Seasons

Autumn is coming. I just know it. Subtle clues are surfacing through the haze of late summer. Days are growing gradually shorter.  (I went outside one night recently to clean out the car "before it got dark" and found that it was pitch black out there!) While it's still hot, it's not nearly as oppressive as it has been. A few days here and there have actually been UNDER 90 degrees lately. Woo hoo! I used to love summer, but every year it's harder for my body to handle. I'm not 20 anymore, you know?

I 'm unsure of the right words to adequately describe how desperately I am anticipating autumn this year. There are so many things I do love about summer. Like the green-ness of everything here. By this time in the South, every green thing is just heavy with life. Everything outdoors is thriving from the summer rains, there are flowers everywhere. The crickets are still singing at night. Even though it's so hot, the feeling of a breeze on my shoulders is just lovely. But those things are only enjoyable when I have air conditioning to come back to. The unyielding heat will literally choke me sometimes. I do not enjoy sweating. The older I grow, the more I like to be physically comfortable, and the more elusive that comfort becomes.

So it's coming. The short days. The cool air. The pumpkin patches and bonfires and apple picking expeditions. The sweaters will come out of the storage bins, and the holidays will call to us as we begin thinking about turkeys and Christmas trees. The leaves will begin to turn. Oh, how I love them! But I also have a haunting feeling of sorrow for  these changes that bring death to so much around me. The leaves turn because they are dying. Then the sky will look so empty. The crickets, too, will freeze to death and the nights will become silent. Many birds will leave us to find warmer homes and the swimming pools will close. It feels strange to bundle up for the winter and watch everything die. Sometimes in gray winter days, it's hard to remember that the whole tree isn't dead. It's only the leaves that have let go. It's just hunkering down for a season.

The last year of my life was a winter season. All that was unnecessary fell away so that I would have the strength to do what lay before me. It was the hardest, saddest, most meaningful and important season I have lived through so far. And now, as I watch Fall sneak in, a sort of Spring is happening in my spirit. Caring for my mother became such a part of me. Now that she is gone, there is so much time and space I don't know what to do with. I'm beginning to wake up again to the desires of my heart. Some were forgotten for a while, and some are brand new. It feels like a frenzy of energy and questions and wondering and searching. It can be kind of confusing sometimes when it's all mingled together with the grief of missing her so much. It's sort of like the strange weeks that are ahead of us now. You know, the days when you have no idea what to wear. It's cold in the morning, but that sweater you wore on the way out the door gets left somewhere when it got too warm to keep it on. Very confusing times.

But the one good thing about it all is that you can know that it will change. Eventually, you'll settle in to the season when the sweater can stay on all day. And then you'll need a coat and gloves. And then, for a while, you'll put away your tank tops and shorts. You'll know they are no longer an option for a while. Yes, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven". (Ecclesiastes 3:1) I'll just keep praying for grace to get through transition.