The sunflowers are giving up the fight—after being pummeled by wind, squirrels, and finches, they won’t last. Thus, the pile of sorted seeds air-drying on the kitchen floor. (A lovely science experiment that looks a bit like loose-leaf tea arrayed on construction paper). At first glance, it’s an invitation to curious, little fingers. Upon closer examination, the truth of it is piled up there in plain sight:
Death and new life. Hope. Growth. Potential. Self-gift. Reaping & sowing.
Every year I fight the end of summer. It’s just such a sad letting go for me. And yet, every September seems to take me by surprise. The long-stretching shadows, cool mornings and evenings, the explosion of produce from the garden—it’s a subtle, quiet settling in. It woos me, and wins me over without fail.
This week in particular is jam-packed with significance in this household. In one stretch of the calendar, we celebrate another year in our home, the anniversary of our engagement, one of our children’s Baptism anniversary, alongside of the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. Life, death, excitement and change, all mixed together. The richness of it all is almost palpable; like we’re walking knee-deep in calendar days and thick grace.
Of course, this is no different than any other string of days that our memories and wanderings lead us into and out of, but probably the rapid succession of them that makes me marvel.
Re-membering
This practice of tracing patterns in time is an important one. There’s something sacred about the act of re-membering—placing oneself physically into the mind of what a particular day held at one time; allowing the body to re-enter that experience, that feels holy. Anyway, that is how I find myself tonight, playing archivist to these significant days, and seed-collector of next year’s blooms.
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