.....acorns

Yogis,
Our small beach house sits surrounded by pine and oak trees. Big old trees that are great producers. As great producers they then also must be fantastic autumn droppers, and this was their weekend to let go. Acorns and pinecones falling at an incredible rate on the roof, driveway, gutters and everywhere in between. Like a rainstorm they clank on the metal roof next door and rumble as they roll, often having me glancing over my shoulder to see who is there. Twenty-four hours a day.

Last night I lay in bed with the window open. Plop…plop…plop on the roof above my head reminding me of large teardrops. As if the sky and trees were finally allowing themselves this time to grieve as life begins its slow down. Fall is the season for grief.

Grief is hard. We want to push the inevitable off. I’ll get to it. But do we really want to wait for springtime, with its brightening days and bursts of lifeforce to grieve? Or maybe summer while eating an ice cream cone on the boardwalk? No…… As the nights become longer and the leaves float downward, we too are meant to let go. If not in fall, when?

And isn’t that what grief is at its essence? A letting go? A pouring out.

Grief arrives in small and large packages. A loved one. Our youth. A relationship. The end of summer. The daily tragedies of life. A missed experience. The way something used to be……

We claim we dislike things that are shallow, yet when it is time for grief we high-tail it for the shallow end because grief holds tremendous depth. It scares us. It’s uncomfortable. Unknown. If I swim into the dark of grief, will I be able to make my way back.

But wouldn’t life without grief be missing its texture?

We grieve because we loved. Two sides of the same coin. They travel hand in hand and cannot be separated. And when grief arrives, she will be patient for a while for us to acknowledge her, but only for so long. She yearns to be processed. A step at a time. Fall offers us this doorway.

Fog. Leaves crunching under my shoes. The flock of blackbirds in the tree. A late yellow butterfly floats by.

Another acorn falls.

Feeling it all,
SARAH