When seasons turn

Column Post by Lakin Easterling

From the heat of summer’s hazy rays to the warm and smoky colors of autumn; from the falling gem-hued leaves to the barren branches and sleeping, white earth; from the shoots of soft green, tender grass, new buds, and honey bees to the full-blown adulthood of a sultry year – these are the turning seasons of our physicality, our home.

Souls do this, too. We are babes, new and expectant in the world. We sear in the hot waves of sunlight, walk on the hard stones in rushing streams, and expect to come out firm and steady. We are given goals to reach, expectations to meet, blank pages to fill.

Some of these things we impose upon ourselves without knowing.

I am tied to a shiny, silver thread. Hanging on by a finger in the dark sky, I swing, back and forth, jumping from pedestal to pedestal, a pendulum of perfection, arcing like a well-practiced acrobat who isn’t afraid to fall.

“Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we’re afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.”  ~Jay McInerney, Invisible Fences

What I want is risk. What I fear is failing.

What I want is fresh air, currents, and mountains. What I’m afraid of is heights, drowning, and change.

What I want is the ability to writewritewrite, crafting stories and shaping people out of thin air, wisps of imagination, shimmering glimpses of possibility, images of fire and ice. What I’m afraid of is what it will take to get there, how much of my own story I have to give up in order to give real soul to the stories I want, and have yet, to tell.

What I want is to have the grace to live out of the bounds of perfect lines, ordered expectations, and required learning. What I’m afraid of is the actual breaking of these molds in my life, the hammer-hits and cracking bones of the “me” I sculpted from unforgiving clay so long ago.

“The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains, while the company is true.”  ~Galadriel, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

I walk on an eyelash that rests on the tip of a knife. A balancing act it is, deciding whether to fall with the autumn or burn with the summer. The changing course of a living soul searching for the best instead of the better, and the body of a woman who resists change and would rather stay comfortable and warm in bed – these are the warring seasons of my life.

But hope remains, when the company of friends and family walk the edge with me. We either hold firm, angry at the possibility of a different life, or we blink softly, letting the dead lashes fall away.

One blink and it will be spring. Let’s forge the changing path.

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Lakin Easterling is a wife, mother, writer, and avid reader. She spends her days chasing her toddler, Belle, and conversing with the elderly who are afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease or Dementia. She loves surprise coffee dates with her husband Luke, texting novels to her best friend, Laura Hyers, and being a college student. She dreams about being brave enough to get a tattoo, and believes in the healing power of a good cup of coffee. Her favorite nail polish is Sail Away by Milani. She blogs at http://threadingsymphonies.wordpress.com.

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