Shortly after the annual shopping for school supplies in elementary school, leaves would turn toward the sun, and then my birthday would come on a crisp day, the first of the school year. Fall, always, would be my season. My disillusionment when I found out fall started after my birthday was deep. Despite my reason to be newly aligned with summer, there has never been a chance I’d switch, then or now. Autumn is deliciousness. I love that it comes every year, and that we are in the thick of it now.

From Brooklyn, we have had a week of gentle cold and slight rain. Often I’ve been in, tired from a body that just can’t keep up, and praying for joy in all things. It has come. I pull my legs up on the couch a lot, feeling my heart working, and trace the one yellow tree in the park by the river’s edge out our window---and it comes. It has come in brown paper bags filled with cranberries and allspice stacked on the counter, and in the living room tingling with cinnamon and orange zest. When plans are cancelled, it comes in a friend’s call, and when I have to sit in the subway, an open seat. It came in poems in my bag, a lunch break with my husband, and so much good, local food this week. I want to tuck these all in my pocket and pull them out when I am tired, or when my hope droops—I want them to come back. I want to look at them again. They mean that He is with me. So here is one for your weekend, and mine.

An instant of warmth, of joy.

We are eager for what comes—a table linked with family and friends holding bounty we do not deserve. May joy come your way this week of gratefulness!