Autumn has always felt like a contradiction to me.

The world slows down, yet somehow everything inside speeds up—emotions, memories, worries, hope.

Where I come from, fall wasn’t just about golden leaves.

It was about hurricanes.

Storm season.

The stretch of months where you prayed the winds passed by your island, your family, your home.

So now, living here, when people mention cooler breezes and pumpkin-colored sunsets, I also feel the echo of childhood dread—the waiting, the watching, the uncertainty.

This year, friends asked if Hurricane Melissa was affecting my people.

Bahamas is safe this time…

but Jamaica isn’t.

And it reminds me how roots have long shadows.

Storms don’t have to touch your house to touch your heart.

And yet—

here I am, building a business from scratch, counting pennies, trusting God, and trying to grow something beautiful while storms—literal and emotional—swirl in the background.

Maybe that’s what autumn is really about:

Not dying.

But transforming.

Letting go of what we outgrew.

Shedding what we can no longer carry.

Planting new intentions in cooling soil, trusting spring will remember them.

I’m learning to bloom through unpredictable seasons—

to choose beauty even when the weather of my life feels unstable.

If my poetry reflects people back to themselves, it’s because I live inside these contradictions:

strength and tenderness, certainty and fear, storms and stillness.

This fall, I’m choosing to bloom deliberately—

slowly, honestly, even shakily.

And I invite you to do the same.

We don’t bloom because conditions are perfect.

We bloom because our souls refuse to stay buried.

Because blooming in storm seasons deserves to be honored on your walls.