I feel for people who wish time away. I hear the words of those who hate the summer months, longing for it to be Autumn all year round. A part of me understands, for my spirit also comes alight when the temperatures begin to cool and the leaves begin to change, but as I watch the lines slowly appear around my eyes and those around me shifting with the passage of time as well, I can’t help but feel for those who wish the moments away.
Summer is made up of approximately ninety days. That’s ninety early sunrises and late sunsets, both of which cause the sky to light up in brilliant color. That’s ninety chances to taste the sweetness of a summer peach or a juicy watermelon. Ninety chances to stick your feet in the lake, the river, or the ocean, feeling the sun’s heat on your face and the cool water on your toes. A small window of time to watch gardens all around you come to life, and the fields to bloom into brilliant blankets of wildflowers. A fleeting moment of time to enjoy popsicles with your family in the way that only feels complete in the summer sun, or the perfect time to have midnight margaritas with your friends as the fireflies dance all around you. Ninety days to find comfort in the balmy night air as the moon lights the sky and the grass cushions the ground as you lay on it. Ninety days. Three months. Three months that you won’t get a second time. Moments that beg you to immerse yourself within them, to find comfort in the wheel of the year as it turns. To love our world is to be a part of it - to embrace her stages of life.
The moments pass, most times without our noticing. We allow them to slip through our fingers, assuming there will always be more. But as I watch the missed chances of my past play out before me in vibrant yellow and purple hues, I can assure you, they don’t always open up to you again. To constantly wish for later is to live so far out of touch with the present that you miss it entirely. To love Autumn is to embrace the changing stage, the liminal space as our trees morph into art before shedding for Winter. But to be fully present in life is to find joy and appreciation at each stage, not just during the shift. Summer brings with it a liveliness, as the world around us is blooming in full and vibrant color. Winter brings a quiet stillness as the natural world around us tucks itself away into dormancy. Both stages are a part of the cycle, which makes them beautiful and natural and…real.
We live in a world that makes it all too easy to detach from the natural order of things. With stores that sell Halloween decorations in June and grocers that can bring fresh enough produce to us all year round, it is all too easy to detach from the natural cycle of which we were once a part of. To embrace magic is to embrace our natural world, and to fall back in love with her through all of her ebbs and flows. The days are long, but the years are short, and we are but a blip on the radar of time. How many chances do we have to jump in the ocean, or smell the freshly cut grass? How many moments can we witness the spattering of freckles that the sun’s light leaves on our faces? Time is non-refundable, and to spend it desperately wishing for the next season, the next chapter, the next year…it’s wasting it. To be present is to be human. To experience life as it unfolds, in all of its good and bad, is the definition of truly living. We’ve made such a complicated mess out of the term mindfulness, when it is, quite simply, the act of stopping to smell the flowers. To enjoy the freshly grilled ear of corn without desperately wishing for sweater weather is to be mindful and present. They say we were trained as children to love summer because it was the time we got out of school, but do you think it’s possible that we were just more easily able to be present in that time? In the time before work, bills, and cell phones took over our existence? In the moments where what we didn’t have didn’t get the chance to trump what we currently had, because we were too busy enjoying the moments?
My wish for you is that, in between the pleas for pumpkin spice to be on shelves again or Santa to be on his way, may you stop to enjoy the smell of the air after a thunderstorm, or the feeling of the sun’s rays on your face, because there will come a time when you wished you could experience those things, as you are now, just one more time. Life is short, and the moments pass all too quickly, and far too often without attention. So may your iced coffee bring you cool relief, and may the next strawberry you have be the sweetest one yet…but most importantly, may you pause long enough to take a moment to savor them.
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