Thinking Ahead to Fall

There's a point every year when summer's still hanging on, but your eye has already moved to fall.

I remember one year like that clearly — these photos are from it. It didn't start with a plan. It started with pumpkins for sale on the side of the highway. A bag of Indian corn from the farmer's market I didn't need but couldn't leave behind. Hedgeapples from relatives' farm. And some scary rubber rats picked up at HomeGoods.

That was really the whole method. I didn't sit down and design a season. I noticed what was around, and I used it.

Looking back, none of it was perfect, and it didn't need to be. I was holding down a job, a family, a house, a hundred obligations — same as anyone. I didn't have a fully resolved creative vision before I let myself start. I just looked at what I already had and saw what it could become.

And it didn't stop when the season did. Those hay bales went on to winterize the beds. Some of the pumpkins and gourds made soup; the rest went to compost. The rats found their way into an early Christmas display without my ever deciding it should happen — they were just still around, and still useful.

That's the part worth remembering more than the display itself: the fun was in the making-do, not in getting it right.

And then winter showed up. Which is probably still the best argument I know for paying attention to what's already in front of you before the next season asks something new of it.