has flown from the nest.
Blake’s transition to college marks the spring of his life
and the fall of mine. The skies are turning grey just like my hair-well the
parts that actually are my hair. For a
person who hated fall in the first place, this realization is almost too much
to bare. Despite all that modern technology has to offer in terms of anti
aging. Despite my live in the moment, carpe diem, way of life-fall has hit me
right between the eyes. Where did the time go? How did I get here? Who am I? How the hell am I going to do this
½ empty nest thing with out totally helicoptering my 9 year old? Ouch! This
makes turning 50 and wicked hot flashes seem like a breeze. Pray. I have been
praying quite a bit lately.
In William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Wild Swans at Coole, Yeats observes that the season of fall symbolically
represents his own aging self. Like the natural world around him he too has
reached his prime and now must look forward to the inevitability of winter- old
age and death. Yeats also wrote To Autumn,
the poem echoes this sense of melancholic reflection and inward thinking. It
was written in 1819. Clearly I am not the first or only person to have these
feelings.
I am reminded of what Bella Itkin a college professor of
mine once said, “We must walk before we can run, we must be grounded.” That
seemed ironic to me at 18. I raised my hand and pointed out that when one walks,
the two feet never touch the ground at the same time. In running it is the
same. Bella’s response was, “We are not
discussing locomotion, the act of walking is really about not trying to fall. To
defy the influence of gravity, it takes work, it takes discipline.”
I am walking softly on the earth these days. Knowing that
with the support of my girlfriends I will run again. So fall do your worst! I’m ready.
Please send us your fall/back to school stories! Email: thegirlfriends1@gmail.com
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