Patio Evenings

As summer is winding down here in the Rocky Mountain region of the country, I'm eating as many peaches as I can get my hands on, wearing tank tops often and sitting on the patio for evening wine whenever I get a chance.

Summer holds so much joy for me.  Reflectively, it's the season of each year that I spent my childhoods basking in the Colorado sun, making memories with relatives and immediate family, shucking corn and waiting anxiously for my grandma to cut open another watermelon. We spent so much time in SE Colorado in a little town of about 500 called, Swink. The memories flow when I drive the same roads returning to my grandparents home as an adult. 

It's oddly fitting that although my grandparents have been gone for almost ten years now, that their home may finally sell. There is weightedness with the closing of this Summer's offerings. As the leaves begin to change from deep and vibrant greens to rich golds and warm oranges the idea that the home and acreage that hold so many of my most savored childhood memories might too turn a new leaf and be passed along to a new family. Our family is processing through so much this year. It is forcing us into a season of growth and a deepening of faith and much dependance on the very family unit God allowed for us to have. And with this, the closing of lifelong chapters parallels painfully well. I'm never ready for Summer to leave us. However, this year, I feel it might be well. There is goodness in change. I believe there is a spiritual tie to environmental season transition. As the leaves change, I'm studying them... I'm paying attention to the visual process, the way the tight hug of the air affects them and the way they linger tight where they are, green as can be, until all of the needed elements allow them to make adjustments. I will be watching for them to fall and for their branches that feed them their nutrients to start hibernation so that the life source can begin preparation of the best food for Spring. 

I'm going to sink into Winter this year with a slowness that is healthy and well and allow for time to read and learn. And when Spring comes, I'm believing I'll experience the newness of fresh life and deeper roots. 

For now, friends and wine. Friends and wine.