finite

from my porch right now, life feels exquisite. the morning light, the breeze, the clarity of dry air, the promise of another day. another week.  the week of transition.  the end of the summer, the beginning of a new school year. another meeting about rose- zoe in a classroom.  a lot to could happen this week- or nothing- and things i have no idea about will unfold, or begin, or end.

yesterday bryn asked when God was born.  i had a moment.  one of the moments when you try to wrap your mind around something outside of your mind- when you try to imagine infinity- when you try to remove the bounds of time and step out of this dimension. 

'God wasn't born bryn, he just was, always.'

he looked appropriately puzzled, but it registered as very possible.  because when you are five- you can still engage in the mystery.

how can something not begin? and not end? starting and finishing is all we know.  time is. it moves. again i felt my smallness- that there is so much we don't know, or understand, or even have the capacity to grasp.  i guess that is why we so often choose not to believe. belief is risky. admitting we don't know is threatening. keeping our system closed - keeping things in this world- limiting them to our understanding- that maintains our sense of control, kind of.

but then we let go of the mystery. we lose embracing possibility and space and timelessness. so i choose to hold my smallness, to be okay with my limitedness, to trust that deep knowing that whispers inside: there is more. 

here we are.  today we live in this time, in these bodies, and we still must ask the question- what will we do with our one wild and precious life?  with this wild and precious day?


The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
- mary oliver

time is always time

last night was the global celebration of our friend laura's life.  all 6 of the inhabited continents were represented, with people on each one, remembering her, honoring her life, and being thankful that we were part of it.  it's pretty amazing - to be loved across the world.  it reflected her love of travel - and her ability to connection with different people.

in the afternoon i was trying to prepare for this as best i could, which was hard because i was interrupted a billion times, and i left my box of bits from my past in the attic of my parents house. i left my box of notes that had been passed, letters saved, rose petals gathered (seriously), yearbooks, and other collected items that bring me back to places and times that are special.  but i did bring a bag of pictures- a literal plastic ziplock bag of pictures.

this is typical of me.  i aspire to be a maker of scrapbooks, or at least picture albums.  i keep meaning to settle down and sort- to organize and write captions and record the place and time and date.  but. i don't.  instead i have bags and boxes filled with random pictures- and the thing is- i like it. 

yesterday, i fumbled through my life- in its disorder.  i went from zoe in san francisco at preschool- to me taking my first steps- to me and mike when we started dating - to my visit to rift valley academy in kenya when i was 17.  there were pictures of zoe nursing, then me going to the prom, then my best friend in peru at 14, then my grandmother. snippets of my time.

somehow, jumping around the years like this, felt more special- like i was finding little treasures- because each photo was a surprise.  life seemed full and rich.

i'm savoring the book 'gift from the sea' by anne morrow lindbergh. today i was reading about love and memory.  about the deep desire we have to freeze our love relationships in the first stages.  how we want to keep the initial passion, the first intense connection- and we don't accept the natural changes that happen as our relationship grows and matures.  we fear the loss of our beginnings, sometimes at the cost of missing the beauty in our depth.

looking through that bag of pictures- it's pretty obvious that change happens.  i have aged.  people have died. hair has grown and been cut; or fallen out for some. people have married, others divorced.  homes have been sold or moved from, trees have grown. babies have been born. jobs started. places have been visited.  the world has been traveled. change is constant- it's dependable- it's guaranteed.

there is so much beauty in the transience. each of those pictures, each holds a memory of a true and valid moment, as real as the moment of me sitting now on this porch, writing these words. there is nothing lost in the fact that it has past, that time has moved us, that change has happened.  maybe it's even become richer as it's antiqued.  maybe the value has deepened because it was and no longer is as it was.   her book reminds us of t.s. eliots words from his ash wednesday poem:

because i know that time is always time
and place is always and only place and
what is actual is actual only for one time and
only for one place, 
i rejoice in that things are as they are.

and really, that is what we are left with.
rejoicing in that things are as they are. now.  here. in this day before us.
that we make it real and vibrant and life giving- and worthy of remembering.
that we hold those we love who are gone, close; and those who we love, who have changed as we have, closer still.

time just gets away from us...

the other night i watched the last few scenes from the coen brothers remake of 'true grit'. it was enough to make me want to watch all of it- and the last line stuck with me.

'time just gets away from us.'

it does, doesn't it?

time- that thing we pay attention to- we gauge our lives by- it gets away from us.  it goes faster the older we get - which makes sense, because as we age- each section of time is proportionally less than the year before- so it seems faster- and it is faster- and it gets away from us.

i'm up here on the north shore of new england.  i'm up here in the land where time froze when i was in my transition from teen to twenty something. when my life was all about me.  when i had time- so, so much time- time i didn't even appreciate.  this was the place where i explored the ocean and read ts eliot and wrote my own bad poetry and listened to enya by candle light and drank wine coolers and smoked camel lights. it's where i spent summers dancing on lawns at 'great woods' to the music of crosby stills and nash and the jerry band, wearing hippy skirts with bells on the drawstring and soleless moccasins.  it's where i made mixed tapes and ate dunkin donuts after hours and had friends in REM cover bands.  this was the land where i fell in love hard.  fell in love even though i was young.  the land where i got married at 22, even though no one else was.  so it's strange to be back at 40- dag that sounds old. and i'm up here now with my three little kids- one who is much closer to my age when my life was here - than i am to that age now- and that is weird.

but it's really good for me to be here.  and to be here, now.

sometimes when your life is spinney and crazy and logistic-y something happens to alter your tracks- to reverse direction- to push the inner work that is needed- to force the stillness.  that is what new england is now.  it's a reminder.  a pause.  a halt and reverse.  a slow down.  it's a move that has forced me to let go of the rigamarole and embrace the now- the focus on others- the kids.  it's a move that is reminding me (in small ways) of how life in uganda will be- communal- shared- relational- slower.  and for this- this preemptive trial- i am so thankful.  it's a move that is reminding me of how things will be different- routines will have to change- things will hold different meaning.

i'm also seeing how adaptable we all are- how even zoe will be ok- besides, what are her options?

what is different is that here- i'm seeing old friends- friends that knew me when i was 18 and 20 and 22- friends that i have histories with- even if i haven't seen them in years- they know me- the time trialed and true me.  in uganda it will be new friends.  it will be people who know me as 40, as a mom, as a doctor, as a wife of 18 years.

but what i am- who i am- has time taken it away?  what has 20 years done?  anything?

tonight the sky is white and completely consistent.  there is no variation- no depth- no pockets.  and the trees i look out on are the same ones i climbed at 19.  there is a steadiness.  we are who we are- always in some ways the same.  time just gets away from us.