Here’s a motherly tip, unaffiliated with any particular religious wisdom tradition: Do one small thing today that will prepare you for cooler weather and the holidays at year’s end. Bring your sweaters out of storage, choose dates for your own year-end party with friends, buy three presents and tuck them aside, contemplate your holiday card and mailing list, buy the homeopathic remedy Aconite and store it somewhere you can find it at the first sign of a cold.

Completing projects at harvest time and preparing for winter is a ritual with its own quiet thrills. I’m a grasshopper in recovery.