I’m eating a juicy pear in the library while I read about poor sick people and statistics.
Outside through the window I can see the sun starting to slide off his thrown in the sky, scattering light through the trees. Golden beams of confetti to welcome the moon. She has been SO BIG AND BRIGHT these days. Demanding attention and leaving no where to hide.
The leaves are changing colour now and dropping quickly, leaving branches bare and exposed; angular and prickly, poised for harsher times ahead.
The transition from summer to autumn always feels surprising to me. Long summer days drenched in infinity sunlight give me the feeling that there is no end… to the constant warmth on my skin, 9pm sunsets, green leaves in the trees.
That golden glow from above weasles its way within and we believe its here to stay.
But change comes. It always does. And it comes fast.
The air cools, days shorten, dinners are now in the dark and the trees are no longer green.
Their leaves darken, dry, wrinkle and twist until dangling from a thread… before falling to the floor.
The unknowing bliss that precedes any hard moment reminds me of this… the “summer effect” of feeling that things cannot possibly be any different.
Until they are.
And that new difference manages to change everything – from that moment onwards… but also somehow before.
You start to see the “signs” leading up to this new reality. The extra layer in the bag, the closed shoes, the warm cooked meals… The body silently preparing for life to change while the mind remains eternally surprised. “How could this happen to me? Us? The world? My summer?”
These types of changes – the ones with hands that reach inside and rearrange the furniture, redo the plumbing, break down a few walls but build a whole bunch of new ones, paint each room a different colour at 9am only to paint everything black at 10:30 –
these changes never come announced. They open the fridge and put on the kettle and then turn around and say “would you like a cup of tea?” as if they have been here all along.
Have they?
It’s a permanent “open door policy” with life. Anyone and anything can walk through the front door at any moment and you don’t call the shots. The only choice you have is whether you welcome in change, accept the cup of tea, sit down at the kitchen table and get to know each other… or alternatively resist this new visitor until things get awkward, silent and you try to only be home when change isn’t. But what kind of home is that?
To be home in myself is to welcome in all visitors with open arms. They may be passing through briefly, or become lifelong soul friend roommates…
Let’s see!
* A moment to listen to the song Changes by Joy Oladokun “…I don’t wanna stay the same so; I’m tryna keep up with the changes…”