The seasons

I can sense the seasons changing. I am suddenly not where I thought I would be and it does not feel too soon to celebrate. There will always be time to dance from now on; it is that kind of season. The rains come and they don’t stop, and there are lights exploding on all the wet-roaded reflections. There is me saying no firmly, and letting go of so much all at once. There is orange, stretchy and warm and light, and the idea of one day feeling calm. There is love, because there is always, always, love.

The season is cold and hot and misty and clear. I see my first love, and I still love his face and that he looks like the word gawky and I am happy I ever knew him, and I am finally ready to lay his name to rest. I dream, deeply and frighteningly, of all the friends that broke my heart. In my dreams, I am still sad; still sore; still scared. When I wake up, I finally, finally, am not. In that part of me that has not left, and maybe will always live in the northern half of this spinning home, this makes sense. Of course it is the fall. It is aching, and it is wonderful.

And for what comes next, there are new rugs and shelves and boxes to pack into, and pack away. Deep V’s and knotted hair and a voice that comes from somewhere so deep inside it feels like found treasure. There is more writing, more cooking with plants and looking at art and feeling proud of all of it. There are museums in tall buildings and early-morning coffees and long roads that lead nowhere, and my hand on his leg. There is Nabokov, of course. And yet, there is so much that I don’t know. There is ecstasy in the uncertainty. There is a life’s worth of hope.

And spring, it comes quietly. The blooming is slow, while the sun sleeps, with no one to witness it. A jasmine-smile for a moment, hydrangeas between my fingertips. An orange-garden in my heart. The seeds were planted in the wild of the desert sun, and it no longer matters if no one takes the far drive out to see what the winter-rains have brought. And suddenly, imperceptibly, it is summer and our hearts have the courage of evergreens.

The year has changed, and so have we, even as we haven’t. We rotate and we slip and we spin seemingly endlessly, and yet we end up where we started- more golden for having passed through the fire. The glow of it all spills out through our wrists and our throats and if we are ever only one thing, we are sunshine. We learn to say yes more, and also no. We learn to forgive. We learn not to go looking for things that are never where we left them at all. We burn bright and strong and true. And we sing, because look how beautiful we are.