Bénéfices secondaires

The nights are cold, colder than you remember. You usually like nights, you still do, these are just different. You add a layer. Maybe two. That makes a difference but not really the kind of difference you were looking for.

You're warmer now, closer to comfortable. But that's just a secondary benefit.

You realize it's not the warmth they provide, but the weight. The feeling that you are grounded from above.

Minor crisis

Of the blog variety.

Just meandering out loud. What to do with the blog.

Having come up with no answer, I'll ask you.

What to do with the blog?

Crossroads

Time has been on your mind lately, you cannot say why.

Traditionally neutral in your life, time has now taken a stance.

September is given to stances, it's that kind of month, it always has been.

Your life will be so different in one month. Because in this month of stances, time meets justice, her best friend. Not justice in the punitive sense. Justice in the harmonious sense.

Time and justice will do their work and your life will never be the same.

Hmm

Days after the twelfth anniversary of my arrival to stay in France - which was marked by twelve white roses quietly left at my door - I received a reminder that no matter how long I've been here, I'll always be a foreigner. Which is how it should be, shouldn't it? I mean, I'm not French, I was raised by American parents in a monocultural household. Well, relatively speaking. My mother is from the South and that did have its influence on my life.

Anyway, Saturday evening at a lovely dinner hosted by a lovely friend in a lovely setting, surrounded by interesting people of all nationalities and varieties, I was told I was, "so very American."

I started laughing, at least on the inside, although I may have worn a look of WTF irritation on my face. That is the one thing I never hear, have never heard once during the past twelve years. I took slight offense, I admit it. Not because being perceived as very American is always a bad thing, but that such a judgment could be delivered after ten minutes of conversation.

Having said that, I'm sure he was quite right.

Hide

It has been your nature to avoid endings. Too final, too hard, too permanent, although you do realize the finality, the hardness, and the permanence are yours - not inherent to every ending.

You've decided to be willing to let an ending be otherwise. To let yourself be otherwise.

It has been promised - everything outside that door is good.

And promises mean the world to you. Literally. Neither words nor intentions, promises are diamonds to you. The clear, sparkling, hard, future truths of your world. Anyone who doesn't know that about you doesn't really know you.

Whiplash

You stand, still for once, watching the ground that has been covered. Distance and ash evidence of your trail. You see an elaborate labyrinth. Cleverly made, brilliantly even, you can see neither beginning nor end, just its heartbreaking beauty and integrity.

Convinced this was your lesson, you've navigated this adventure like the student you've always been, good overall performance with your tendency to procrastinate still intact.

The possibility that the lesson might be someone else's to learn never occurred to you. Not because you're egocentric but because you're chronically hard on yourself, you just assumed this was your river to cross. In fact, you may just be a supporting character.

Another incidence, although some say occurrence, at a different Owl Creek Bridge, how many miles will be covered in the inch you've been asked to give? Years in the seconds you've been asked to yield?

A place for you

You've been in this place longer than you've ever been anywhere. This one place that has never really felt like home is the place you've spent more time than any other. You cannot explain this.

You could detail how ready you've been for a change. You could describe the goodbye you've already said, the thanks you've already given. The nod of acknowledgment you received.

What were you being being told? That change, as ready as you may be for it, is not ready for you? That there is something you still have to do here or perhaps something that must be done to you?

As is always the case, time knows better than you which page is really the last.

Timing

It began with once upon a time. Hmm, you say. In good time. Ok, you say. You think you can live with that. Time heals all wounds. Yes, you say. Time will take care of the things that you cannot. Fine, you say.

You breathe differently. Just in time. How does your body know that times are changing?

Everything there is outside that door is good.