Thursday, October 14, 2010

What is your Season of Life?

      It's beautiful weather here. Sunny warm days with cool breezes coming through the windows at night. A smell in the air of autumn, telling us summer is over.
     In Michigan, fall is breathtakingly beautiful. The colors vibrant, the sound of crunching leaves as you walk upon them. A damp, earthy aroma fills your nostrils with life as it is changing. Mother nature is amazing when you take time to spend with at her. 
     She hypnotizes us. Colorful leaves float effortlessly back and forth, cascading softly downward, falling without a sound. Peaceful and beautiful.
     This means winter is around the corner, with it's own beauty, a hibernation, a dying down and stark reality. 
      New life is springtime, fragile, delicate and energizing. We celebrate hope and want more. And so it comes, in the form of summer. With glorious radiance and ripe fruits of life,  like a woman in her prime, still giving more to others than ourselves.
      Autumn, when we appreciate what paths we had to take to get here. Acknowledging who we are and embracing our own needs and desires without guilt, for we see Time waiting down the road. Beckoning us. Fall is vibrant and intense, there is no going back to spring again.
      Everything is possible now. Indian summer? A sudden resurgence of summer, a last dance if you will, some of autumn already under our belts. Fall is life's wrinkles and life's tales. It shows we lived. It's a confidence and energy in life.
      Winter comes soon enough.  A slowing down, recalling our own seasons.
      Maybe, if we're lucky, our lives go out after an ice storm. Our best memories glistening in the bright sun, our love and good deeds sparkling brightly. And as our ice memories melt, perhaps they can quench the thirst and nurture the next generation to be beautiful in their own way.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

falling out of nowhere

     I was cleaning out a stack of papers this week and found a 2x2 inch old photo of my mom and dad on the day they were married.
      I don't know why it was there amongst old reciepts and old warrantys.
      I stopped and looked at their faces for a long time. It's in black and white and a head shot, stopping just below the collarbone. They look really happy together with their heads leaning in towards each other and touching at the temples. It was right after the war, with both of them looking thin. She had on a "shared" bridal gown and he had on a borrowed suit. On just for pictures, to be handed to the next couple in line along with the cascading white bouquet of flowers. What was theirs was minimal. Simple thin gold wedding bands. The white, rounded toe, high heeled shoes she wore were hers and the white gloves in his hand were his. You can't seem them in this photo, but it is in another picture I have. No money for any extras, or fancy bridal parties and frills. Only love and hope for a better life. A chance to laugh again and to celebrate life while in love. At the end of their 50 years together, their relationship was nothing of the romantic sentimental kind that movies are made of. They had grown apart many years ago, with a strain and impatience where nurturing and affection used to be. They were ill, tired. But still there was something between them. An understanding of all that they had been through and that even though their relationship had changed, there once was a passion and love that had brought them together.
      That is the way I want to remember them. I know they had happiness before I was even born that I will never know of, as others don't know of happy moments of ours. Some things are just not talked about. They just were. We don't always  understand love, or what brings people together or what pushes them apart. Love cannot be contained and frozen in time . It is forever growing, giving, evolving. But it's the fact that it was there at all that makes me smile.

Monday, October 4, 2010

a message

     My heart has been bruised. Like every bruise, it hurts to touch it.
     I have been trying to make sense of things. To be open to understanding, that perhaps I am too sensitive in my interpretations or reactions. I could only come to the conclusion that, yes, I am sensitive, and no, I am not being too sensitive. I am being honest with how I feel. And that is what is difficult.