Blessings on the Earth

The corn is getting high, and the apples are almost mature. Things are almost overgrown, but not quite. Driving down the road past the lush fields and trees, despite the hot, humid air, I feel the change coming. And it's not entirely welcome. The autumn is so close; can we keep it at bay for an extra week or two this year? The summer is still hot, and we sweat when running around playing hard outside. We sweat when we go from car to house, to building to anywhere. But today was a little cooler, a little fresher. Driving down roads between walls of corn, you can almost see the combines ready to harvest.

We're cycling through to the next phase of our year, into school, into fall, into crazy calendars and nutty planning, into yet another wave of our selves and our children growing up, growing into being ourselves, into being who they will be. And it's not entirely welcome. Let's keep it at bay for one more year. Can we do that? Can we keep this moment, this single moment, this one time only moment just a little longer?

It seems that each day brings a new challenge, something that in hindsight we should have seen coming. Something that had we been only a little more attuned to the needs of our family, that we would have seen. Something we could have been more prepared for. Something, that while not life changing, could have been done a little differently. It's so many things. It's that Kyle and Owen will be riding the bus for the first time this year. It's that Meera will have to adjust to a quiet house. We'll have to adjust our schedules, our perceptions, our understanding of where we're going and where we will be. It's their first taste of Gazpacho. It's that our children, all three, play together after dinner, by themselves for the first time. It's knowing that this moment, this single moment in time is precious, is changing before our eyes. And it's not entirely, not really completely, maybe almost, but we feel ambivalently; not welcome.

And each night, after we work a bit, maybe have a glass of wine, after the day is finally done, and the stresses are finally somewhat at bay, after we've forgotten a little about who others expect us to be and remember a little more about who we are that we stop. Some the breath.

That we go and take a quick glance at our sleeping, growing, changing children, our changing selves, our shifting world. And we feel the Earth moving beneath us, feel time moving perceptibly forward and have the same sense that countless, loving, lucky parents through out time feel when their children are safe, fed and home sleeping.

We are thankful to be blessed as we are now.