Impermanence

"Sunsets and Sunrises will paint stories across the sky. Day and Night will flip the switch again and again. The Sun and Moon will change places, repeating this sequence over and over, until it is over." Ameera Essabar

 November usually brings with it darker days, winds, and rains. Conditions  less favorable for most living things that have been flourishing in the past months. Any that remain hanging on take a tremendous hit with the first frost. It is always still a surprise when we see the mums on the step instantly brown or the last perennial wither away and become dormant.   Death in nature can be so predictable, so surprising, such a dichotomy. Natural and absurd, easeful and difficult. I think watching the process of the earth's vibrant beauty be released, we fear our own light and vibrancy will become dimmed in the darkness that ensues. The weather recently has been extraordinary and rare for the area where I live. Each day seems borrowed.  I find myself checking on the roses that remain on the bush in my garden in the morning to see if they have made it another night.  Knowing that their impermanence is real makes their extended life such a gift.    

My phone notification was waiting for me but I put it off until morning, having a gut feeling that it may not be good news.  I had inquired with my colleague and friend about another teacher's health and hoped she would have heard something different. Instead, she confirmed that her prognosis was not good.  By morning, her words were that she had passed away. I only knew of this sweet teacher, partner, mother, and friend but shared a kinship from afar as she was a stepmom to an autistic adult daughter.   Many of my Facebook friends worked with her and there wasn't one who didn't also have a close connection with her. The heavy grief they were all feeling was palpable and with all their words of loss and grief shared on social media, I could feel the darkness of November creep in. But when I made my way into my day it manifested in a different way and the words and feelings below flowed. 

" Today felt different somehow. My feet attached to the floor beneath as though it were the first time they did so.  I looked around my space and thought, I get to be here today.  With each task or movement, I had done a million times before, I felt these words, this feeling, this thought.  It felt like putting on that well-worn cardigan and greeting it as a best friend.   I get to feel the comfort and loss of being alive today. I get to witness the uncertainties with curiosity and without burdening myself with control. Today I get to see, hear and feel my loved ones, brush shoulders with strangers, hear the hum of the washing machine, the clank of the dryer, and my dog scratching at the door.  I get to feel frustrated and take for granted that there will be another moment when it will be obsolete.   I get to see my reflection and witness my physical presence in the mirror staring back at me. I get to make a plethora of choices about my present reality. Whatever feels nourishing, I get to experience the sensations from all of my senses that only come with having a physical form. "I get", rolls easily off my tongue today and leaves my heart bursting in my chest. I get to feel the absurdity of joy existing simultaneously with the loss of another. Today I honor my aliveness. I want to remember this feeling, bottle these fleeting moments of gratitude.  I want it to seep into my conscience and velcro to my brain that I have been given the gift of another day.  I want to promise or pledge that I will not forget this when I am deep in worry or searching for the light when it feels dark. But I know the emptiness of this promise when the veil or cloak of humanness takes its place comfortably over my form again in its own time. Probably in the wake and urgency of ordinary living. But for today or maybe only for this brief moment, my aliveness is honored with the gift of understanding that "I get to" and I will be walking through my day carrying a heavy heart for those who do not have this same privilege  and a lightness of spirit for the honoring of being able to wrap my arms around life for yet another day with a fragile and tender awareness."

This moment had me wishing we could carry the impermanence of life with us like a recipe for living. Maybe invest ourselves in the reality, as we do the needs of a newborn. Instead of putting down this awareness and walking away from its proven reality over and over again.  If we could find ourselves visiting its possibility, our own mortality, and the impermanence of all we love, I wonder if it might change the way we live even just for this moment.