It’s been a funny fall in the Pacific Northwest. Summer ended abruptly and fall crashed down hard with chilly and rainy days. As someone born in California, I fully come alive in Seattle’s bright sunny long summer days. I feel like there is a frenetic energy in my neighborhood, when we can easily be outside past nine at night enjoying our fantastic weather.
Then, around September, I begin to feel the days shortening and the weather turning. When I drive my kids to soccer practice in the evenings, it is often already dark. I feel the urge to stay at home, cuddled on the couch with my dogs, reading a book and eating chocolate. That’s the sweet side of fall for me. The hard side is that my mood often takes a hit. I feel some wariness about the onset of dark days and the winter to come. Seattle can be tough come January, when the light is brief and a low gray cloud hangs over the city all day long. I don’t dislike the blustery, changeable days of autumn, I just feel trepidation about the dark winter to come.
After living in Seattle for twenty years, I have tried different strategies as fall comes on. I do feel anticipation for the first days of school. I am lucky enough to work at a preschool and I love the excitement of seeing little children and their parents adjust to a new community or be welcomed back by their teachers and friends.
I am Jewish which means that fall brings the High Holidays. These solemn days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur ask us to reflect on our lives, the good and the bad acts that we have done over the past year. We are to ask for forgiveness from others, from God, and from ourselves. This ritual and the beautiful melodies and liturgy of the holidays has become a deeply soothing and reinvigorating part of the fall for me.
This year, in anticipation of the change of seasons, I read a book called Cozy by Isabel Gillies. In her book, Gillies talks about what brings her comfort and coziness, speaking in-depth about even the small things that bring her joy. But her main point is that we each individually need to do the work to discover the things that make us happy. We might feel some societal pressure to enjoy pumpkin spice lattes, so it might take some tuning into our own pleasure to discover that we actually prefer hot apple cider. Similarly, I have a friend who loves snow sports. When it is raining in Seattle, she reminds herself that this means more snow for her to enjoy on her weekend getaways in the mountains.
Because I work with new parents, often those with little babies, I am always asking them to think about self care. Part of self care is mindfulness, tuning in to your own experience. Because new parents often have less time to themselves, this time needs to be spent doing the things that bring maximum coziness for this individual. Often, new parents are so tired and worn down, that they can’t remember what brought them joy before having kids, and whether that has changed or not in the time since.
I think about Marie Kondo’s famous book and that the part I most resonated with is asking the question which objects “spark joy” in our houses and keeping only those. Self-care can be approached the same way. Which activities, people, and spaces spark your own joy? How can you add more of these pleasures into your life? How can you more deeply value your coziness in this change of seasons?