Seasons

The light is changing all around us. Here we are comfortably nestled in August and still the impending end edges ever closer.

I hear my coworkers and neighbors groan, “It’s back to school season already!”

I’m guilty of it too. I noticed the phantom ache in my chest this past weekend when I spotted some leaves drying out and wasting away in the far corner of a parking lot, under an overcast sky. “No,” I sighed. “Not yet.”

Then I closed my eyes for a beat and focused on the oppressive humidity of the afternoon. It’s a little, old trick of mine. I do it on Sunday nights too. Right after the thought of Monday sends nausea rippling through my guts, I kick my feet up, plunge my head deep into a cushion and sink into the comfort that is specifically not Monday.

I call this trick engaging in the present. I think of it as deliberate mindfulness. Or at least I used to, until I started to notice it wasn’t really working. Thoughts of Monday mornings still induce a gag-like reflex. And the pleasantness of a soft couch on a quiet Sunday evening only seems to make time power forward faster and faster. I’m watching minutes spiral off the clock with dizzying intensity. It feels like I’m in some beat-up old Chevy, sliding down a mountain highway with a severed brake line toward my desk. You know, singing along to the radio the whole time so I can say I enjoyed my ride.

I mean, isn’t taking the time to appreciate the things around you supposed to have a quieting effect? Instead that weird plasticity of time is more like one of those optical illusions that becomes clearer when you don’t look directly at it. It would be logical to assume the older I get the more aware I become of my own mortality, and the scarcity of time. Except this isn’t new for me. I was blubbering over the ends of summer days before I made it to Kindergarten. I couldn’t help but feel that I’d lost something dear to me.  

LOSS. That’s the bastard that keeps sneaking up behind all of the beauty, adventure and serenity I concentrate so fervently to acknowledge and appreciate. It keeps affixing itself to my favorite moments - like every motherfucking sunset I’ve ever laid eyes on.

And Christmas mornings.

And the return legs of my wild road trips, irreverent of the fact that I may still be in Utah with three blizzard-filled days of driving between me and home. Once that greedy sense of loss is established every mile driven is a mile gone.

So, okay then, not surprising at all, really, that at the apex of the calendar summer I would start to lament how short the days are getting, or how yellow the grass, or how tall the corn. I am losing summer. I could be a sentimental sucker. Oh well, so be it. Loss makes me sad. Fine.

It’s just…

I can’t quite put my finger on precisely what it is I’ve lost.

 My childhood? Sure. But let’s face it, I squealed away from that burning rubber, flicking cigarette butts out the window.

My youth? Yeah, alright. I guess summer could subconsciously represent some depleting resource I’m trying to monitor, but the analogy ain’t exactly apt.

Opportunity? At some point it dawned on me I’d never dance for the Paris Opera Ballet or wrangle cattle out on an open range. I’m completely (75%) fine with that.

A season…? You oughtta see my cynical squint right now.

 I am a rational being with superb knowledge and insights into the complex workings of a calendar. I understand that the fundamental nature of a season is cyclical. I know summer will be back. Shit, I even know when!

I also know that I adore fall. I love Halloween, and campfires, and cider, and putting on my tall boots and scarves. I like the crunchy sound the leaves make in the street. I like settling in to read when the light is slanting at a precarious angle.

And I love the night time. I like nightlife: bars, plays, parties. I like looking at the stars, and wandering around the city streets watching other people do the same. I love that easy freedom the darkness affords.

You know what else? I treasure sleeping in my own bed, especially after a week or more on the road.

So what’s up with all this ennui? Good question, me.

Fortunately it hit me like a damn freight train, like, just today. I think that sense of loss is not only melodramatic, it’s a front. It’s resistance and it’s bullshit.

When I look around with honest eyes, all I can really find is a little change. Aaaaaannnnndd, maybe I’m kinda-sorta resisting that change, a teeny-tiny-little, ok, a real-fucking lot.

See, if I can work myself into some woe-is-me-what-has-the-world-come-to-who-am-I-now-and-what-does-it-all-mean-anymore state of grief, then I can dig my heels in. I can fight it, and worry about it, and put all my muscle into trying to manipulate it and control it. And why would I do such a convoluted and absurd thing?

To feel valuable.

To give my life a purpose.

To prove to the blood orange sky that I, too, exist.

Except…

 I already exist. I am already driven by the purpose of my life. And I sincerely value the shit out of myself.

How many more seasons am I going spend resisting? I can’t stop change. I don’t have to, and I don’t want to. The alternative is a dark, rotting, mosquito filled swamp of stagnation. I can’t rush the changing either. These things move at their own pace. I know that. All my attempts to affect outcomes are as useful as trying to stir the ocean with a teaspoon. Monday morning always comes.

I don’t have the answers. I don’t know what cosmic forces are at play or what the rules of the game are. I don’t know why people from Iowa get in the left lane to drive the speed limit. I don’t know why I hate olives, but love dirty gin. And I don’t need to, because its far more likely I am the passenger on this crazy ride than the driver.

So, can I accept change? Can I embrace it? (I actually winced as I typed that).

I can try. I can unscrew my thinking for a while and view all this change just like one of those optical illusions. I can stand way, way back from my life and my time and consider the possibility that the only moment that ever truly exists is this one. 

No matter how childish or tilted my perception may tilt in a given moment, the underlying truth at-hand, is that I am enough, and right now is enough. All I have to do is relax and enjoy the show.

So I’m changing my tune.

From now on, I’m laughing with the sunset, and hollering invitations into the darkness. I’m singing and dancing my way through fall right into the depths of winter. I’m eating ridiculous breakfasts on Monday mornings.  And as always, I’m inviting the silly, serious, brilliant, haunted, beautiful freaks to join me.