This day always comes

I started cutting back the garden today and will finish later this week. The fragrant Russian sage has dried out, and even though the bumblebees that ventured out on the few last warm sunny days of October will miss it, I cut it down. I tied and left bundles for passe rs-by to take home. It still has the soft aroma of summer -- a sweet sachet for a front table or a desk. A reminder of what was.

This day always comes. The garden is done. Your team hasn't made the playoffs. The frost in the morning turns the ground frozen after a week or so and it stays that way. It feels like an end. The end. You get the bad news you've been waiting for: the diagnosis, the slammed door, the broken heart, the pronouncement of death. The end always comes.

I used to hate fall. All it brought was ending, dying, darkening and cold. It was the end of summer, the opposite, I thought. I would be so despondent because I knew I could not hold it back. When I first left home at age 18, I made a friend who tried to lift my spirits. She loved fall. She loved the colors, the crisp air, the fruits and foods, the chance to warm up to and with closer friendship and deeper conversation. I credit her and thank her and love her for patiently guiding my slow awakening to the holistic context of the place and value of endings.

Endings only exist because of beginnings. Endings beget beginnings, just as beginnings beget endings. Truly they are merely points on a continuum. Reflections of each other; sisters, born of the same parents.

This day always comes. The end always comes. And with it comes the beginning. And with the beginning comes the end. And so on. Ad infinitum. It is good to know this. Endings are a moment, a point on the continuum that is your life. They always bring beginnings, but you do not have to step into the beginning until you are ready. It is there, waiting for you. Settle into the ending. Settle. Breathe.

If you like, you can smell the lovely aroma of yesterday's dried flowers. The beginning is already there. It will be there when you are ready.

Peace and love to you in the week ahead.