Transition Happens. It Just Does
Evenings are shorter now… leaves spend less time attached to branches…
I know that so much love has crossed my skies, passed those days when my feet trod the vastness of childhood fields, taking in the soft scented air, feeling the cool grass under my feet, and running faster than the bubbling streams toward an unending ocean.
I don’t know exactly when it was I left those fields of childhood, or when the pleasure of skipping down muddy lanes turned into a grind on tarmac roads.
Perceptions change.
Looking back, childhood was, in fact, a small meadow, and when I left, I felt people were always traveling in the opposite direction.
I often return to the island where I was raised. It’s hard to explain why, perhaps it’s the scent of a long-ago stability.
In those long early evenings of youth, among the things I sought was travel, career success, anything to challenge myself while looking for difficult, and dangerous things to do.
Today I prefer to look back on what is calm and familiar, remembering when evenings were long and warm, the cattle came slow, scratching their backs against barnyard doors, and swishing their tails at flies.
But the train of life pulls away from that station too quickly and without thinking one jumps onboard, not knowing that its destination is manhood, higher skies, a troubling cockpit on the world, and blood spilt.
The thorns of reality are sharp. When did I become a bear with sideboard silver hair, sorrowful battles fought on leathered skin, or hiding in the deep crevices forming around blue lackluster eyes?
The skies weren’t always blue in my youth, sometimes heavy, slate gray, when the westerly winds sharpened it brought the smell of the fishing boats languishing in the harbor, the men relaxed, leaning close, and laughing.
Living with shorter evenings, I know now if I could turn, I would go back as far as those fields and live again with the excitement of falling in love, the terror brought about by its loss, and wear Sunday’s new clothes or Monday’s new loves.
What does it all mean?
You get your head cracked, your nose broken, get bloodied, and if once isn’t enough, you are ready to go back and do it all over.
This transition comes to us all.
Short evenings when youthful memories are welcome, and tears become fountains that refresh, dazzle, and no longer taste bitter.
But the evening of life presents me with a new kind of majesty, where ordinary folk have become extraordinary, and the welcoming of grandchildren gives me a few more evenings to hold well-loved faces in my hands before night descends…
…and after all is done, thank you seems so little.
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