fall Archives - Mothering in the Middle

Seasons Change and So Do WE!

by Wendy Sue Noah

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”

Stephen Hawking

Happy Autumn! Though it is still a bit too hot here in too sunny Los Angeles, I can still feel the change in the air, and in my heart.

Seasons are Mother Nature’s way of revealing how change is a natural part of life, and so very necessary, as well. Then, why is it that so many of us are afraid of change, especially since change usually equals growth?

For me, the only constant, amidst constant change, is my faith. With faith in my heart, all the changes around me don’t affect me on any level. That, I find, is the best way to deal with the fact that everything changes, and that I have no control over external change – only my inner self. […]

Autumn Breathes

by Lori Pelikan Strobel

Colored magic and crisp whiffs whirl over wooded pastures

Summer sighs

Autumn inhales

Coolness dawns while Fall tumbles into me.

Autumn in the Air (Going Back)

by Maggie Lamond Simone

“I wouldn’t go back there for the world!” I said to a woman whose daughter was picking out new school stuff alongside my son.

“All I did was worry about homework and clothes, and if I wasn’t doing that, I was chasing a boy – not that I ever caught one. It was just way too much stress.”

“I know!” the woman laughed. “I’m glad this one’s only in first grade!”

“That’s when I was talking about,” I replied. She grabbed her child and fled. […]

The Fall of My Reflection (A Nod to Rosh Hashanah)

by Cyma Shapiro

(Stepping through that “time of life”) The nature and rhythm of my life has changed. What used to be simply firecrackers and passion, fast movement and hard-fast determination, has become a slightly mellower shade of honey, and flows at that very same pour-speed.

What used to be denial of things/time of life/aging has now become sobering, hard-core reality that we must savor each and every day, and that each and every day really is someone else’s last.

What used to be dreaming and planning for something (what?) has given way to acknowledging the present moment… and accepting it.

And, that all the determination and precise planning we give to everything simply cannot belie the fact that someone/something has greater power than we do.

This year, I will breathe in acceptance of the fact that I do not know it all; maybe do not know most of it; and that all of that knowing doesn’t mean that circumstances might not change it all – in an instant.

I know now that all I know is that I am alive and breathing and trying my best… each and every day.

Fall, in the footsteps of my mother

by Andrea Lynn

I always feel like my mother when I clean the oven. I did it last night in recognition that our days of barbecuing will be curtailed soon enough, and an oven-warmed house will soon be a lovely thing. Oven cleaning has come a long way, with the push of a button, but there is still the messy bit at the end that involves rubber gloves, and that is when I feel like my mother — in the best possible way. Productive. […]