{The Counties of Maine wooden puzzle, my Solstice gift to Steve last year, from Merchants Row.}
When we arrived home, it was just as though a flip had been switched to autumn. Maybe it was just that I hadn't been able to notice it before, I don't know. But I do know that everywhere I look now, autumn is all around us. Outside, as the trees become bare, the air crisp, the ground covered in leaves, and the frost hits my (almost) forgotten squash.
I see just as much change on the inside, as we all settle into our home spaces once again. As corners of our home abandoned over the summer of outdoor play start filling up with activity and more activity from the seven of us. Each year so different than the last, as we all grow and change in the ways a family does, I wonder what this one will hold that is different from the last. There's a new reader in the house. And a fresh walker. There are manuscripts in progress (theirs, not mine). And I can't forget my spinning.
But I also see many of the reliable seasonal comforts that I know will be with us always so long as we all are in this space together - sharing music, snuggling kitties in front of the first fires, games, stacks of new reading books, our family writing club reinstated, and knitting. Oh yes, the knitting.
I'm happily settling into this season. (I hope you are too.)
