I kept my camera on, wandering into various neighbors' yards, zooming in on leaves and trees and dying blooms. Indeed: most of the "beautiful" things I found were in the process of expiring:
When my roommates looked at my pictures after I got home, they noted that the pictures were depressing-- especially that one of the face-planting dahlia.
But, for me, there's some sort of comfort in seeing these seasons play out, the way they so familiarly do. I remember spring break my Junior year of college-- the year I studied abroad-- traveling around Ireland with some of my girlfriends. It was the first time I'd ever had to use a map to navigate alongside a driver. My bad-ass friend Nicole took the wheel, and I directed us through tiny town after teeny tiny town, along narrow Irish roads, picking the next whimsical name to get us through. I always felt so delighted when, sure enough, just like the map said, Castleblaney would arrive, and then Tandragee, and then Seapatrick.
There's a comfort in knowing what to anticipate, and then finding yourself there.
A friend of mine is going through her first tough break-up, and I sent her a message to try to help her along. I wrote that I guessed she was probably in the "missing-stage" now, and described to her what I had learned are the different seasons in managing a broken heart. For better or for worse, I've had my heart broken-- the big, bad, shattering kind of broken-- three times now. But out of that, has come a recognition of seasons.
In spring you begin.
In summer you exult.
In fall you recognize the expiring.
And then comes a long, broken-hearted winter.
And in that winter comes first disbelief, and then whole-hearted MISSING, and then a hollow, abstract sort of loneliness, and then... as the spring begins again... gradual objectivity, a re-awakening of one's self as an independent heart, and sooner or later, a readiness to try again.
Spring DOES come again.
My broken heart-- this most recent one-- began this last spring... the literal one, not the figurative one. And so spring was snow, and sleet, and rain. Summer was watching buds creep out of their storm battered branches. And now, this fall, I'm once more experiencing the beginning of tentative blooms.
So seeing a dying rose doesn't seem tragic; it seems familiar, and comforting-- it's something I can relate to. The rose will encounter summer once again, and because of that, it's alright that it must head into winter. I think part of the letting go, and letting it all move through me is accepting that there's a winter that comes after fall, and rejoicing that spring inevitably comes after winter.
Loving these words today:
Ecclesiastes 3:
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
