Recently I moved my home office from a little, dark corner to my daughter’s former room, which functions now as a guest room. I transported my desk, added a small bookcase (already full!), and some odds and ends. The lighting is better, the room is brighter—and I have a view of my backyard now. Soon the backyard flower patch will be blooming and full of perennials and annuals. I have a direct view of the hummingbird feeder and the orange slices I placed for the orioles.
The new perspective and change of venue brought a fresh vigor into my writing and reading, like a like running spring of inspiration. What a difference this small change made to my mood and motivation. A room of my own, in a sense.
This summer is one of change. My father retired and my parents are moving closer to one of my siblings, and will sell their home, my childhood home. The level of grief I’m experiencing at losing my childhood home is taking me by surprise. I knew this sort of change would happen someday, but now it’s here, and I’m struck by the strangeness of losing this connection to my hometown. I simultaneously want this to happen (as I know it should) and I don’t want it to happen.
And of course, this is a significant change for my parents. In their senior years, they will be moving to another city a couple of hours away. The same house I grew up in—they also lived in. My mother said to me that leaving this house she’d lived in for 45 years feels the same as when she left India in her 20s. This move carries the weight of a major transition. And it is. We all feel the upheaval.
It’s both a heartbreak and a necessity to move on to another stage of life. It’s both exciting and frightening. We’re ushered on, ready or not.
My youngest is graduating in a few weeks, and in a few months, all of my kids will be enrolled in higher institutions. Very soon, I’ll be facing vacant rooms, silent hallways, and more solitude than I’m ready for.
When my kids were young, I couldn’t wait for solitude. Often I felt I was drowning taking care of the needs of young children, with no family nearby. That’s when I became a night owl, as I’d stay up late and write, and burn the candle at both ends. It was journal writing—which was all I could eke out of my tired mind and body—but it was soil. It was a beginning. Persistence stirred the soil, keeping it fertile, and those words written in the dark became little seeds.
“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.” – Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation
Funny how life works. Now that I’ll soon have more solitude than I’ll probably need or want—I’ll want the hum and bustle of my kids back in the house. I’ll walk through a season of transition with its accompanying grief, and find new rhythms of living. I’m not ready for the anticipated emptiness and loneliness that I know awaits in the days ahead. But I know it is all a part of life, and it is good, and my kids are following their own destinies and doing what they are supposed to do.p
Are we ever truly ready for any stage? I hardly spent time around children before having my own. The first diaper I had changed was my firstborn’s! Like many other parents, I learned as I stumbled along.
The same is true for what lies ahead. This next stage of life is the next sequence in the usual turn and circle of life, but this next turn in the cycle is a new phase for me. I’ll walk through this next part of the journey the same as I have done with all new stages. With all of the mixed emotions. With all of the uncertainty. With excitement and hopefulness. With both gratitude and sadness.
“In order to become myself I must case to be what I always thought I wanted to be, and in order to find myself I must go out of myself, and in order to live, I must die.” – Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation
Moving forward, I know that winged seeds are being planted in today’s soil. As I enter this next stage, I’ll eventually see evidence of sprouting seeds. I’ll witness what must die and what will unleash. In the months and years ahead, I’ll see what I had to leave of myself to find. I’ll gaze from new windows, and find fresh perspective.
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
***
Prasanta Verma, a poet, writer, and artist, is a member of The Contemplative Writer team. Born under an Asian sun, raised in the Appalachian foothills, Prasanta currently lives in the Midwest, is a mom of three, and also coaches high school debate. You can find her on Twitter @VermaPrasanta, Instagram @prasantaverma, and at her website: https://prasantaverma.com.
The Contemplative Writer 