{"id":7875,"date":"2020-08-31T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=7875"},"modified":"2020-08-28T10:57:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T15:57:55","slug":"september-silence-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2020\/08\/31\/september-silence-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"September Silence 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"457\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/september-silence-marko-blazevic.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7876\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/september-silence-marko-blazevic.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/september-silence-marko-blazevic-300x171.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/september-silence-marko-blazevic-768x439.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s that time again: September, when I take a month-long social media break and focus on writing. A friend dubbed it &#8220;The September Silence,&#8221; and it&#8217;s a fitting name because that&#8217;s what I seek this month each year: a quieter time to fall into one of the things I love most in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While September is still summer in Texas, it&#8217;s easy to imagine cooler days ahead. Sure, those days come for us in November, but still&#8230;as someone born in Chicago and raised north of the city, I can still pretend fall is just around the corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Loud Autumn<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>With an election year in the U.S., it&#8217;s tempting to stretch the silence until after November 3&#8230;maybe even longer. I don&#8217;t know if I will, but it&#8217;s a nice thought. (I enjoyed the time I took a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2011\/11\/23\/101-days-without-social-media\/\">101-Day social media break<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Knowing how loud social media has already been in recent months, I cannot imagine what it will be like as we get closer to the election. My mind has long been made up about the election, and it&#8217;s unlikely I&#8217;m going to change anybody&#8217;s mind arguing with them online. (Time is better spent volunteering for [and donating to] candidates you support&#8230;or focusing on other things that make the world a bit better.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">There&#8217;s Still Time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the things I like about viewing September as my writing new year is there&#8217;s still time left in the year to get things done. Instead of the rush of the holiday season arriving and wondering where the time went, stepping back each September is a reminder there are still four months left in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve noticed, since starting the September Silences, that I rarely feel like I didn&#8217;t accomplish much when the calendar rolls to a new year. Instead, these next four months usually see the writing I love most, when mornings and evenings get darker and things seem a bit more cozy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">September Harvest<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>September is also a time for harvest. The last bales of the season will soon be in nearby fields &#8212; another sign that summer is coming to an end and that it&#8217;s time to get things in order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t remember exactly <em>why <\/em>I started an annual social media break each September, but it&#8217;s not lost on me that it&#8217;s a time when I go through piles of notes and work on plans to get me through fall and winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I take care of loose ends and settle in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And because of that, no matter how noisy the world gets outside my front door &#8212; inside &#8212; it will be a quiet and productive time&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/havest-hay.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7888\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/havest-hay.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/havest-hay-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/havest-hay-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s that time again: September, when I take a month-long social media break and focus on writing. A friend dubbed it &#8220;The September Silence,&#8221; and it&#8217;s a fitting name because that&#8217;s what I seek this month each year: a quieter time to fall into one of the things I love most in life. While September [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7875"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7875"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7890,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7875\/revisions\/7890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}