I watered the flowers in the dark last night, by the light of the waxing gibbous moon. I shivered in the cool air, realizing for the first time that Fall is coming soon. My hands are a sieve and time is passing through them. Summer slipped through the cracks and crevices, and a few big memories remain, but the rest dripped down and out, making room for the next season.
Fall will be a season of schedules and work and preparing for our oldest’s future. I’m afraid I will miss something. A friend asked me a medical question a few days ago, and I realized after 15 years out of the nursing field, I no longer have any answers. I told her I don’t know, I don’t have room for that, the answers poured through the sieve many years ago. I had to let them go in order to make room for all the other bits of information and memories and tasks of my real life. I don’t have room to hold onto the former.
When the cool air hit my face last night, it slapped me awake. I don’t want to miss my favorite season, or the children growing into themselves, or me growing into myself either. I want the stories of our life to wrap themselves tight around my wrists, and to wind themselves into my hair. I hope the scent of things to come will cling to me everywhere I go, rather than the scent of what’s already lost–the parts of my life that have already passed through the strain of time. There is so much clinging to me that I simply must let go. Expectations, abandoned desires, failures, residual sadness, knowledge that no longer serves me well.
It’s time to let them pass through, rather than cling to the summer me, it’s time to embrace the next season, to tighten my focus on the coming Fall.
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Is there anything you need to release as you set your face towards the new season? What is one new thing you hope to learn, grow in, or experience in the Fall?
