Watching a New Season Take Shape

Last weekend my mom got dressed up to go out.

That sentence probably sounds ordinary, but it has been a long time since getting ready to go somewhere felt normal for her. Recently she moved into a community where she can get the care she needs and be around people again.

She sent me a photo before she left. A new dress. Makeup on. Ready for the morning.

Seeing that picture stopped me for a moment.

For most of their lives my parents have done everything side by side. Them living in different places is hard for all of us. My dad is only five minutes away and still goes to see her daily, but it is still a change. It's one of those decisions where you know it is the right one and it still carries a little grief.

But in that photo I saw something else too.

I saw my mom stepping back into the world.

And lately I have started noticing that kind of shift happening in several places in our life.

Red is suddenly looking ahead to high school and thinking about the path he wants to take. B stepped into a promotion recently that stretches him in new ways. The challenges keep him energized, which suits him well. His brain has always enjoyed solving complicated problems.

Even in my own work I can feel something shifting.

For most of my adult life I have found myself helping small business owners figure out their next step.

I started doing it decades ago when I worked at the Chamber of Commerce, surrounded by people building businesses. Since then it has shown up again and again in conversations with people trying to grow something of their own.

Most people are very good at the thing they do. A plumber knows plumbing. A painter knows paint. A coffee roaster knows coffee.

Running the business around that skill is a different challenge.

Especially for creative people, the ideas tend to form in their heads like a cloud. Projects, possibilities, marketing plans, logistics. Everything swarming around at once.

What I have always enjoyed is helping turn that swarm into something clearer. Looking at the pieces and helping someone strategize a path forward. Find a plan they can actually follow.

For years that work has happened quietly in conversations behind the scenes.

Lately I have realized it deserves a little more space in my life too.

And maybe it is the time of year talking, but when I walked outside the other morning I noticed the first soft buds on the trees. 

Most of the woods still look like winter. Tall trunks, bare branches, the whole backyard full of trees that still look like giant sticks against the sky.

But here and there a few of them are starting to bud.

Small signals that the season has already begun to change.

Right now life feels a little like that.

Small changes. New directions. A few hints of what the next season might hold.

And I find myself watching it unfold with a lot of curiosity and a fair amount of hope.