Autumn Leaves

It is early morning, and I head out to my small vineyard to check on the fruit that I hope will one day produce wine. As the seasons change; my vines have gone from small buds bursting forth, eager for spring, to rich clusters of sweet fruit, with leaves now drying and turning yellow. While I cherish these moments in my humble vineyard, I am reminded that the seasons are changing once again.

My vineyard teaches me many things. I walk among the short rows, my hand brushing across leaves that curl at their edges, their once-deep green fading to brittle yellow. The vines themselves seem weary, their clusters smaller, their sweetness hard-earned. The nights have grown slightly cooler, and in the hush between dusk and dawn, I hear a familiar stirring within me—an old companion. It is wanderlust, subtle at first, then insistent, like the call of migrating birds overhead.

This is the sixteenth autumn I have listened for it—the beginning of another fall sabbatical. For the past few years, as the vines slow their growth, I have felt a similar change within myself: a readiness to leave my rooted life for a while and once again become a pilgrim. The land teaches me to pause before renewal and to let go before picking up again.

I thought this season would take me on one kind of pilgrimage—a journey long imagined, planned, and prepared for. But as the vines remind me, not every harvest comes as expected. Plans bend and paths turn. What unfolds is not always what was envisioned, but often what is needed.

The way is open, though only loosely sketched, guiding us eastward. We cannot see the entire path, nor is it necessary. We will head for Travis AFB in a few days and we will leave the vineyard to its rest, trading the rows of vines for roads not yet traveled, for towns whose names we do not yet know, for mornings that will greet us as strangers before becoming familiar. My sabbaticals have taught me that adventure lives not in certainty but in readiness—in the willingness to go where the heart leans and the season allows.

So eastward we will go, with open hands and expectant hearts. The journey awaits, and I am ready.

We will let you as we know! You are loved.