Mixtape no. 4: Returning
Life updates, links, music, photos, & inspiration
After several months living in a cabin at the foothills of the Adirondacks in rural upstate New York, where we watched summer slowly fade into the vibrant quiet of fall, we have just moved into a little cottage on the coast of southern Maine where we will stay through the winter. To make this move, we have shuttled our little family of four (yes, we still have two dogs, I can’t believe it) between four different homes across three different states in a matter of ten days.
The last two weeks have been a blur of boxes and bags being schlepped from one place to the next, of digging through piles of things to find the thing I am looking for, of meals and nights at my parents home, of a trip down and back to visit our old home, our sailboat in the Chesapeake Bay, of sitting in a heavy car packed and filled to the gills with everything tied into place so as not to topple over onto the dogs who are piled onto each other in the back, of wondering what our future holds, and the many other familiar and tiresome procedures required when moving a life from one place to the next.
But the exhaustion, long drives, and sense of ungrounded fragmentation have all been set against the backdrop of an environmental deepening, a seasonal shift into autumn that has rooted me into a place within myself that I haven’t been in a long time. Maybe it’s because I am back in the American Northeast — the place I grew up, but haven’t spent extended time in since moving west seventeen years ago — maybe it’s because I’m experiencing my first New England fall in as many years, maybe it’s because I’ve lived in the tropics for the last four and the ecological contrast is striking, but this autumn has felt… significant.
But I don’t believe this feeling is unique to me and my circumstances — I think anyone who lives in a latitude in which a distinct seasonal shift takes place likely senses, on some level, the internal mirroring of this outward change, albeit in a wide spectrum of flavors and intensities.
For me, what’s most notable is the way in which autumn actively generates emotion. The season invokes a feeling tone that influences mood, pace, energy, and priorities. Just the scent of the air paired with that precise temperature — that perfect balance of opposing coolness in the shadows and warmth in the light — can form particular sensations to start spreading through my cells. The sensation itself is as clear as the sparkling autumnal sky — but the sensation of what, exactly, is harder to articulate.
Maybe it’s the feeling of potential, as this environment was always the backdrop to starting a new school year, and all the little novelties and possibilities of that unknown time always amounted to a subtle sense of starting over, of some sort of exciting new beginning on offer. Maybe it’s grief, of saying goodbye to summer and its loud celebrations of life — its green abounding on green, its nights alive with lingering heat — slipping into the distance, and the ceremonial emptying of trees acting as a quiet reminder of the cold reality of another year closing in, the reminder that time is indeed moving along, for us all, whether we like it or not, whether we notice it or not. Maybe it’s a sort of nebulous nostalgia layered on an uneasy longing, a wistful sense of something that has whispers of family or solitude or an internal quieting, a slowing down.
But the fact is that autumn feels like something. Our bodies, without our willed prompting, receive the message delivered by the sharp whip of wind hushing past us, by the sun stretching those low bands of rose gold through the black lace of bare forests. Our cells respond to this shift in sensory input. Something awakens. Something is stirred. Something is remembered.
Because while your memories and your body are your own, our bodies, the body, was grown into being by these exact elements of land and light. The dramatically shifting ecosystem changes subtly, day by day, moment by moment, and its process invites a readjustment to our own rhythms, a reorientation to place, a vital restoration of pieces of ourselves that tend to lie dormant the rest of the year. There’s a weight to autumn, the lightness of summer blown away and scattered like day-old confetti under the trees, and the gravity of time moves in, pulls us out of our heads, and roots us down into the dark soil of our bodies.
And what a magical thing that is to consider: that one glance at the land, one inhale of that fragrant fall air, and an energy is instantly invoked — one that your body receives well before your mind does. And in the northern hemisphere, this invocation is happening within the bodies of countless others who share your geographical place, simultaneously, right now, as we all ride the planet around together, tilting away from the sun and leaning into the darkness, looking down into the infinite pool of glittering stars.
Autumn is a return — of our personal moments, our sensory histories — but it’s also a return to the animal of our body, to the ancient interdependence of our species and the planet that birthed it, of our biological ties to a cyclical celestial process that’s been looping for a long, long time. It’s a return to our inner universe, a season for inward attention and contemplation as the sense of lifetimes and finitude and eternity press in just around the edges of our daily lives like ghosts, moving us between realms.
It is a visceral remembrance of home — a return to the pieces and people and places that shaped the sum of our sense of self. It is a return of our felt belonging to the earth, and our primal, synchronous connection to the pace at which it moves.
And so, with this focus in mind, today I’m sharing a mixtape, a mood board, a collection of music, essays, poetry, books, and personal tidbits/photos from my life lately, that all revolve around this palpable shift, this return.
Topics include connecting our bodies with the clock of the earth, starlings and the science of their stunning murmurations, the preciousness of rest and slow living, and more glimmers from around the internet and life that have inspired me lately (like my emerging hoop dance practice!).
Most of this will be for my paid subscribers, who I am deeply grateful for, and who keep me afloat in more ways than you know. A full year of access to everything here is about the cost of one Postmates delivery, but this nourishes your whole soul, not just your tummy. Consider upgrading here:
What I’m reading:
Our big fire, heaped high with rosiny logs and branches, is blazing like a sunrise, gladly giving back the light slowly sifted from the sunbeams of centuries of summers; and in the glow of that old sunlight how impressively surrounding objects are brought forward in relief against the outer darkness.
-John Muir
Beginning the Day at Sundown by Orla Beaton. A short but timely piece on the feminine and masculine energies of light and dark, and how we can lean into the diminishing daylight.
Pattern Song by Rebecca Hooper. Hooper has quickly become one of my new favorite writers, and this piece on starlings is… art. Grab a cup of tea and a blanket and be whisked away.
The Body Clock by Sophie Mackintosh. A poetic dance between dreams, wakefulness, memory, consciousness, embodiment, and the through line of it all: light.
The New Year by Tommy Dixon. A thoughtful piece on why autumn often feels like newness, like a beginning, like a fresh start for so many.
Italians Are Teaching Me About Rest by Kirsten Powers. One of the many adjustments I am moving through in a life back in the States is meeting the ubiquitous culture of urgency, unremitting availability, and constant, relentless rushing with my own personal intention of living slowly.
Slow Living by Suleika Jaouad. “So few sensations—like light—show us how much we carry. I wish we trusted ourselves and our strength more. Light marks time and space.”
(I’ve been reminded of my own essay from the archives, Light, exploring many of these similar themes.)
The fat stack of books I am currently reading (or will be, next) as research for the project I am working on (and can’t wait to share more about!):