One thing I love about getting older is that I feel like I’ve developed a stronger sense of time. The ideas that time is fleeting and passes too quickly are not lost on me, and I regularly look at the calendar and think “How could it be a year already since that happened?”, but I also feel like I’ve become more in tune with both tiny bits and large swaths of time.

Particularly since sheltering at home because of Covid, I have noticed that I can better estimate how much I can do while the waffles are toasting or the chicken is grilling. I’m amazed at how many totally basic and regular tasks I used to dread because I thought they would take too long. Watering plants in the yard, doing the dishes, making a salad. Somehow those all used to seem like things that took longer than they actually do, and that there was not enough time in the day to do them. (Well, actually I lied: I still think preparing a salad takes longer than it seems it should…what with all the washing and drying and chopping.) But generally, I feel like I’ve simply internalized a better sense of how long a lot of little things take and that allows me to move a little more gracefully through my days. That may be something you just learn through experience, or it may be that this pandemic has give me some space to absorb it.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is something that happens just before a season changes that I just love: I become ready. I don’t have to try, it just happens. It’s most noticeable to me at this time of year – the middle to the end of August. I love summer. I love hot weather and sunny days and cookouts and cold white wine and the soft early evening light that falls through our western windows. But right around this time of year, every year, I’ll lose hope that my farmer tan will ever even out, get really sick of bug bites, and take note of my dry, tired feet. The planters on my patio look not just thirsty, but weary, and trees become still with the weight of both the humidity and their fully grown leaves. I get a little tired of the pressure to cook with all the fresh produce. Something inside me simply shifts and says It’s okay to let go. It will come again next year.

I also love fall, and the anticipation of the colors, caramel apples, and the fresh focus of September ramp up as my enjoyment of summer wanes. I love the nesting that feels most natural in fall, as we look forward to the holidays. I grew up Catholic, but my husband is Jewish and after fifteen years together, I also associate fall with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the high holidays of Judaism. I become grateful for the chance to spend a little more time inside, to start making warm soups and comfort food. Then Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years all come along quickly and offer the opportunity for connection, celebration, and renewal. They also take a lot of energy, and when they are done, I revel in the quiet that follows, the respite that winter allows.

I don’t care for spring that much, at least not in Wisconsin. It stretches on too long and has been increasingly marked by late season snow storms and wild vacillations between warm and cold. I don’t mind rain, but I dislike the inconsistency and because I love hot weather, it always takes too long to be sure that the heat is here to stay.

But as I sit here now, thinking of the things I want to do a few more times before it gets too cold, I just feel grateful to know that I can more or less trust the rhythm of it all. There’s plenty of things beyond my control, but I am heartened by the feeling that every August, without any effort at all, I become ready to embrace what’s next.