It felt good to sleep a little later on Saturday. I did miss waking up beside the stretches of fields and groves waking up, too, on my drive to the farmer’s market. I let myself imagine that I will not be sad next Saturday to see even more clearly how they counted each autumn day without me, shaking off the last reds and golds and settling into russet and grey.

Carnations came my way through a flower friend who had more than she needed for a wedding. Carnations’ folds and frills have come back in fashion – although the spicy-sweet fragrance is gone from the industrial varieties. Dense and almost fluorescent, the red is hard to photograph, but can’t we all see them so clearly in our minds’ eye? The First-Date Bouquet, the Valentine Present, the Christmas Table. We know these very flowers so well.

Meanwhile, what happens next with the flowers remains a puzzle. How many Sundays is it until spring, when I can scrounge branches in bud and indulge in petals and petals of ranunculus and tulips? Can I make friends for the winter with the uniformity of commercial flowers, after my fling with the rowdy, unkempt creatures who filled my summer?

And, well – I am just tired. I keep saying it, maybe in hopes that repeating it will help me find the right mix of persistence and surrender. To keep going but not as hard – and perhaps discover in that quiet release, something still and requisite that I have blundered past in all my wandering.