Summertime Blues

It's been a month of changes.  Young Mr. DD has returned home, after a wonderful, long visit.  We were at my sister's and brother-in-law's 25th anniversary party last night.  This week, we have a farewell for a niece and a nephew-my niece heads off to the University of Toronto to study engineering and be a goalie for the campus women's hockey team; her cousin will be starting his Human Justice studies in Lethbridge.  Earlier this summer, we celebrated Ms. DD's new job.  Every new adventure brings endless opportunities.

 There has been sadness, too.  My godmother, 92, had a hip fracture and, although it was repaired and she's working on physiotherapy and rehabilitation, the future is uncertain.  Like many others, I was sad to hear of Jack Layton's death, but dare to hope that something good can come of his work, as Reverend Brent Hawkes spoke of in his homily at Layton's funeral.

Changes come to us all.  We learn that, when we fight them, the results can be like clutching fibres while we spin: instead of gaining the control we want, our yarns become lumpy, uneven, fragile.  Sometimes, we clutch so hard that the fibres refuse to move at all.  They stick and everything grinds to a frustrating halt.  It's only when we open our hands to let those fibres flow and release our hearts to open to what yarns the fibres want to become that the gentle action and rhythm of our spinning resumes and the yarn continues to form, although not always in ways we anticipate

I work at accepting life changes as they come, knowing that opportunities point the way to happiness, that happiness can sometimes bring pain, but that pain doesn't necessarily mean suffering.  I'm enjoying all moments as best I can, knowing that moments are all we have, that change will come whether we fight it or not and that new possibilities, like that yarn waiting to arrive out of that fresh bag of fibres, are soon to be discovered.

I may be caught in the summertime blues, but there is a cure.  Even now, I can feel a fresh, autumn breeze blowing through the hot summer evenings, bringing with it another of my favourite seasons.  More changes, new possibilities arising.

(A nod is in order here to Michelle for riffing on her last post.  One thing leads to another, as the old song goes.)