Rise and fall

It is late July, but this morning there is the faintest tang of autumn on the breeze. Warm and humid, but the blackberries are plump and ripe, and grey clouds blanket the valley today. The bees are busily working their way through the teasel heads, scattering those slim purple petals like confetti into the pools of clear water collected in the leaves below.

The leaves are dusky, lush, faded green now, settling into the season, easy on the eyes. Summer feels slower, chilled out, breathing gently, luxuriating and comfortable. The heady rush of solstice is a distant memory, that tightly wound feeling and energy rush expended. I echo that slowing in recent days. A few long-term projects received their final intense push, completed, and now the out-breath. A time of heavy workload is somehow completed, words written, chapters closed off. New things raise their heads, vying to fill that new empty space, but somehow the urgency is gone and I feel I can take time in decisions, which is a new feeling for me. A new chapter of thinking, considering, and synthesis calls in my PhD work, mirroring the season. Lengthening time. Slow consideration. Time to digest. An active type of resting.

I find this helps with tough problems. Sometimes I get to the point where I feel I can’t push my brain any more. I’ve learnt over the last few years that stopping trying to actively think about a problem actually gives my brain the space to process it. Doing something different, taking away the focus, and letting my brain get on with it itself, with no conscious interference. Mostly, the answer will pop up by itself in a few days or weeks. I’ve been trying to leverage this, reading around, filling my brain with data, potential solutions, then taking the focus away and hoping the soup will simmer down to something clear. So far, it’s worked well – that trust and understanding in how my brain works is an ongoing curiosity. I know the answer will come, soon enough. I’ll ride the wave when it does.

For now, though, I settle into the languid season. My work slows but ticks over, attention to different aspects, brain filtering things in the background. I’m actually really enjoying my PhD right now, the whole writing up process, and I don’t want to set it down completely. I need to ride the momentum whilst it exists. As in all things, there are waves. Times of intensity, times of release, times of processing, times of building. The common advice of consistent, sustained effort doesn’t work for me, although it does for some. Routine, especially enforced routine, isn’t how my mind responds best. Or at all! But this flow, this seasonal rhythm, it carries me along with it with less resistance. A few pebbles in the stream, maybe, things that have to be done. But generally, listening to the rise and fall, it reminds me I’m held in the seasons. All part of the same, rush and rest, inhale and exhale, summer and winter. Everything is a cycle, even work, even thoughts. And we all breathe together.