Sweet/Bitter/Sweet

Our Autumn years are a beautiful time of our lives, and the oft-used analogy of the season is well-chosen

We have worked hard during the Spring and Summer years and, if we have been fortunate, laid down the foundations for an easier and more comfortable later life

Autumn is a time to harvest the richness and sweetness of the fruits, bearing form from seeds long planted. Taking time to enjoy the bounty of our years of labour

But Autumn isn’t only a time of relaxation and enjoyment

Despite the lingering warmth of the days, their shortness and misty fresh starts tell a different story

The turning foliage hints at mortality after the endless Summer; a reminder that there is an end – a reckoning for the days already spent, although hopefully still some way off, hopefully not me, hopefully not yet

The month of January is rightly named after Janus, the Roman god associated with beginnings, transitions and endings, depicted both looking backwards into the old year and forward to the new one. But for me, Autumn is that gateway

I am now lucky enough to be able to enjoy all that I have worked towards throughout my life, culminating in the here and now. Yet I cannot help turn the occasional gaze to what I know will come

For within the warm-toned sweet days is both the end of one cycle and the seeds of the next, both future growth and atrophy

The sweetest of my rich autumn fruits is not the material baubles that I have gathered, as comfortable as they make me, but my children; unique, kind, generous, intelligent and loving. They will surely change the world for the better

But unlike the Spring and Summer of my life, my seedlings need less and less nurturing and have become strong, confident and capable in their own right

They are each going through a beautiful metamorphosis from dependent to independent, which fills me with endless joy, admiration, excitement and curiosity as to their future

But with this growth their need for me lessens and slowly ebbs away. What was essential is now optional. The work is done. But how I loved the work

Their blossoming is an uncomfortable mirror held up against my own future: Autumn begets Winter 

This confusing mix of emotions is both joyous and saddening. Sweet/Bitter/Sweet