What I'm excited about for Fall

September 1st has come and with it, the cooler weather - at least here in Cape Breton it's cooler. This date on the calendar and this time of year makes me reminisce about all the years past at this time, and where I was, what I was doing. Going off to university at 21... or travelling across Canada at 18...or going back to school at 27... and all the other times in between, when I was working a job, or unemployed, but the turn of the air still means harvesting vegetables, and cooler nights, and frosty mornings. 

I love it. It's bittersweet but I do love it. 

This Fall, maybe because I'm pregnant, it feels especially heightened, this excitement for this Fall to come. So I made a little moodboard and list of all I'm excited about, for the next couple of months. From left to right, top to bottom:

• Chicago! We're travelling there in late October for a wedding, and will visit a bunch of Adam's friends while we're there. I've only ever been there in the summer, so visiting in Autumn will be neat, I think. It's such a big and beautiful city, and I love finding something new about it each time we go. (My partner lived there from age 13 to age 27, so it's his home, basically. Even though he's still Canadian and all.) I'm excited especially for: our annual visit to "the Bean", eating a Chicago-style hot dog, and finding a Chicago map by an artist to bring home and frame. 
• BlogJam: I'm a "Jambassador" this year, which means you'll be hearing more about this event from me in the months to come, as I do my part to spread the word about this fantastic blogging conference in Halifax, November 5th. 
• Book Club: A friend hosts a book club in her home, and I joined last year. We've all picked our books for the coming year and it's a fantastic line-up of books I've been wanting to read! The local library provides the books and we provide the book chat... and the life chat. My GoodReads account is here if you're interested. I also post books I read on my Instagram. 
• New season of Outlander! I love love love this show. It's so cozy, and exciting. Bring on the drama, bring on the reunion of Jamie and Claire! I'm still trying to figure out how to get it on-demand in Canada, and I'm willing to pay a subscription fee, so if you know something I don't, let me know. 
• Creative Soul Weekend - this is a retreat for creative women that I co-host with my friend Emily. It's coming up soon - just two more weeks. This year we're going to try wire-wrapped jewelry and archery for our workshops, and there is also lots of time for beach exploring, journalling, talking and laughing. It's the best. 
• New season of Broad City! Trailer is here. I can't wait to see what those crazy queens get up to next.
• The Magic Flute opera: Last opera season I went a couple of times to the "Live in HD" events at the local movie theatre, which is where the Met Opera gets streamed live to cinemas all over the world. It was awesome and I loved it. This season I'm going to try to get to a few before the baby comes, and the one I'm especially excited about is "Die Zauberflote", or in English, The Magic Flute. When I was a kid we had the Classical Kids' cassette of this (hear the first track here) and I loved it so much. I cannot WAIT to see the actual opera and hear the music I knew so well as a kid. 
• Last but not least! I'm really excited to create a nursery for the little one I'm cooking up. (Image in moodboard is from Elise Blaha Cripe's blog, here.) This month I'm moving all my office stuff out of the guest bedroom I've been using as an office these last five years. Then next month my father-in-law will put in new flooring (apparently carpet isn't great for baby puke and poop? Haha), paint the walls, put in a new window and a new light. Then when that's done we'll start setting up the nursery. Hopefully it will be all together in time for Baby's February 8th due date! 

Whew! That's a lot of good stuff. Things I wanted to include but didn't: apples, cool air, socks, and (this may sound weird) everything in the garden dying back. I didn't get much time to garden this year so my garden is overgrown with weeds. I can't wait for everything to die back so it's easier to prune and manage again. It feels a bit like a refresh. 

So yeah, Fall. While I like some things about summer, more and more as I get older the heat of summer really takes the stuffing out of me, so this cooler weather feels like it wakes me up, gets my energy going. I like it. 

one of my favourite poems

This Body Is Growing a Person

By Sheree Fitch

Why say: I'm going to have a baby?

You give birth.

But you never own.

You never have.
 

To say baby is to say cherub cheeks and dimpled wrists 

warm snuggle bunny baby bundle.

Sure there's a faint echo of crying and smell of baby shit

but both are sweet to ear and nose in conception.

