As it is constantly raining outside this morning, cloudy and grey, with a temperature of 51 degree F and 11 degrees C in Berlin, I am catching myself reflecting on how just a week and a half ago we were in the amazing sunshine along the Danube in Austria. Even just a few days ago it seemed as if we didn’t need our sweaters quite yet and the dogs were warm from the heat as we walked.

Autumn has come in with purpose. All of a sudden there are leaves everywhere and we are talking about perhaps turning on our heat a bit for the first time in months. My morning walk with the pups this morning was a wet one but I had my jacket and my huge umbrella to allow me to still enjoy the world around me as they sniffed along on our route. Our Staycation has shifted with the rain to getting cozy and cuddly and warm instead of out on adventures and in the hot air balloon. We may go to a museum in the next few days and we really want to find the best English bookstore in Berlin (I have my opinions) to get a new book to cuddle in with. We have a tv show that we are watching that we somehow missed when new tv was happening and it wasn’t corona times.

We were supposed to be in Belgrade this weekend and part of next week but because we had to come home, our plans completely shifted. Our Belgrade trip is postponed again.

Berlin is really beautiful in the fall but I keep finding myself just missing home even more because we are here. Oregon in the fall is something magical, even the rain feels like a welcome mystery when I am there. I haven’t gotten to go home to Oregon in almost a year, the longest I have ever been away. I had a dream last night that we were headed out on a trip to the US instead of staying home and I was so excited to make my list of things I needed to get there to bring back to Europe…I always have a list of things I miss or are just easier for me to buy there. It is much easier for me to dream about the objects I miss rather than the people. If I think too much about the scenery that is home and the people that are home and how I can’t touch either right now…well, it puts me in a really hard place. This homesickness is nothing new and is a frequent visitor. I have learned how to embrace it differently, welcome it and tend to it but not let it consume me. I have used it in order to reinvest in creating community here and to reach back out to my people there. I have utilized zoom to assuage it a little and dream of when I get to return. Every once in a while it catches me off guard and I let it envelope me for a little bit. This morning feels a little like that but I also know that I can manage. It is manageable.

These days that we don’t have any agenda is hard to pass over the homesickness…these days feel a little without the same kind of purpose which is good on one level. We all should have times of unplugging and just being but on the other hand they may highlight what we do well with our time too. Soon I will register for classes again and head back to nannying a bit. I will continue looking for places to submit my writing and my walking schedule will be up and running. I will connect again with people and figure out how to utilize my time in better ways and perhaps leave in an adventure or two…my list is growing.

Maybe this is the work of Autumn as well, the prioritizing and realigning, the contemplation and the looking at what needs to be shed to let lay dormant for a season. What is the fall doing for you? The shifting of the seasons?