I’m back in the forest!  That’s what I realized on my drive home this weekend after spending some time on my “deer blind.”  I love this time of year as the nights get longer, and the mornings wake cooler, and I especially like spending this time in the woods.  We start to see the first tinges of color in the trees, and the air has that certain fresh snap.  Plus, the bugs have mostly gone away, so hiking and working in the forest are delightful.

Pay attention in the fall woods, and you can sense the world’s collective eagerness about the changes to come.  It’s as if all the animals sense the winter’s approach, and have decided to get everything done while the “getting is good.”  I begin to list everything I was going to do “next weekend” that I really didn’t get to.  I worry that I don’t have enough days left to get everything done, and Michigan weather tick-tick-ticks in the back of my mind, reminding me that soon, the chance to get anything done outside will hibernate.

This surely forms the origin of my fall melancholy – thinking about things I could have done, and knowing how hard the coming months will be.  It’s more than just the uneasiness of change, it’s a deep wondering whether I have used the time wisely, gotten done what needs to be done, appreciated fully the wonder, bounty and beauty in the world, or whether I just watched it go past like a kid looking out a backseat window.

Instead of wasting time on regret, I found that embracing autumn’s change head on makes the best medicine for me.  So I hope you go for a hike, pick apples with your kids, find a corn maze on a cold, breezy day, or find a place to sit and listen on a warm autumn afternoon and watch the world carry on.  Frost said it best, “Nothing gold can stay.”