It’s been sunny and seventies, and the seasons have not so much been confused as they have been seemingly just leisurely mingling, amused, some stalling, some joyfully letting go; nothing in the South rushes though.
Like melting cubes of ice in tea, we take it sweet and slow down here. It tickles me pink to have the mix sprinkling personal messages so clear.
Today started differently, gray with a bit of nip in the air. Certain trees partaking in autumn are almost now bare, covering the patio in a bland blanket over stone, which made the flowers I did not grow even more the focal point of my windowed soul.
I smiled for how they have become so deeply rooted in my journey. Marking my heart’s pages, so many petals and leaves held so dearly, imprinting with their colors and scents my most powerful untold stories.
Sunsets in rearview mirrors we notice then drive off into the future; the golden moment morphs orange and is extinguished as we turn.
The past is over our shoulders the instant we cross it; no two sunsets the same, though the next we take for granted.
While I still can, I u-turn and loop again, exerting control over this moment so my daughter can get a better shot; soon, she’ll too leave my nest.
Lots of what I hoped to instill seems to have slipped through the sieve-holes of time, but this hobby I’ve shared I think will remain as a tie that mother-daughter binds.
I take my own shot of the second shot at making subtle pleasant memories, freezing the golden and the orange to develop and hold when we are both older; I hope we grow closer in this future I turn to again and hesitantly proceed.
Sunsets in rearview mirrors. Years later, I sigh nostalgically, holding my grandbaby’s hand and tearing up over her mother with the requited affection that the years since her teens did bring.
Sunsets in rearview mirrors: never let go of the more that they may someday be.
Determined to counter the moody clouds others have been attempting to cast onto me, I choose to seek out the sun, spring-infuse myself, dip my soul into the fresh-blooming green,
breathe in the revitalizing April air, let the warming rays seep in through my pores, absorbed more in the whole of the reborn panorama than focused on the details imploring to be explored,
labrador-blue heeler happy for any outdoor adventure, not a hike but a mutually restorative leisurely linger, ahhh…a new season…
Circling back to the start, back to the car, I am not allowed to leave, it seems, until Mother Nature imparts a lesson, whispers words of wisdom through some not-new, refusing-to-be-forgotten leaves from two seasons ago, still here, and starkly so, weathered, fossilized autumn,
a reminder of the past not so easily dismissed; buried or not, it insists on revisits, coming to you if you neglect it, but what we make of what is, that is the endless work or blessing depending on the nature of what was– bright, shiny yellow of yesterday against the conglomerate of rocks, man-manipulated into asphalt, a yellow sickness or stubborn fading sun, either way the marring, tattered edges and holes, do not seem to take the whole, still here despite the winter with a fortitude to witness, to reunite with the green it was itself once.
I see a reminder that we can turn our back on the past and run to spring, but all seasons remain, never really leave, inside us always are the memories, tears of joy and loss, the scars of life; we can embrace it all, co-exist in peace with all that is inside.
I choose to find the positive, even in the stumbling upon the past in my determined celebration of the present moments, all presents indeed, and then I find a smile in the concrete when I see yet another unexpected chapter of a love story, so pure and yet to be complete…
I wonder what those resigned to defeat see. Perception can sting regardless, some things we simply must feel but perspective… that is the key in our control and possession, a powerful tool we can self-weld and self-wield, manipulate, to preserve our internal peace.
Out of body, I float through time, hover unaccompanied, no ghost as guide; nonetheless, through windows I peer, Dickens-paned, layered veneers.
Yet in them, in those moments, the mise-en-scènes are still amiss– a faraway look, a laugh insincere, a single, silent unwitnessed tear–
not necessarily sad, just adrift; have I never settled into my prints? My soul, a gypsy, but wishing to barter– tent for cabin, canoe for harbor.
My life does not flash before my eyes, for this person, I barely recognize; experiences play out, acts with multitudes of ends, the quilt more mishappen-patched than threaded.
So many past lives I’ve lived and died within this one, so many false dawns that made me suspect the sun, yet through it all, in this saga of my non-selves, I walk the beaches of my past and collect the treasures
beneath and between the shells
and place them on the sunny sills of my present, the true dawn of the genesis of me that began when you kissed me into living and finally led me home into my awaited dreams.
Sunset strips the day of its colors; the last drips disappear before drying. The empty swing hangs still from the tree, its motion, too, retreats into time.
All the world seems silent, pauses; all the years universally fossilize. Only I and the earth subtly shift as the sun reaches, in gold capsulizes.
Times are changing, the earth keeps rotating, seasons arrive and depart… Change is always hard on my heart.
No shadow now joined to my hip. Gradual independence. Children grow up and detach. How can we know which kiss may be the last?
Years unravelled from finite twine; at the end, the kites will fly. If Father Time were to grant my wish, which moments would I revisit?
The sands keep slipping; no way to flip it. How should I spend this day? What memories can I make to leave my family as legacy to have, to hold, to keep as the distance continues to grow and life leads us down different roads?
Tomorrow is never promised, another sunset never guaranteed. Priorities must be organized so nothing overshadows the people.
This moment may be all we have, so when I reach for your hand, let me draw you nearer. Come sit for a while and talk with me, dear.
Lone fisherman at the sea
I watch as the sun begins to bleed
into the horizon and the golden
makes a moment of the scene
that in turn seeps into me
and coats in a honey so sweet
each of my memories and dreams.
The fisherman fades in footsteps away
into the sunrise of a thousand days,
and I paint upon the canvas of my soul
a thousand stories I do not know.
I can’t help but think of all of those moments that still play in my head in slow motion…
each one that filled me with such escalation, anticipation, heightened emotion…
so many instances I’ve framed in my mind in the scrapbook I’ve assembled over time…
so sure in each of those jovial junctures, you were sharing the same wish for a someday happily-ever-after,
and even if we could never be, you sharing in that romantic dream would have been everything to me. But you say in each of my memories, I was mistaken; they were all false reads, that you never “like that” cared for me.
I replay each scene, trying to mend my distorted reality, but that leaves in each sun-kissed, summer moment, me bereaved, for shared love died before it ever breathed, all in my mind, simply make-believe.
Laura Denise 