Somewhere in the middle of all that editing, I realized that we do not ask a manuscript to become a different book. We ask it to become the fullest expression of the book it was always meant to be.

And I began to wonder why we so often expect something different of ourselves.

We know that sunflowers turn toward the sun and follow the light. But the sunflower theory extends beyond botany and goes on to say that when the sun is hidden by clouds or darkness, sunflowers then turn toward one another.

There are some things that do not need to be scientifically perfect to be true in the places where we feel them most.

The arrival of a new season always feels like an invitation to me. Not another thing to add to our already full lives.

An invitation.

As summer arrived this past weekend, I found myself thinking about the wisdom of summer and wondering what this season might be asking of us in midlife.

We tend to think of resistance as a problem. Something to push through, work around, or overcome. If we’re resisting something, surely the answer is to try harder, be more disciplined, or simply get on with it.

One of the things that helped me make sense of my own menopause journey was thinking about it in seasons. Not clinical stages. Not medical phases. Seasons.