What we leave behind

My childhood friend and her husband came for the weekend. We had been doing weekends like this for over thirty years. A couple of great dinners, foolishness followed by raucous laughter, and a quiet Sunday of swimming and reading. It felt like a story line in a novel.

On Sunday evening when they were packing up to go home and I was doing n the dishes looking out at the towels on the line I felt a pang of grief. Tears came to my eyes. I swallowed. Got myself together.

I would miss them. Though I knew a weekend like this is the perfect visit. Perfect visits do not need to be extended. Their visit marked another year going. Another year gone.

Sweet summer was ending. 

As they pulled away in their rental car chased by blown kisses I was reminded of a childhood full of weekend visits from older sisters who were working or studying in St.Johns. Of Sunday evenings when the house is so still but you can still feel the spirit of full occupancy. When quiet is somehow quieter. Those clear evenings when you can see the bits of dust floating through the air. When you have time to watch the light fall across the living room.

After all the joy and noise you are brought back to yourself. And you must gather yourself together and remember what filled your life before the repose. And you must love it. Even in the sometimes stillness of routine for it is yours.

And now there will be September. September that I love so much. That month of new notebooks and fresh clean pages. That month of starting again. But starting again is always preceding by an ending and endings are often bittersweet.

On Monday a new friend came over to the house visit. Our first conversation was about September. She said she too loves September but feels the melancholy of the season's change. I was reassured. I am not alone. We never are. Not really.

Leaving something behind for something new.

Embrace. I must embrace the sadness and coddle it. Gently. So I can love the next thing. So I can love what is to come. Sadness comes and goes. Eyes well up with tears and you feel it. And then it subsides.

And then there is September. Red berries on branches and apples falling from trees and the cool night air. And it is good too.

It is all good. 

Thank you for reading,