Say instead:

This body is growing a person.

Picture that chalky fish on the ultrasound screen as

infant, toddler, child, adolescent

a grown person with a mortgage

no job, child support to pay.

Picture inside you a temper tantrum

a three-year-old scribbling on the walls

a face full of acne

a lip being stitched

a weeping teenager broken-hearted for the first time

a door-smashing wall-pounding adolescent

a runaway

an addict

a crackpot conservative, a lunatic lefty

a vegan

a vegetable

a prostitute

a convict

a schizophrenic

a tightrope walker, a high-rise window washer

a human trying to be.

Picture yourself inside yourself.

(Now there's a terrifying thought.)

For nine months see baby

an old person with false teeth, pleated face

halitosis, osteoporosis, a bruised heart.

Say:

This body is growing a person.

Be prepared

when baby stands before you

framed in the arch of a doorway

waving goodbye with a promise to call

a baby you can no longer hold

                            no longer rock

                            no longer kiss and make it better for.

Just watch:

as he goes out

into a world

that most days

is just not              good           enough

for any baby you might dare to call your own.

---

1993, Sheree Fitch. In the collection "In this house are many women, and other poems", Goose Lane Editions. 

Sheree's website is here. 

sweet & spicy

Reading, over coffee this morning. Wanting to underline it all. Score it all, and by so doing, transfer it to my heart for safekeeping. For safe-remembering. 

But it's a library book. So I'll tuck it away to order later, buy later. Not right this second, although that's what I want to do, but I'm trying to be fiscally responsible, so I will wait. (Wait for free shipping, more like.) 

Last night's supper - salmon tails slathered in a sauce of horseradish, Dijon mustard, and honey. Baked in the oven. Pungent, tasty, spicy, sweet. Not for Adam (he doesn't like fish) but for me. (He had steak.)

This morning: saw Adam off at 6. Hugged him at the door. "Love you honey," I said, as normal. Then: "100 percent. Down to your toes." Not what I normally say, but I was inspired this morning. He rolls his eyes affectionately, "OK dear." 

After I ate breakfast, I came in here, to my office. Inspired. In spiro. Lit my candle. Put on Lauryn Hill, the Unplugged album. Those strumming strings, those cracked-voice lyrics -- ahhhhhh. My soul. It sings along. I clap in my mind with the audience on the album. 

Happy Thursday, friends. 

A present

A special weather statement is in effect. 

A low pressure system will pass south of Nova Scotia tonight as it intensifies and tracks towards Newfoundland. Snow from this system is expected to reach the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia this afternoon in the south and early this evening further north.

The clouds hang low. The air is still and cold. 

Just a few days ago it was warm. You could feel spring coming. I half expected to see the tiny tips of chives poking up out of the ground. I felt drunk on garden plans. 

A few days and a weather statement later, and we're back to considering shovels. Back to factoring in extra time in plans for clearing the driveway. Back to thinking, "Do I have enough books to read if the storm is heavier than expected?"

(I will always technically have enough books to read, as I have plenty on my shelves that I've never read. But what I'm really asking is, "Do I have enough books from the library that I'm actually excited to read?")

_

Tonight on my way home from work (which is in Sydney) I drove past the turn to my house and all the way into town (which is North Sydney - and which is actually a completely separate town than Sydney; separated by a harbour in fact). I had gotten an email from my local library branch earlier, letting me know that an Inter-library Loan (or ILL for us nerds) was in. "Present Over Perfect" by Shauna Niequest. A title I have been wanting to read since I first heard about it last year, but which my own library system didn't buy, so I had to order it via ILL from somewhere else in the province. But you have to wait a year for those: they don't ILL books within a year of publication. 

So I knew I wasn't waiting til later in the weekend for this book. A storm on the way, and an exciting title? I'm definitely spending those extra ten minutes and what, a dollar? on gas to go get it. 

Happy Friday - and possible storm day - friends. 

_

PS Bonus mini "Links Loved": these blogging tips by Erin Loechner feel really good to me right now. I read them through, and thought "yes, yes, yes." I want to go back and chew them over a few more times.