Cami Ostman: Helping you keep pace in the marathon of life.
 October: Balancing the Seasons

 

Since I was in high school, my favorite fall poem has been one I learned about from Mr. Handby in my sophomore year. It goes like this:

 

 

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

 Spring and Fall: to a Young Child

 

   Margaret, are you grieving
   Over Goldengrove unleaving?
   Leaves, like the things of man, you
   With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
   Ah! as the heart grows older
   It will come to such sights colder
   By and by, nor spare a sigh
   Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
   And yet you will weep and know why.
   Now no matter, child, the name:
   Sorrow's springs are the same.
   Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
   What h�art h�ard of, gh�st gu�ssed:
   It is the blight man was born for,
   It is Margaret you mourn for.
 

As the leaves turn color and then drop from the trees, I admit that I annually feel sad--just like the Margaret of Hopkins' poem. I start to feel blue that the days will grow shorter and that life is short. I feel melancholy about my previous year's New Year's goals. If I've met them, the journey is over; if I haven't met them, I feel less than successful.

 

And then, each fall, there comes a day when I look around and all of the trees are bare.  They look dead and brittle. And this makes me mad. Why do they have to go naked for six months? And why do I have to look out my window and see gray: gray sky and gray sticks poking up from bare trees? It isn't fair! 

 

But usually, around the end of December, I remember that a new year is about  to begin. The hope for a new beginning, the coveted "second wind," is what gets me through the dark days of dropping leaves and cloudy skies.  

 

I don't know about you, but the end of every project (for me right now it's completing an anthology; for you it may be the end of your child-rearing, or leaving a job, or the dissolution of a marriage) ignites this same sad to mad to hope process, too.  

 

When you've finished one thing but don't yet have direction or inclination to start another, there is a winter in your heart. If you're having winter in your life, consider letting it be. What if you don't judge yourself for sadness and anger or for that bittersweet sense of nostalgia that sometimes overcomes us when we get the first hard rains of the season? What if you just let yourself be where you are, wandering through the dropping leaves and then, when it's time, reaching up to touch a crisp, cold, empty branch until a new energy wells up inside? What if you/we/I go ahead and trust that the warm "second wind" of spring will come one day, and there's nothing to do to hurry it along?

 

Breathe.  

 

Breathe into the season. 

 

 


Can I help you?
 
Looking for a life coach to help you transition into the next season of your life?
Do you have a goal, a dream, an idea, or a plan you need help moving forward with? I'm the gal to help you! Maybe you've got a secret wish hidden in your heart or a hurdle you can't figure out how to jump over. Let me coach you through it. Contact me a clostman@live.com to schedule a free half hour coaching consult.

Are you a writer who would love to publish one day?

Join me for our next Book Club Conversation:

We'll be reading Brooke Warner's new book, What's Your Book?: A Step-by-Step Guide to Get You from Inspiration to Published Author.

 

Some of you may know Brooke as a former editor at Seal Press and current publisher at She Writes Press. She's just put out her new book, written to answer all your questions about the writing and publishing process and how you can get yourself from having an idea to publishing a book.

 

Anyone can join in for a conference call book club discussion about Brooke's book. Brooke will be joining us for the last half hour, so you can ask her your questions directly!! Here's how it works.

1. Pick up a copy of What's Your Book? You can order it from Amazon or your local independent bookseller.

2. Invite a friend anywhere in the world to do the same. We'll be discussing via conference call so anyone can join in. And it's FREE, except for the cost of the phone call.

3. On Thursday, October 25 at 6pm PST, call in to the discussion. The number is: (512) 400-4807 and the code is 8745197#. All you do is dial the number and then push in the code when the recording requests it. We'll all be connected then and we can talk through what we've learned.

 

The more the merrier, so if you have writer friends in other parts of the country/world, they are very welcome. Forward this email to them.

 
 
 
Cami Ostman is

 

Author, life coach, blogger and runner. Read her book, Second Wind: One Woman's Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents and follow along as she blogs her way through the marathon of life.

 

 
Cami's Links

 

Find Second Wind on Facebook!Follow Second Wind on Twitter!Connect with Second Wind on LinkedIn!Read our Blog!
Second Wind
PO box 29043
Bham, Washington 98228