A Gift

"I watch them climb into Kenny's restored Camaro.  They'll probably stop for lunch at TGI Friday's and talk about me in deeply sympathetic tones.  Then they'll pull onto the interstate, crank up the classic rock, and resume their lives.  It's quite likely that I will never see either one of them again, and the thought saddens me.  They were daily fixtures in my life for the last seven years or so, and now they are gone.  Or, more accurately, I am. Just like that.  That's the thing about life; everything feels so permanent, but you can disappear in an instant."

-Jonathan Tropper- This is Where I Leave You 
 

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September is one of my favorite months.  It's my birthday month of course, and as a kid, as much as I hated the idea of leaving lazy, long, hot summer days behind, I also always sort of looked forward to the start of a new school year, new activities.  The weather is almost always gorgeous during this month, and I love the crisp blue sky that seems to arrive the minute the calendar switches from August over to September.

Of course, I also have a bit of an internal struggle with this month, as I loathe seeing summer loosen her grip on the days, I have a hard time watching the leaves change from their luscious green of July and August to their darker greens, knowing their colorful autumnal display isn't too far behind.  It breaks my heart a bit every year when fall arrives, and I'm not quite sure why.  I find it a nostalgic, melancholy sort of season, I guess, and I often find myself looking back over my shoulder longingly at the heat of the previous months, desperate and longing to keep wearing my flip-flops, crazy and hopeful to keep the windows open and the beach days continuing, even just a little bit longer.

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Today, I have been thinking.

Thinking seems to be something I do often these days, wondering what my next move in life may be, imagining where I might be headed next, deciding what sort of pieces of my life will evolve; determining which way I want them to move.  September seems to be a good month for this, a time when a lot of us re-set our paths, our focus, our plans.

Today in particular is a good day for reflection, a necessary one, now 11 years after the fact.  For these years have always seem divided to me - the befores - the days and years of September 10ths and then, September 11, 2001, and all of the days after. 

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Blame it on this forth-coming change of seasons or the fact that after a very busy summer my days are slowing down, my calendar not quite as jam-packed; maybe it's the recent full moon, maybe there's just something in the air, but lately I've found myself feeling particularly restless, looking, searching, peering toward some unseen horizon, wondering what - at time frustratingly so - what. comes. next?  Surely there is something ahead, something great and just and true,  right around the bend, right?  But what is it? What do I want it to be?  How do I make it mine?  Which leap do I take?  Which decisions are the right ones?  There are things in my life that I thought were guarantees, things I figured would right and sort themselves out if I followed the "rules" and paid attention; if I dotted my i's and crossed my t's just so.  Lately I'm finding that that's not necessarily the truth, that there are no givens, hardly any sure things left in the world.  Of course this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a reminder, a push, a decision in and of itself, as it is up to me to chart my course, to sort out which paths are the best ones to follow, which road, which steps I need to take for myself, by myself.

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On days like today, days that dawn crisp and blue and cool, days that feel just like that September 11th day did in 2001, I have to stop.  I have to pause.  For even as I do something as mundane as stand in line for my morning cup of coffee, fishing into my wallet for loose change, I have a moment as clarifying and as true as one could ever hope for - I am so very lucky.  Truly, how very fortunate that I am even given these sorts of mundane moments, that I have been given the sort of life where I am lulled into thinking it will last forever, that there will always be another morning for a cup of coffee, there will always be my standard commute into work on the T, that these days will continue always.  What a luxury!  To imagine there will always be more time, what an easy trap we can fall into with each of these precious, beautiful days we are given.  For the truth is they are just as fleeting for me, for you, as they are for any of us.

I guess what I am saying is this: today, on 9.11.11, I took a minute to remember, I took a second to pause, I stopped for a moment to think, to be aware.  For I am so very, very glad to be here.