Change, part 2
Change comes with the autumn leaves turning bright colors of red and orange, carrying you away from that mellow green of summer. The rain comes too, with autumn. Its tippy-tap dance on the sidewalk melts the orange leaves into piles of brown goo but brings back the green. It's a different green. It's a shimmering green, a fey green, one that peeks into other worlds and brings back the dew of stars.
I've always loved autumn; it's my favorite season. It makes we want to go adventuring, run away from home, climb those mountain peaks I can see in the distance. And at night to sit around a campfire watching the flames spit cinders into the black.
To say I'm never afraid of change would be a lie. But autumn is the season of change and something in it calls to me every year. Sometimes I answer with a whistle and a yell and sometimes with a song, but always there is that answer, small or large, inside me.
This year I've been thinking about themes.
Have you ever noticed that life gives you themes? Things that seem to appear over and over in multiple places, as if to say, "aren't you listening?" But in order to notice them to begin with they have to be on your mind, they have to be something that's important, something you want to think about. You prod at them, like wiggling a loose tooth, poke and poke and poke and oops, there it goes.
Themes help you change. Or rather, they help you learn things about yourself and change if you want to. They're like the rain. They wash some things away and make other things grow, but in the process stir up a lot of mud. They can't help it, they're part of life.
And life is mud. You can build castles out of it and splash in the puddles, mud pies and mud fights and those curious times when you dig a hole and watch it fill with water, only to do it over and over again.
But sometimes it just feels like wet dirt. Those are the times when you desperately want a shower, want the cleansing rain to wash away all that dirt without making more of it, want a warm bath or a hot shower and a cozy blanket and book afterward.
Change can give you both. It doesn't have to be grand, sweeping, lightning from a pitch black sky; change can be slow, like flowers growing, like the leaves of autumn shifting colors until suddenly you look up and all the trees are orange. When did that happen? You were watching all along.
Sometimes you need a slow change. You need to let things settle into your mind until you wake up one day and wonder how you could ever have been different. Sometimes you need a fast change. A different place, a different person, a sharp break with your old life. And sometimes you need a little bit of both.
The trick is to know yourself and know what you need. That's the hard part. Change is easy. It's part of life, it will happen whether you will or no. But knowing yourself? That's up to you.
I've always loved autumn; it's my favorite season. It makes we want to go adventuring, run away from home, climb those mountain peaks I can see in the distance. And at night to sit around a campfire watching the flames spit cinders into the black.
To say I'm never afraid of change would be a lie. But autumn is the season of change and something in it calls to me every year. Sometimes I answer with a whistle and a yell and sometimes with a song, but always there is that answer, small or large, inside me.
This year I've been thinking about themes.
Have you ever noticed that life gives you themes? Things that seem to appear over and over in multiple places, as if to say, "aren't you listening?" But in order to notice them to begin with they have to be on your mind, they have to be something that's important, something you want to think about. You prod at them, like wiggling a loose tooth, poke and poke and poke and oops, there it goes.
Themes help you change. Or rather, they help you learn things about yourself and change if you want to. They're like the rain. They wash some things away and make other things grow, but in the process stir up a lot of mud. They can't help it, they're part of life.
And life is mud. You can build castles out of it and splash in the puddles, mud pies and mud fights and those curious times when you dig a hole and watch it fill with water, only to do it over and over again.
But sometimes it just feels like wet dirt. Those are the times when you desperately want a shower, want the cleansing rain to wash away all that dirt without making more of it, want a warm bath or a hot shower and a cozy blanket and book afterward.
Change can give you both. It doesn't have to be grand, sweeping, lightning from a pitch black sky; change can be slow, like flowers growing, like the leaves of autumn shifting colors until suddenly you look up and all the trees are orange. When did that happen? You were watching all along.
Sometimes you need a slow change. You need to let things settle into your mind until you wake up one day and wonder how you could ever have been different. Sometimes you need a fast change. A different place, a different person, a sharp break with your old life. And sometimes you need a little bit of both.
The trick is to know yourself and know what you need. That's the hard part. Change is easy. It's part of life, it will happen whether you will or no. But knowing yourself? That's up to you.