I have always most loved the changing of the seasons - mostly the transitional seasons - Spring and Fall. Summer and Winter each has it's own special character, but there is just something tantalizing about the seasons that "get" you there. Spring has that quiet awakening - when the birds suddenly start to sing again, the blossoms that suddenly dot the previously dead looking branches in my garden. And fall has it's own unique beauty, but perhaps a little more forboding. Not so much promise, but perhaps a bit of warning. The leaves, while beautiful and entertaining as they dance down the streets in a symphony of their own making - warn of the pending weather, where all that is green and lush will be no more - at least for a time.
Our lives are constantly changing seasons, aren't they? First, there's the spring of life, when all is new and alive... then later, when the children have arrived to add spice and energy, we settle into the summer. Then eventually, we enter autumn - still beautiful, but somehow less full of energy and vivacious life. And of course winter...but I'll save that for another time.
I think our life, David's and mine, has just begun to enter the autumn phase - one of those transitional stages, that has something worth savoring, yet brings about a contemplation of what is ahead. This was all triggered at the beginning of the year when our eldest headed off for University. She took a very trendy "gap year", so I suppose I was granted a small reprieve in entering this stage. But off she went, and for at least 5 days a week, our house was a bit emptier.
Then, as we saw her friendship with a handsome young man blossom, we prepared ourselves for what we knew would be coming.. and at last it has... an engagement to be wed. And this in the not too distant future! Now there is talk dancing around me from some perhaps not so well meaning friends and family - of grandchildren and such! Me, who has only found 1 gray hair on my head, is now being faced with the possibility of being called "Grandma" in the years just ahead. Now I understand how my mother felt as I walked down the aisle, when she herself had just entered her 40's.
I find myself becoming all sentimental - like that young girl who, when trodding off to her first day of school in the fall, would reminisce over the summer just spent - glamourizing it, and relishing in it - making it the lovely hazy memory that one sees on the movie screen, and perhaps dreading the winter ahead just a bit - knowing that there were things ahead that weren't necessarily exciting or worth looking forward to.
As I said, I do love the fall - and while I know that winter lies ahead, I must say that I am rather enjoying the dancing of the leaves, so to speak - and the joy and love that my daughter has found. Being able to share with her in this new stage of life for her is, I suppose all part of the circle that is life - and I am going to choose to focus on those things today that are worth admiring and enjoying, and not worry so much about the winter that is pending - not too close, but ahead none the less.
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