in the meantime

This is the "in the meantime" time, you know, the time the writer Yianla Vanzant speaks of, the time sometime after you've said goodbye to what was, before you get to where you want to be ...

I'm letting go, throwing things I don't want away, trying to find good homes for things I love -- like some of my plants.

I brought in a pot of succelents from outdoors.  I'm not sure if the plants were nibbled on by the squirrels or nipped by frost.  As soon as I brought this pot indoors, the Crown of Thorns started to drop its flowers in the low indoor light.  These guys too need a home.

There will be things I will have shipped out to me later.  I'm trying to strip away everything but the bare essentials, however.  I'm sure getting naked is called for here!

I'm tired, very tired.  Sometimes it seems like procrastination is the only answer.  As a friend recently observed, often the very act of avoiding that huge unpleasant task gets so many other things done.  But at the end of the day, not the best time to evaluate anything, I feel scared and alone.

I'm emptying out my life as best I can.  This meantime is starting to feel very empty. All the space being revealed is refreshing when I'm having a good moment;  other times, it's overwhelming and sad.

It rained hard last night.  It was still pouring rain when I woke up this morning.  Outside my windows, the autumn leaves barely clinging to the maples are being pulled down by the streaming rain.

Many conflicting emotions are battling each other in my mind.  I think of the conversation I had with my brother last night.  We talked of death, making of each momentous occasion "the last hurrah".  We talked a bit about loss and the unbearable ephemeral nature of life. We talked about pain and mistakes and misunderstandings and surviving.  We talked about loneliness and we talked about sharing.

I think I understand what he was trying to say. And I am deeply and profoundly grateful for the kindness, for his big heart.

This is a strange, witchy time of the year.  Hallowe'en is approaching.  Ancient wisdom measured time so that this was the end of the old year, the beginning of the new. 

This has also traditionally been, in the northern hemispheres, when the veil between the living and the dead becomes very thin.  In the metaphorical sense, as well as the literal one, death is a mysterious gateway.  The leaves fall off the trees in a blaze of glorious colour even as the seed-heads of flowers shatter to lie hidden by the detritus of the dying splendours of summer.  That rich, dark mold is blanketed by the oblivion of cold snows, only to become the nourishment within which the seeds of next spring will grow.

So, I share my brother's sentiments.   In the words of Dylan Thomas, I will not go gentle into that good night.  Like the leaves, I will celebrate.  And, I will procrastinate a little more and let myself be enthralled by the bold, cheeky bluejays, the raucous, arguing crows and the flock of tiny, golden-crowned kinglets dancing in the rain-soaked trees outside my window.

The more serious work of packing up, wrapping up, will all get done in time.  In the meantime, I am allowed to get a little drunk on the rain-saturated red of the leaves.  Maybe I'll dance too.