Scaling Back, Building Up and Burning Down

In preparation of October

October was always my favorite month of all time until it wasn’t. Life can be like that, can’t it? For the last few years I’ve mourned it, I’ve shamed myself into rallying, I’ve put on false faces, I’ve felt manic-like happiness and restoration only to crash in a puddle in a corner for a few days. This year, I have felt a steady calm entering in and am taking with me the wisdom that some of my nearest and dearest have given to me. So, I thought I would share with you how I’m approaching a season during which I’m not sure what my heart will need at any given time in the hope that maybe you can apply some of the same ideas when you face something similar.

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How To Love Yourself Through A Difficult Season

1. Food is often how I show love to myself, and to others. I love to cook, bake and experiment with new recipes. But I’ve found that the particular strain of this season compounded with the fact that no one in my family will actually eat the same things right now has made dinner time more of a stressor than a release for me right now. So, I sat everyone down this weekend and polled the things that EVERYONE will eat for dinner. It was a short list. Salmon and broccoli. Mashed potatoes. Steak and green beans. Spaghetti. Chicken noodle soup. Roast chicken. Sliced cucumbers and snap peas. That’s the dinner cue for October. That’s it. I let them know that that’s what we’ll be eating during the week. On the weekend, I will pick one new recipe I’d love to try (that has actual flavor) and if they don’t want to eat it, they’re on their own with a bagel or a quesadilla and we’ll order in one night. Done.

2. Keeping along the food theme, however, we know there are more meals than just dinner and I also have to eat those. On the weekends, I generally make a batch of soup for myself for the week for lunches- and when I do, I always put a few, single serving containers in the freezer for myself and my biggest kid who is a soup lover like me. It feeds my literal need for variety to have some options to choose from and provides her a heartier after-school snack choice (which she needs right now- hellloooooo parents of middle schoolers, this is a trip, no?) and saves me so much time.

3. I have found myself leaning away from the online/social media world these days for my own personal downtime, and I think there are a few reasons for this. One is, now my day job requires me to work in it so it’s pretty much the last thing I want to do during my time, “off”. I’m also aware that during sensitive times, it’s really best to lean into the people in your life who have been in your kitchen ( virtually or IRL). You know what I mean. So I’m scaling back in more ways than one in order to really listen to myself and to my people.

4. I’m a reader. I read constantly, all the time. All genres. Non-fiction and fiction. I love it. It’s my job and my pleasure and it’s a joy. But times like these draw me to my comfort reads. Not the ones I re-read to consume more information, not even the ones I would consider literary masterpieces ( although I think some of them are). But the books that for some reason or not, have come me with through the years. Eclectic as old friends. These are some of my favorite books of all time, that I carry with me:

   • The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

   • The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

   • Bread and Wine, by Shauna Niequist

   • My Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg

   • The Harry Potter Series, forever and always amen.

   • Devotions, by Mary Oliver

5. Say yes. During weird times when you might not trust yourself to be ok in the way that is expected of you, show up anyway. Say yes to coffee or dinner with a friend even if you don’t feel like it. Show up to things that usually bring you joy- live music, theater, and anything outside around a fire pit for me- even if you’re afraid you might not be able to enjoy it as much. This is a kindness to yourself that you need. And if you have to cancel, your kitchen friends, the ones who have walked with you, will understand. But you’ll cancel less than you think you will.

6. Be open to how your body is responding. Just because a season has been difficult in the past, doesn’t mean it will be again. I believe that our body keeps the score of things. I do. I believe that certain things can be triggering ( I have a complicated relationship with this word) and we should be aware of how our body responds. But I also believe that I never want to stop there. I will recognize triggers and allow room for grief or sadness, but I will move past them because while I want to honor the past- I do not want to live in it. I don’t want to miss the beauty that is my actual life now- in love with my home and my family and my husband in ways that I only dreamed of a few years ago. Be open to the unexpected joys that might come during a season in which, historically, brought pain. Healing only comes when we let it.

   And now, to what is giving me life.

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   1. I feel most like myself in a red lip, a pretty dress, and a leather jacket. It’s just the truth. After a week in which I had a lot of deadlines and was pretty much glued to the screen, I came home to a box on my bed of this jacket I’d been coveting all summer. My husband is the most thoughtful gift-giver I’ve ever met. I sincerely never want to take it off.

   2. While I DO like a PSL every once in a while, it’s honestly not my favorite. My local coffee bean supplier‘s “Autumn in Vermont” has notes of maple and walnut (two of my absolute favorite things) and it’s exactly what I want in my cup when the weather begins to turn.

   3. “How are you feeling in your body today?” and, “How were you kind to yourself today?”These have been two questions I’ve been asked on a weekly/daily basis for the last few weeks now and to say it’s changed my life would not be an understatement. This last month I’ve had long overdue x-rays taken to reveal that I have, in fact, lived with the remnants of hip dysplasia and a twisted pelvis misdiagnosed as scoliosis my entire life which has instigated a flood of doctor's appointments. One of whom I see weekly, and who has taken to asking me this question. And it’s been the question that has been life-changing and not necessarily the new methods of treatment, as has the kindness question asked by my beloved group of friends. Connecting with my own body physically, emotionally, and spiritually, in the same manner that I had grown accustomed to caring for others has been so healing.

   4. We went to Levon Helms Studios for the third time to see Joy Oladokun a few weeks back and it’s officially my favorite venue. Close and intimate, it’s basically a house show in the middle of the Woodstock woods. I can’t wait to head back.

   5. There is only one thing I want to drink in the fall, around a firepit. It’s this Maple Bourbon Smash cocktail.

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Alright, my friends. Cheers to seasons no matter what they bring. Cheers to being surprised by joy and being kind to ourselves when it doesn’t come. Cheers to reframing narratives and grace when we can’t just yet. Cheers to people in your life who ask the hard questions, to freezers full of soup and eating the same thing for dinner every week. Cheers to the hard and the good. Cheers to eating our words, growing in change, and making it delicious.