Fall was always my favorite season. Winter and summer… I don’t know what those words mean. Fall and spring, though, are obvious. Leaves fall and green, new growth springs forth. Summer looks and feels like simmer, and winter is waiting – waiting for cold time and long nights to lift. I did not think of such things in the past, then Grace died and names took on new meanings.
Grace died in the fall.
Once, Grace and I sat in swings and played like children, swinging higher and higher till the chains fell back upon themselves, like aspirations, like inspirations, like years. She told me then that she would die at thirty-six. I stopped and held the chains of her swing – her hand barely touching mine. How could she know?
She didn’t know, really. Or maybe she knew in a way, like we know a slender dart of movement in a river is a fish, but we don’t know what kind. Grace died at thirty-five.
Such disasters make philosophers out of fools.
Philosophy as defined by me: a rationalization for chaos. My philosophy, my way to keep moving in the face of emptiness, says that every moment is a death. Experience springs up and falls away, never to be repeated again. What comfort are such words when the reality of nevermore stands before me? This person whom I love – not loved, not past tense, but now! – this kaleidoscope of expression is dark. My heart aches for that chain of moments I called Grace. My mind follows my heart.
It is the totality of loss which is overwhelming. Tomorrow never comes; her echo falls silent. A swimmer steps from the water and the space they occupied is filled. The ocean, this vast silence behind life, has no feeling of loss.
Where in all of this emptiness is solace? Where are these landmarks of love: the enfolding warmth of human touch, the anticipation of familiar ground, the perfect pace of mental harmony? I look ahead, in the hope that someone else will fill this empty space, for the hope of spring.
To fall and to spring anew – such is to be human. Round and round I make the best of it, holding to myriad forms of flesh that refuse to conform to my wishes. I am addicted to bodies. My mind knows I will grow silent and be carried from the waters, but my heart beats and will not let me rest. Lost between despair and hope, a new way opens, hinting at a feeling of certainty lying past an empty horizon.
These words and feelings: coruscations on a mirror-lake where three young boys canoe into the blaze of sunset.
Philosophy and spirituality: one tries to make sense while the other plunges into nonsense.
These stories break apart in the telling; they all end the same. My days and moments fall from the trees.
Elsewhere, on the farthest edge of a slowing universe cold truth lies bare.
Still, the cicada-song of “what if” plays in my head. I am left squinting at memories. It is truly my fall, soon to be winter, and perhaps never to be spring.