Help! I’m not ready yet! 4 ways to embrace autumn

Autumn is one of my favourite times of year. I haven’t been in school for ten years, but I still love the sense of new beginnings. But at the same time, autumn also makes me wistful, because it reminds me that winter is coming (no, I’m not a Stark of Westeros – just a Canadian). It’s an odd dichotomy. Tell me I’m not alone?

If you’re the sort of person who feels left out of all the hustle and bustle, who struggles with the transition because you’d rather hibernate until spring (much like turtleducks), here are some ideas for embracing the season.

Hit the school/office supply stores. The tricky part of this is coming up with a good reason to be there so people don’t look at you weird. If you’re a parent, you have a ready-made excuse to go roam the aisles, ogle the shelves, and stock up on all the pretties – the lined paper on sale, the new pens and pencils, the notebooks, the Post-It notes… If you’re not a parent, maybe you’re a writer (or thinking about being a writer someday), which is still a good excuse. Even if you do all your writing and planning on computer. Ahem.

Jump into seasonal trappings. No, I don’t mean piles of leaves (though more power to you if you do!). At this time of year, we’re surrounded by ads for fall clothing, magazines featuring stews, and department stores full of leafy home décor ideas. I’m always tempted to run in the opposite direction screaming “I’m not ready yet!” but I suspect the transition will go easier if I embrace it. Here in Ontario, we’re lucky enough to get baskets of tomatoes, perfect for pasta sauces. And, of course, it’s time for pumpkin spice lattes and hot chocolate. Good thing fall clothing is bulkier, too. Bright scarves and cute jackets, here I come! Plus, there’s Halloween, the time when you can dress (or dress up your home) as wildly as you like and nobody will look twice.

Learn something new. Most people couldn’t be happier that they never have to sit in a classroom again. If you’re one of those people who actually misses school – like me – you can recapture some of that feeling by signing up for a class. I like dancing because it’s absorbing and you get to listen to music, all while stretching your mind and body – and there’s no homework. Another low-time-commitment idea is to get a subscription to the sort of music concert where there’s a pre-concert lecture, or some info given during the program to tell you something about the context of the music. (If you’re anything like me, you won’t go if you don’t have a subscription, no matter how great the concert sounded in the brochure you got in the summer.)

Set new goals. Autumn still feels like the beginning of the year to me, just as much as January 1 does. It’s a good time to regroup and set some new goals, stretch yourself a little (or a lot). For example, maybe you’ve always wanted to try writing a novel. Signing up for National Novel Writing Month was one of the best decisions I ever made…if you’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years and waffling, why not jump in this time? It sounds crazy, and the people in your life might think you’ve gone off the deep end. But you’ll have fun doing it, you’ll meet people who are just as crazy as you are, and you just might get one giant step closer to your dreams.

What are your favourite ways to celebrate – or just survive – autumn?