strike that

all things considered

Yesterday I cut three roses to bring inside, and today I wish I’d been less judicious because the rain is knocking all the petals to the ground.

It feels early this year, and I am not ready. (And there is that quote that I call up so often I’ve lost its author, about how if you wait until you’re ready you’ll never do anything at all.)

There is this thing about loss, that some people try to fill it in, and some people try to climb inside of it, and some people take deep breaths and stare at it long and hard and try to get used to its presence. I think about loss a lot for someone who’s never really been visited by it. Usually that makes me feel lucky but sometimes it makes me feel overdue.

Last night I talked to lots of my friends, and I talked to Joshua for a long time, and I talked to Ty four times. And when I still felt lonely and sad Dave read me a story about a monk and a fox. He read it to me from San Diego, even though he has a cold. He read to me for an hour, and then I fell asleep.

And my family at nearly-thirty is maybe not the family that my parents would have picked out for me, and it’s maybe not the family that many of my friends have chosen, and it’s maybe not exactly all of the family I would like to have at some point. But here we all are holding each other up and figuring it out as we go, and it leaves me surprised and amazed and grateful. It’s not a thing I was ever taught about, or a thing I ever expected.

And I guess now, all things considered, it’s time for fall.

posted by tortaluga @ 11:04 PM