ONE FOOT IN/ONE FOOT OUT
August 1 blog:
One foot in summer…the other in fall…this is where I seem to be.as I turn the page to the month August…one presence in the actual place and time where I am…and the other feeling the tug of another season coming but not here yet …always reluctant to let go of summer….not long ago I wrote a poem about this state of affairs…it’s even called “the last day of August’ but I’m already feeling that old tug on the FIRST of August!!!
The last Day of August
the sound of that just stings
Innocent goldenrod still triggers thoughts of new notebooks and the start of the school year
Though I haven’t taught for many years nor been a student many more
Not a fan of letting summer go
I schème for one more beach day
One more later sunset
Yet I somehow manage slowly
To watch as it slips away
September gets ahold of me and off I go to gather goldenrod and wait until it finds its place among gourds and sunflowers
And I find mine as I snuggle into autumn ~~~christine milner
All of this dis-ease, if you will, stems from the years of a school rhythm where simply turning the calendar page from July to August brought queasiness and anxiety, knowing my carefree days with the family and home were ending ALREADY!
I did not put that rhythm aside even when I chose another ministry for 15 years before retiring, and even still now, retired, I feel that pull as weaker but still not gone.
Is that not what the mystics and saints caution about? If we want to grow spiritually, don’t we need to center ourselves in the present and be “all there?” The queasiness comes because I am anticipating a time that hasn’t even happened yet. I let past experience convince me that it IS coming…and I dread it…and I wish it wouldn’t.
Now let me share with you all that it’s just at this very point of confessing my summer attachment that I somehow get to hear that tiny still voice assuring me that it’s all a matter of perspective. I’m not alone with my end of July emotions, but there is certainly another point of view:
I’ll start with Thoreau, who seems to be in my camp: “ It is the glistening side of summer. I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces m thought and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer’s heat is undiminished and I realize what a friend I am losing.”
And then here’s Paul Monette who suggests gratitude to slowly lead me in another direction: “Summer has always been good to me, even the bittersweet end, with the slanted yellow light.” August might then be a bittersweet reckoning, but might it also invite thankfulness for the seemingly endless hours of extra, delicious light?
But it’s Ann Patchett who stirs my soul to turn things around and think otherwise: “To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall …[p.218 ff.] of Truth and Beauty.
Ah! Says the tiny voice…you will miss each beautiful August day if your heart and mind are fixed on what you are losing instead of what is actually happening in eal time all around you!
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” adds Thoreau from Walden
Where I am right now turning July to August doesn’t have to be such a dreadful moment at all! What the tiny divine voice is inviting me to is a stance of both my feet in the present; there are many more beautiful summer days to relish! And I can’t control the turning of the seasons, just like I can’t control life itself with its constant see-saw days of peace/anxiety…joy/sadness…new life/death. But I CAN be present to it all, and fully aware that what I’m experiencing is a natural rhythm of “intersection.” One phase gently and unexpectedly turning to another. My 2 oldest granddaughters leaving in August for college and with that leave-taking our family dynamic altering, shifting slightly but truly…and it’s all good. Children grow up and move away. Summer slips into fall. Youth rolls into old age. And many times, we are caught unaware perhaps? Or we whisper, “How did it happen so quickly?”
But our good and timeless God oversees that timing. When we learn slowly to live on God-time, God’s rhythm… we are so much happier. And many more days open to us as we show up, fully present to enjoy!
Okay, tiny voice and all you saints and mystics: I hear you!! I will intentionally walk in joy each day of August with all that heaven will allow!
Happy month of August to all of you!
