Time

I went for a walk this evening on a trail near my house. Even though I was still in the middle of the city, the beauty of the fields and trees, the colors of the setting sun, made me feel as if I were out in the wild, one with nature. It reminded me of how often I used to take walks like this, when I was young—how often I used to spend time out in nature. Making decisions was so much easier back then because there were far fewer decisions to make. And those decisions didn’t hold the weight that they do now.

It was such a beautiful night, cool, crisp, alive. A hawk perched at the top of a tree, surveying the same scene I was drinking in. I couldn’t tell what kind it was because it was too far away, without enough light, and I cursed myself for not bringing my camera with its zoom. I love the way cameras stop a moment in time. As I thought of that, it made me realize what a hard time I often have living in the present—when the past is dragging at my heels like the chains that Marley was forced to wear and with the future constantly looming before me, as hazy scenes, ever-changing, shifting and slithering, and always just out of reach. Sometimes it feels like every decision is do or die, and I die more often than I do, because I can’t shake the past, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to shape the future. So I wish I had a camera that could actually stop time, so I could stop moving, so I could know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. But I don’t; I can’t. I keep moving and hope that I’m doing the right thing. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. And time never stops. It just keeps moving. I keep moving.

The Change of the Seasons

I have long been absent. I’ve been working two jobs since August, on top of being a single mom, and I just haven’t had any time or motivation to write. But I have a little of both right now, and not too long ago a friend told me she missed my posts. It meant the world to me to hear that.

A week or two ago I was looking back through old journals and found this entry from almost six years ago. I know I have written other similar entries because it is still what I feel. Every year.

The change of the seasons is intertwined with my soul. What happens in Nature also happens within me. The gray sky, the morning fog, the jeweled moon at night above the mountains, and the cold air kissing my skin haul in memory, attach it to my mind. It drags behind me through the change and beyond. A wondrous, mysterious time, but also a dark time.

For some reason the past is tied to the change in seasons—at least summer to autumn and autumn to winter. As the seasons change my mind is filled with memories of the past, some good, some bad and some good that feel bad now because of changes that have happened. The memories achingly gnaw at me, often confuse me, sometimes consume me. Perhaps part of it is the seasonal affective disorder that is already beginning. Or maybe I’m just . . . weird. Maybe I’m that last red maple leaf, stubbornly clinging to the tree and what was, yet unable to hold on as winter rips me free, waiting on the frozen ground for what spring and summer inevitably have in store.