In the fall, I am always overwhelmed by richness – the ways the Minnesota landscape gets saturated in fall colors, the way the harvests come in with squash and Brussels sprouts and general abundance.

I’ve had a tricky few months professionally – I could blame emerging from the pandemic, I guess, but that doesn’t feel right. It feels more like, some years are professionally really amazing and some are more about … learning experiences, or something. I’ve learned a lot this year, even in the face of ventures that I wish had succeeded and didn’t. Maybe because of ventures that I wish had succeeded, and didn’t.

By strange coincidence, invitations are coming in to speak about my work and consult for others – not because of the work of the last six months, but the accumulated work of the last couple of decades. I’ve had more invitations than I have had in the past, even when I was feeling very productive. It’s a reminder that our work accumulates – even when it seems a little scattered and not immediately clearly connected, as mine often feels – we learn more, we have more to offer, and we can harvest not just from the tricky times when things weren’t working out, but from the times when we sowed and sowed and sowed.

Here’s to sowing, and to the strange and unpredictable timing of reaping.