Life just happens!

I'm ready to burst and for a number of reasons!  Happy and frustrating!

Time, for me has always had a very physical sort of feel or sensibility to it.  Days start at a bottom/morning and more upwards to noon/afternoon and slowly (and some times not so!) slide down into evening and the circle round to nighttime and sleep brings it over the top into darkness.  Guess maybe in some way I internalized the movement on the clock..those lovely old fashioned ones with faces and hands and time measured in quarters and the like.  But it truly feels almost like a small roller coaster ride each day.  Swoosh and it's over. Done.

Now the calendar, or as I refer to it the map, does similar things...only over mountain ranges.  Winter is the highest point.  Sharp edgy and slippery.  Dark too, in color sensibility...even with all the white of winter here in the northern part of the States.  The sharp inclines slowly give way to softer slopes with much lower degrees of incline, eventually leading to a lovely valley, that as a child seemed strangely limitless in its geography.  Fall is a slow climb up foot hills, golden and crisp with a special smell to it that is perfume to me.  Finally back to the ever steeper slopes of winter and the jagged ups and downs.

That endless valley of summer gets a little smaller and more clearly defined the older one gets, but there is still a sense spaciousness to it.  At least until this year.  It's feeling a little tighter and cramped, probably for the first time, very clearly defined and in a way, limited.  Why...because life has again given me a very special gift.  Or gifts, at both ends of the valley.  They demand my attention in a way nothing ever has, at least for the last 28 years.

My youngest will become a father in April.  The "due" date is the 11th.  My oldest just told us that he will become one on September 11th!  Both wonders put completely to rest my hopes of a spring or fall Camino!  Which now leaves summer!  That once seemingly endless plain now has clear and sharply defined edges.  Rather like a beautiful high valley as opposed to coastal or midland areas.  But it's still there if you look for it.

I'm sure I'll find my way on this new map.  With happiness at either end of it...how can I fail!