I didn’t know it would be our last real conversation. I wish now that I’d taken note last week of every word, paid more attention to the sunlight falling across the bed, the single rose in the vase, the light in her eyes, the smile she offered as I kissed her good-bye and promised I would be with her again on Tuesday. “What are you coming down for,” she asked, as she always did when I told her what day I’d be back. For once — after months of manufacturing haircuts and book group meetings and pedicures as “legitimate” reasons…
“Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more. And we also once. Never again. But this having been once, although only once, to have been of the earth, seems irrevocable.” — Rilke, Duino Elegies These words, the epigraph to Mary Oliver’s new collection of poems, pierce my heart. I have read them over and over again, have felt the depth and heaviness and truth of that italicized word, once. For so it is, every moment of every day, once and only once. Two days ago, I stood in my garden, taking stock after a week away. …
Each morning this week, my husband and I have woken early and walked together. With our two sons back in school, the daily rhythm of our life has shifted. We’ve gone from twenty years of being utterly child-centered — and from a summer of family schedule-juggling, despite the fact that our children, at 17 and 20, are not actually children anymore — to the quieter intimacy of two. We take the same route from our house, a loop through the woods and along a quiet bike path, then up the hill toward home. By the time I put coffee on…
The other day one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Lindsey at A Design So Vast, wrote a lovely end-of-summer post. Reading her elegiac reflections made me realize that I wasn’t quite there yet myself; I’m having some trouble acknowledging this change of season, acquiescing to yet another ending. You can see it in my half-there-half-here outfit this morning: as I type these words I’m wearing flip flops and a wool sweater, trying to have it both ways. I keep looking at my bathing suit, tossed on the edge of the bath tub: if I don’t put it away, maybe odio…
“What are you thinking?” I asked Henry. We were taking a last hike before he heads back to college tomorrow, climbing up the back side of North Pack on a perfect early autumn morning. “Oh, nothing much,” was his reply. “Sometimes it’s nice to just walk in the woods and not think about anything at all.” We had a laugh the other day, my husband, son and I, watching what is arguably the worst wedding video ever recorded. But at the same time, I can’t help but treasure this odd memento, this collage of accidental moments captured for all time….
