Tuesday, September 30, 2025
This past weekend, diving across the plains on my way to visit my mom, I passed mile after mile of fields heavy with harvest. Combines cut neat paths, dust hung in the air, and trucks rumbled toward silos. It struck me that harvest isn’t just about gathering crops — it’s about gathering what has grown quietly, almost unnoticed, over time.
Reunions feel a little like that too. They aren’t built in a single afternoon. They’re the result of all the small, steady moments that add up: the inside jokes, the phrases repeated so often they become shorthand, the little songs you sing together, the way you know just how someone takes their coffee and whether they like to start the day with excited talking… or if they prefer to ease into their day. When you see those things again, it feels like you’re reaping something planted long ago.
Sometimes it goes even deeper. Life has a way of circling back; one day you realize you’re coaching little steps from the very person who once bent down to help you take your first steps. Sometimes it’s as simple, and as profound, as reminding the person who taught you how to put on shoes, how to put on theirs.
Of course, families and friendships can have their weeds too. It’s easy to focus on the differences, the disagreements, the rough patches in the rows. But when you pay attention to the familiar threads, the harvest feels abundant. A complex connection that grew over time, can now be gathered in simple, ordinary ways.
Maybe that’s the gift of this season: a reminder that relationships, like fields, reward us when we look for what has grown, not just what got in the way.
Until Next Time,
Mary Schuster
Chief Knowledge Officer
October Research, LLC