November 14

The days are getting shorter and the switch to daylight saving time seems to have hastened how soon the darkness arrives in the yard. This summer, I struggled with similar shadows. I'd be in the garden, watering the cuttings that had rooted, and I'd feel great sorrow at the loss of my partner and that she wasn't with me to enjoy the new growth and the promise it held. It reached a point where it was physically painful. And then the next day, I'd find myself unable to be sufficiently interested in starting the day. I'd turn over and try to go back to sleep. Or I'd force myself up, eat breakfast, go to work and grind out the day. By lunchtime, I'd be exhausted. In the afternoon, as hard as I'd try, nothing seemed worth doing.

I'd get lost on the internet, reading. The time would come when I normally would go outside and spend time in the garden, watering the plants, or mowing, or planting something or tackling a project. But outside in the garden was where I'd experienced that complex, tangled ball of pain and grief and happiness, and sadness, and poignancy, and shame at my happiness, and loss the previous day.

And the late afternoon would slip into the evening and four days later I might manage to get outside. The pain of survivor's guilt put me in bed. It made sunny days grey. It made me much, much less productive. It left me lethargic and uncaring. I'd go for two or three days without showering. For those of you who have been in this space, you'll recognise it. There's little to recommend it. My beans were never harvested, so too, some of my basil. I never planted garlic for the winter. But as with our gardens, if we'll work with the season and nurture our plants as the sun moves through the sky and the length of the shadows change, so too with us.

The seasons remind us of the cycles of life - some vibrant and green; some dark and internal; a time to plant and a time to harvest. What emotions remind us of is that we're alive. It's true for emotions on both sides of the spectrum - the happy and the difficult. They just show us different things. It's during winter, when trees have lost their leaves that they can put energy into setting deeper roots.

The difficult emotions are the ones that show us to ourselves most clearly. They expose us, peel us layer by layer, make us uncomfortable. But too often, because we live lives of routine, of sameness, we lose our capacity to live each moment to the full. It's just another day like yesterday. These times of emotional drought, of turbulence, of pain, are what remind us that we are alive - that we have the capacity to feel. We should not waste them.

It has taken me several months of disentangling the threads I feel when I enjoy myself in the garden. I am able to go back outside again. It's November, so the grass needs raking of pine needles and the needles are spread into the beds around the house. The first year Cynthia asked me to rake, it was an imposition, a chore. But I've grown to appreciate the cool air, the darkening skies, the effort it takes. I enjoy seeing the piles of needles raked together. I enjoy the colour of the fresh needles scattered into the beds as mulch. It reminds me of November. It's become special to me.

Working with survivor's guilt and depression hasn't been easy. I've had to be patient with myself. I've had to engage with the emotions I've felt, feel them, not have them be me, overwhelm me. By turning towards them, going outside and enjoying myself, then pausing when the pain arrives and letting it wash over me, through me, looking back into it and understanding that this pain is me, I've been able to wake up the next morning and get out of bed, alive.

I lost a summer to survivor's guilt and grief. But Autumn is here. The garden calls. My heart is raw, tender; but I am able to enjoy the new life, the leaves on the ground that is a promise of compost and life in the Spring. I am able to go outside without the burden of fear of tomorrow's emotional difficulties. I do not assume that each day I will be unscathed, but like exercise, if we run hard, our muscles hurt. So too, I expect the pain without fearing it. When we are in the heart of a season, it seems endless. But the Earth is moving and the seasons change.

If we are able to work with what we have, the season will end and a new one will begin, offering new opportunity for life and growth. And in the future, a harvest from the wisdom we have learned.