Letting Go

(With a Tribute to Mary Oliver)

Summer is fleeting. Last night I felt a chill that had an all too familiar crispness to it. The couple sitting next to my partner and I at the brewery remarked on the changing alchemy of light and air.

I’m conflicted by these changes. There is a part of me that is looking forward to the coziness of cooler months, curled up under a blanket with my knitting, with a cup of hot tea by my side. At the same time, it’s all coming at me so very fast. Summer, this year, my life.

I want to hold on tightly to it all. I want to be able to squeeze tight enough to slow down time, to make the second hand, or minute hand, or even the hour hand stop. 

But trying to hold on only heightens my anxiety, my overwhelming need to control the things that by their very nature are out of my control. That anxiety leads me to search for a way to numb out, to distract myself by pulling out my phone and scrolling through facebook. This only heightens the issue; I look up and realize that the precious hour I was trying to cling to has passed without me even realizing what was happening.

Like so much of my life, I cannot control time or its passing. But I can choose my response. I can unclench my fist. I can breathe in, close my eyes, and feel the sunlight on my cheek. I recognize that it is fleeting, but I know that it is there.

Time and space.

We move through them both. The world parts around each of us to let us pass through, weaving our lives over and under and through each other.

My body will not last forever. But I can send out ripples of my energy to impact the world around me like a butterfly wing. I can say a kind word and perhaps help another being take a step forward on their path. So that they can send out their own ripples. 

We can’t control what’s around us, what comes towards us or what becomes of our actions as they ripple through time and space. But we can flow with it all. We can let our energy and actions flow into the world with intentions that match our values. We can choose to be the good that we want to see in the world. We can practice letting it flow around and through us, and let it go.

I’ve tried to say it in my words, but Mary Oliver says it so exquisitely with hers (From New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1):