Anticipation

 

Anticipation is the only thing I can control. It’s the looking-forward-to part of life and I get to decide when it starts and what it means. It’s a year-round necessity that puts the shine on everyday things if there’s any shine to be found.

Anticipation is head and shoulders above expectations, which can break your heart. It’s even more friendly than optimism.  Optimism is still an option, though I carry around memories of times when optimism stepped back and did nothing while I took my eye off the prize.  No offense, optimism, but sometimes you’re unreliable.

Anticipation isn’t just for holidays, though I’m writing this on the cusp of a season that includes lights and music and champagne and good coffee and pie. Looking-forward-to is a practice I was admonished against in childhood. The adults in my house cautioned “Don’t get your hopes up.” They missed the point. I’d already decided that anticipation isn’t hope, though it can be hope-adjacent.

Anticipation certainly isn’t the same as expectation. Expectations come with too much pressure and require depending on others.  I’m not brave enough anymore for a steady diet of that. Dodging expectations is a survival tool I’m sticking with.

I’ve always felt safest choosing my own level of enthusiasm. It helps create an interior life that I knew early on I’d be needing.  Today if I mention something I’ve decided to look forward to and someone responds with “Isn’t it a bit early…” I flip the listening switch to the off position before the rest of that sentence is finished. The best part about embracing anticipation is, it’s mine and it begins whenever I need it.

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Every Little Celebration

By Anita Garner

This year all our seasons got misplaced.  Smooshed together. The weather hasn’t matched any of them exactly and we’ve spent so much time inside, we’ve taken to decorating and celebrating whatever we want whenever the mood strikes.

In our part of Northern California, after record-breaking heatwaves this summer, a few leaves just now got together and decided to fall.  Out in the yard, if you know where to step, you can hear autumn underfoot.  On the tree outside my office window a few leaves are about to be in motion.  I’ll need to dedicate time to follow the progress of one particular leaf floating.  It’s a beautiful thing.

October is usually the start of my favorite time of year. Everything’s in place. Plaid shirts move to the front of the closet.  Flannel sheets go on the bed. The winter comforter comes out of storage and takes  a few turns in the dryer.

I’m not a big Halloween person, but the people I live with are and they started in September.  A rather large skeleton belonging to the Grand appeared and now sits on top of the hutch.  Orange twinkle lights are on a bookcase. A vintage centerpiece brought in by my daughter, the Thrifting Queen, is on the dining table.  It puts me in mind of the 60s and 70s when we used to decorate for every dinner party.

Some say spring is renewal time, but for me autumn has always been the season of promise. This year, especially, it’s not just the fragrance of pumpkin and cinnamon and nutmeg, though I’ll never underestimate their impact. It’s not just the anticipation of fireplaces and rainstorms and Hallmark movies.  This year, this season, in this house, there’s hope for better times ahead.

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
…George Eliot

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