Cleaning, airing, polishing seem to belong to spring.  But there’s something about fall that invites a different kind of sorting.  Not for what to throw out or pass along to someone else; more of a treasure hunt for what to keep.

Unlike the all-business hustle of spring-cleaning, fall-seeking has a meandering pace.  Like a leaf floating through the air, blown first to the right, then to the left, this is a wander, not a hike.  From drawer to closet to nightstand, from precious greeting cards to water colors purchased in a moment of creative optimism to books much read and those never read, it’s a winding stroll of reconsideration.

What is the meaning behind these things that have been placed on a shelf or tucked away in a drawer?

The first thing my eye settles on as I mentally wander through my own house is the glass room.  Carefully set up with a two-tiered worktable, its tools hanging at the ready from a cut-to-order (by me) piece of white pegboard, this space has lain dormant for most of four years.  What does it mean?  Too much work, no time reserved for play?  It’s predecessor, a smaller room in a smaller house, was never idle, never abandoned.  In it, with Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and John Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth creating a background so overwhelmingly beautiful as to be distracting, I designed and built tiny glass greenhouses.  The Potting Shed, the Conservatory, the Arboretum, the Sea House.  Have I moved on? Simply forgotten? Or have I lost something precious?

One autumn morning when you can hollow out a few hours of shelter from the pressures of your life, maybe you’ll dare to peer up into a high-up forgotten shelf or dig through a drawer or two.  It’s not the throw-aways you’re looking for, not the things that you’ve grown beyond.  It’s the things that you’ve put away, pieces of your self that you’ve left behind along the way, pieces you want to reclaim.

I hope you’ll strike gold.