Soft Endings - September 2022

Dear One,

When I was a little girl living in the heat of Northern California, I swam endlessly in our backyard pool, caught polliwogs in a neighborhood pond, and chased dragonflies that danced in the hot air, air that seemed to pulse in waves against the blue sky, and what I thought would last forever, would always come to a soft end.

As September arrived it meant that we would make our pilgrimage to the shoe store and squeeze my feet into the hard patent leather that would, in the next 9 months become my ‘school shoes’.  My mom and I would go to the clothing store and create a wardrobe of tights, knee highs, jumpers, and skirts.  All of which, compared to summer’s freedom of bare feet and swimsuits, felt like the mummification of my wild summer body.

On the first day of school everyone was expected to wear their Fall clothes,  and yet it was always a sweltering Northern California Fall.  But it was ritual.  My brother and my sisters left our freedom behind, and with lunchpail in hands took our yearly landmark photo all standing together by the front door. 

And that was the soft end of Summer.  From this soft ending came the slow turn of the calendar, the self-organization of life, and the meander into another season.  

As I reflect on the soft endings of my life, the things I thought would last forever, those people and experiences that made their way through the doorways of time, not unlike the dragonflies in the hot August skies, one by one called into their next season, they sit in my heart with reverent beauty. 

I am curious to see, feel, and know what the soft end of summer will bring this year and how I can honor and love the good of its turning.  How can I shape the hard leather of change with my wild shoeless feet?  What experience of this summer will forever land in my heart and further shape my Soul as I move into another season?

Time is precious, it never repeats, never returns, and flows with ever potent generosity.

Reflections

• Sit quietly.  Recall a summer that was filled with delight.  Lean into a Summer season in your life when you felt the wildness of your being.  How did you navigate the soft end of that Summer?  
• As this Summer softly closes, make a list of the gifts it has brought you.  People, places, experiences, and insights.  Thank this Summer for her treasures both the simple and the profound.
• If there were a talisman, a small embodiment, of the gifts that you have received from Summer,  what would this be?