I took this picture the day before my birthday last week. It was one of the very last days that any of the trees still had leaves on them, and this one was the last lingering bit of gold in an entire field of otherwise bare trees. It had been one of the last ones to turn color and the morning was windy, so I knew it wouldn’t last long. Something about that was so beautiful, and so sad.

Now it’s winter. The trees are bare and we’ve even had a bit of snow. This is always such a strange season for me, and somehow even stranger this year because it took such a long time to arrive and the world feels so … weird. In winter I feel myself slowing down, but in that shift I also feel so many new ideas and plans bubbling up, the next new year ready to be born. I spent the last few days resting a bit more than usual, after a really busy week (semester, year, life), but today I felt myself turn towards Monday. I finally cleaned off my desk after too much time knowing how badly it needed it, and something about that renewed space, clean and free, felt ready for something to begin.