It’s come a day later than I expected. A welcome reprieve. This month has been one of abrupt pivots. After a dour summer, two weeks of heatwave give way to days of rain. The water butt is refilled but the damp soil has no need of it. The temperature drops below 10℃ overnight for the first time in months. And after today, the nights inch ever deeper into time. 

I swap the postcard on the mantlepiece; summer for autumn. Pull the water kefir grains out of the fridge door. For a few weeks, they were one thing too many to keep alive. Now, a little sugar and some fresh water should be all that it takes to wake up. On a roll, I grab a bag of flour and another glass jar. Another go at a sourdough starter. As I wipe the counter clean, I think of rye flour too. But perhaps that’s a bit too much fermented life for this season. I’ll review my motivation in a few days’ time. 

I change my jumper twice for sitting outside. Settle on a winter woolly for an autumn breeze. It’s warm when the sun shines, but the wind is confirmedly cool as the clouds pass across. 

There are uncertainties, unexpected. I am surprised by my surprise. There has rarely been a time when life has just run. A season is made of many seasons. The garden reminds me of this. Summer lingers in the reddening tomatoes. Autumn settles in with a blackberry hue. Winter hints in the browning leaf edges.  Endings, beginnings, middles coexist. 

I buy a bottle of something rhubarb and ginger; look forward to the promise of warmth and spice this evening. The supermarket is stocked with logs. I take a photograph of the Christmas aisle, text it to my husband with a host of indignant punctuation.

Red kites, usually so common to the area, seem to have returned after a few weeks holiday. Two years here and the sight of them from my study window still captivates. They are a conservation success story. We need more of these after another week of bad climate news – both in terms of lived reality and absconded responsibility.  

We talk a little of this, processing. We have to keep doing so if we are to keep going. I recognise a little stagnation in myself. The persistent efforts to green our lives have plateaued. My instinct is to strive, but energy is finite and we are acutely aware of the need to sustain it. So I pour myself a cool glass of water and eat something sweet; perhaps I too need this to wake up. And I turn on my laptop. Nine years old, and increasingly creaky at the edges. But still going. This is part of how I keep going. 

One of us tells a story that makes the other laugh. Light and shade. An obvious metaphor for an equinox, but I let myself lean into it. I read a survey recently that said a noticeable percentage of people laugh only three times a week. I can’t stop thinking about this, telling others about it. However you find yourself today, I hope there can be more than a little laughter. Some fresh water. Maybe a little sugar. Lightness in all that messy life.