The In-Between

It’s the end of August and I hear a Cicada singing away outside. Lately it keeps suddenly switching from sunshine to storms and back again leaving days spent between a mix of hot and humid. And if the weather app on my phone is anywhere close to accurate, we might see a little more of that as summer sings its last stanzas. But it happened. I felt it. It was two weeks ago on Sunday. At some point each year, always unexpectedly, there comes a day when the weather sits right in the middle. Not summer, not fall, but the most magical combination of them both. There is no doubt about summer’s presence in those moments, but somehow you can simultaneously remember the exact sensation of fall. It is the first glimpse, the reminder, the “I can feel it” almost as tangibly as the sweaters and the scarves. It is right there. It is coming. And it is stop-you-in-your-tracks, breath-takingly beautiful. Summer is something thrilling, unrestrained, free and wild. I desperately love summer and I tend to always dread the end of it. Although inevitable, summer ending tends to feel cruel, restrictive, and inherently wrong. I begin to worry about the transition from a season of exploring and resting back into one of structure and schedules. I become deeply concerned about appreciating it, fixated on fully embracing it, worried about not wasting it and sometimes, I nearly exhaust myself with all the trying. But on THAT day, when the weather shifts and falls just right, that stunning mixture of summer and fall seeps through my skin and deep into my soul. Somehow, someway it stills my fears in a way nothing else can. Without any effort, I am overcome with an awareness that for right now that shift, that in-between, is exactly the way it should be. I feel the truth of it both on my skin and burrowing deep into my heart. With every step on that day, I shift from anxiety to anticipation, from over-thinking to thankfulness. I love fall. I really do. But somehow I forget that. The reality is my life is shifting. Not in a sudden, decision-making, “here we go”, taking a leap type of shift that shotguns us into the next seasons of our lives. But rather in a steady, gradual, under the surface type of shift; surprisingly slow but remarkably powerful just like the movement of the earth’s tectonic plates. The months ahead are marked with more questions than making plans. What’s “next” feels mysteriously unclear even though I ironically feel an undeniably constant progression, closer and closer, inch by inch, to whatever it may be. I did not think it would still feel this unclear. Still moving and not yet arriving is revealing how much I expect a sense of progression to provide answers, how much I confuse time passing as clarity quickening. So this year, that day soothed more than the annual anxiety between seasons. This year, it reminded me that this in-between, this hanging between what is coming but not here yet, is uniquely beautiful and indescribably right. So I want to linger here, letting this truth soak into my soul anew. I want to allow the profound peace and sweetness to burrow all the way into my heart. I want to relish this in-between until it is finally time for the next season to roll in. Here’s to fall: with all its questions and maybe answers, with all its changes and maybe clarity, peace, thankfulness, and a beautiful mix of it all.

#praise #thankfulness #transition #time