Stew

I feel like I’m adjusting from this to that, from something to other, but I have no idea what either is.  I simply have a sense that I am somewhere indeterminate, somewhere between before and after. How’s that for a jumbled description of my current juddering internal compass?  Let me try harder to explain.  It’s as if I’m walking over a suspension bridge with some give in it – I’m going somewhere, there is forward movement, action and activity, and I know I’m not going to fall, but I don’t like that slight wobble, the lack of solidity under my feet.  I’ve decided that it is the effect the autumnal equinox has had on me.  That, on September 23^rd, I was pushed unwillingly through a doorway to another part of the year that I’m not – that I’m never – ready for.  And I feel disoriented, similar to when you walk into a pub in the daytime (or it might be a church, depending upon your disposition).  The swiftness of change upon entering the subdued, dimly lit space from the brightness of the day, sits uneasily, and it takes a moment to adjust one’s eyes, to focus and see clearly.  That’s me and my relationship to the equinox; temporarily defeated by everything subsiding and the failing of the light.

Some people love to sense autumn closing in, they welcome the late draw of the year and the earlier draw of the curtains.  I don’t. It unsettles me and gets me to questioning.  It’s a time of the year when everything tumbles, not just the leaves, and I feel less optimistic.  What helps? A bit of distraction from it and a bit of stewing on it, and there’s a fine line between the two, both having their merits and demerits.  I’m partial to a good stew, and I need to be careful with the distractions I choose, as they can often stir my stew – like reading Robert Frost.

 Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.