Late Summer Transitions
When I was a kid, my mom, who's 5 '2", walked really fast everywhere. I’d be hustling my little kid legs to keep up. And she was never about waiting. We’d always get places late and leave early, especially to my grandmother’s church, but really any place that had a start and end time. Counter that with my dad, who is a tall, lollygagging shoot-the-shitter, as he’d proudly claim.
Put those together, and you get me. Ta-da.
I am highly attuned to transitional times and spaces. Anticipating the varying needs of those around me as things start to shift while keeping an eye on how to move forward. It’s my observational superpower. It’s no surprise I’m interested in the in-betweens - the journey between the start and finish and the space between the breaths and the pauses. Much like the Semester Scaries I’ve been talking about lately, which is only a modern way to conceptualize the transition.
The transitions are those thresholds or in-betweens, which are not given much space in how we mark our calendars and work weeks. I’ve written about the space between autumn and winter with four markers: liminality, wholeness, authenticity, and impact. An IG post of liminal seasons that referred to this current time as Late Summer, as it’s known in Traditional Chinese medicine. In the Chinese calendar there are 24 solar terms actually to guide farming and planting that mark the time and spaces between the typical Western four seasons. This post led me down an online research rabbit hole about why there are only four seasons and more. Even here in Colorado, we refer to a transition time between winter and spring as mud season.
Ultimately, it highlights the power in transitions and how we talk about, experience, and plan for them. As I’ve said before, thresholds are at the extensional transformation crossroads of:
Who are you stepping into becoming?
Who are leaving behind - what patterns, behaviors, and mindsets will not serve the one you are now?
Thresholds as a place for reflection and integration - these are lacking in our modern work world of being on a conveyor belt of busy.
What is the threshold in front of you today? What is asking for your attention?
The journey of the in-between is way more about your relationship with your life and work. Is it happening to you? Or are you designing it based on how you want to feel and what you want your impact to be?