Autumn Joy
/The Autumn Joy Sedum began to bloom this week, a defiant bit of pink that seems to want to hang on to summer, even though the leaves that skitter by on the driveway are tinged with gold. I notice the mornings getting darker, and I brace myself—struggling against the dark and cold that I know is coming. This knowing of what will be is both an advantage and a disadvantage. I know enough to hang on to the last sunny days, to go for long walks even when it means work is left undone. But I also know enough to dread the dark of winter, the cold and dreary air that seeps into my bones . . . and my soul.
Lately I’ve been wondering if my dislike of the dark and cold of winter is more about perspective than reality. Is the dark of winter more like a dreary tomb, or a cocoon that nurtures life? Perhaps that depends on whether I submit to the descent like a seed planted in the ground, looking forward with hope to the day when I will see new growth emerge in my life, or whether I struggle against it as if I am fending off stagnancy.
My husband and I are in a season of slow transition. Some of these changes are expected—the departure of one child to college just two years after the departure of the last one to all-day school. Some are less expected—work that I thought I would be doing this fall has so far not materialized, and I’m waiting to see what’s next. Meanwhile, my husband is anticipating some changes in job responsibility, but we don’t know exactly how or when those will happen.
The thing about transition is that it is awkward and messy. Every morning my youngest asks me what the weather will be like, hoping I can guide her toward shorts or pants, sundress or sweatshirt. But I can’t help her much. It’s 55 this morning, but by recess it will be 75. She needs shorts and a sweatshirt, or a sundress with leggings. Her cobbled together outfit resembles the cobbled-together chaos of my days as I juggle roles and responsibilities.
The back-and-forth, cold-then-hot confusion is part of the cycle of life. It is what makes the sedum bloom and the leaves turn to red and gold. This chaos of the juxtaposition of summer and winter has about it a beautiful awkwardness, a riot of happy joy not unlike the striped-sweater-with-flowered-shorts outfit that my daughter likes to wear—if I choose to see it that way.
The transitions of life, whether expected or not, can be embraced for their beauty even though they make it hard to know what clothes to put on. Am I more mom or writer today? Should I mourn what is past or look forward with joy to what is to come? Most of the time, the answer is both. And I think that’s the secret to having the right perspective on change. The changes that are coming to the earth, and to my little world, are the harbingers of new life. I just need to submit to the process, embrace its chaotic beauty, and lean into the changing seasons with expectant joy while I wait for God to produce the growth that he has promised in my heart and soul.
