Sunday, April 6, 2008

Walk, Darlings, Don't Run. You'll Get There Soon Enough


Sunday morning and it's gray here and still. We got some good rain yesterday and last night, and the air is cool and damp. I can feel the trees breathing, it seems, with their brand new leaves.
Everything changes so quickly this time of year. Last Sunday the wisteria arbor was full-purple, today there's a carpet of tiny violet petals on the wet, soggy ground beneath it and the vines are leafed out with brave new green.
It's just me and the dogs here today. My husband has gone down to south Florida to visit with his sister who lost her husband in January.
Seems like I've been spending a lot of time alone lately, something that even five years ago would have seemed impossible. I still had two children at home then, still lived in town.
But in the past few years, things have changed so much. We've moved, the kids have grown up and moved out, my husband's sister died, and then his brother-in-law and my friend, Lynn, too.
And I'm not grieving, just wondering and being in wonder that so much has happened in so short a time.
It's like spring, in a way, or fall- those seasons where the changes come quickly, overnight sometimes, while in the long months of summer and of winter, it almost appears that there are no changes, that the heat or the cold will be with us forever.
When the children were little, it was like that. Every day was the same. Get up with them, change diapers, get laundry going, make breakfasts, plan my day around everyone else's schedules, whether of school or lessons or appointments or projects. There were changes, but they were so slow as to be unrecognizable.
Yet now, it's hard to remember all those years of the long summer of my life. I look back and it's fuzzy. Did we really live in one house for twelve years? I can barely recall where the refrigerator was in that house. I look at old pictures and I almost swoon at the memories. I would say it's a bittersweet experience, looking back, but for me, it's more bitter than sweet. Where did those babies go, those darling little children who let me cuddle them on my lap, read to them, their warm bodies close to mine, fat little fingers pointing at the pictures, those tiny faces raised to mine with questions, or ready to receive their good-night kisses?
I have boxes of pictures, unorganized and guilt-producing. I hate going through those boxes. Not only are my babies gone, but my beloved in-laws, my friends Sue and Lynn, both of whom are in so many of those photographs because they were in so much of my life.
And it's not just them- I look at pictures of me and my husband from years ago and I wonder where those two beautiful people went. My God! We never saw the changes and yet, here we are, suddenly old, or at least so much older.
I watch my husband walk across the yard, coming in from the garden and he walks just like his daddy did. He's not a boy anymore, although I still see the boy in him sometimes when I look into his eyes, when he holds me close.
I look at myself in the mirror and am amazed at the lines in my face that don't go away when I'm not smiling, not frowning, just holding my face still to examine it.

Strange to have all these thoughts on a day in spring, one week away from my daughter's wedding.

I wish I had some advice for her and her man, some wisdom to impart about embarking on this journey they're about to vow to make together.
I guess if I do, it would just be to try and take the time to pay attention. To be here now. To realize that within every second there is an eternity that will never reappear. That each day is one that no one can go back to, no one can do over.
Slow down. It goes so fast. They are in the spring of their lives, so much going on, so many changes. Don't try to speed it up. Don't try to race towards the summer-part. That will get here soon enough and then, it'll be gone too.
One day the wisteria arbor is filled with life so thick that you can hear it, smell it, touch it. The next, the blossoms have all dropped, the bees have disappeared.
One day the house is so filled with life that you would give anything for an hour of peace and solitude. The next, it's empty and solitude is what the day is filled with.
I'm not complaining. I still enjoy being alone, still revel in being able to plan my day around my own needs and desires.
But it's strange. And just as I can't reattach the wisteria blossoms, I can't go back to those days when the children were little and life was one frantic breath, inspired when I woke up to the sound of someone who needed me, let out when I finally was able to lie down at night.

So quiet here today I can almost hear the oaks breathe.

Another season, another part of my life. Breathe in, breathe out. The train that runs through my backyard rushes by, in a noisy hurry to get from one place to another. I observe it, I let it pass, I am going nowhere today and I am in no hurry now.
I know how swiftly it all goes.

If I know anything, that's what I know.

It goes too fast.

13 comments:

  1. It's funny how different parts of our lives seem too fast, or even too slow at times. Like it's just never what we wanted. If only there were a giant remote control where we could rewind, fast-forward, or pause, then we'd be happier. When things are just simply out of our control though, that is when we learn how to live. Peace in your living,

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  2. I don't know if we'd be happier. I think I'd just freak out a lot. I can't even bear to watch old home movies.
    But yes, we learn how to live by living, not by controlling, which is sort of impossible anyway. Don't you think?

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  3. Oh, to try to control is setting ourselves up to be the brunt of the joke, dontcha think?

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  4. Speaking as one who quite literally fell on her ass a few days ago- I wouldn't even know HOW to control anything.

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  5. That was stunning.
    Thank you for writing that down.

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  6. Mamma- The way you write things makes everything seem beautiful. Even having wrinkles that don't go away. I love you so much and you are being such a tremendous help for me doing this wedding stuff. You know I could not do it without you. I love you.

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  7. Oh, Lily. What a day this is going to be. I can't believe it- you're really getting married!
    Lily and Jason's Big Adventure!
    Here we go!!!!

    QG- thank you.

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  8. Totally impossible. I think it's been those times where I realize how impossible "controlling" is that have always freaked me out and spun me up the most.

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  9. You've got a knack for writing some really beautiful and touching words; and somehow they're always similar to things I've thought lately.

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  10. I'm starting to get lines at the corners of my eyes now. Laugh lines, thankfully, and I don't mind them, but I do look in the mirror some mornings and think about what I'll look like in 10 or 20 years. It's funny - we all stay the same age in comparison to each other, but we keep slipping along together. I mean, I'll always be older than May who will be older than Lily and Jessie will always be the baby, but we're not 21 and 19 and 12 and 9 anymore.

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  11. Thank you, Jon. Maybe we're from the same planet.
    And DTG- you so sweetly forgot to mention that I AM OLD ENOUGH TO BE ALL YOUR MOTHERS! and thus, will always be older than anyone else on the planet.
    To you guys, anyway. Which is fine and the way it should be.
    Thankfully, I was only twelve when I had you. So really- I'm not that old.

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  12. What a great post. I have never been happy with how I looked. I got carded at the movies way into my twenties. People say I don't look 45, but I know they are lying. My body is ridled with scars and wrinkles, each one a badge of life and earned the hard way. The gray in the beard and a few on the melon, don't bug me. For years I was too skinny now I can't keep the wieght off, life is funny.
    I do have a tough time with my kids getting older and bigger. Where did all that time go?
    w.b.

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  13. But men can wear those scars and lines and it all adds up to a sort of beauty that our culture recognizes. For women- not so much. This makes me sad.
    Where DOES time go? And what IS time? One of the big mysteries, I think. It's like the wind. We can't see it or taste it or feel it or hear it but we can only see the effects as it passes.
    I sound like some fifteen year old who just smoked her first joint, don't I?

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