Where have I been, and what have I been doing? Free fall summer. When I play along with my now retired husband who tells me every day is Saturday. “Let’s drive to Half Moon Bay!” He suggests. I push my writing notes under the bed, grab my sandals, and off we go.
In September, I tell myself. In September I will begin to write a rough draft for chapter six. My writing life in grandmotherhood (and in his retirement) is returned to how it was in motherhood, writing within the nooks and crannies, before a soccer game, after wandering hills and valleys with the kids and dogs.
Now it is September. The kids, 4th and 6th grade, are back in school. Although their schedule is busier now, requiring more grand mothering time, their return to structured days has brought shape, organization and a rhythm to my writing life. I’m back in the flow.
But to be completely candid, I’ve had other things calling me away. Not just this summer, for almost a year now. The dust had finally settled, and I had a clear view. While plenty old enough for retirement, instead my husband is retired from being a cancer patient. We’re in a calm space where the cancers are quiet and hopefully gone for good. When did it all begin? In 2016 followed by a second cancer in 2020, and now he is well, well enough. Though I’ve not yet said it out loud, this year I began my own healing journey. I was beginning to wear down after years of being the sole caregiver. It was a slow wearing, like wind in the pines, soft waves washing up on the shoreline, a gradual altering. Now I have space and time to sow, to slow down.
Someday I will drink my last cup of coffee after a night of dreaming my last dream. Meanwhile, how do I want to spend my time? What do I want to do? What do I need? Rest.
I’ve been in the eye of the storm before. The eight years my son lived a beautiful life following diagnosis of a brain tumor. 1991—1999. In the years since, like a river stone tumbling in the raging water, my grief grew softer, and I found gold along the way, but I had to reach for it. But before I could reach, I needed to rest.
We never know what’s coming down next. When a safe harbor appears following hard times, what I know for sure is that it’s important to take time to rest. Especially if you are the person giving care, rest. We can’t care for someone else unless we first give to ourselves.
Since moving here in 2021, so near the ocean, I am in tune with the rhythms of the sea. High tide rolling in, waves breaking, wind in the pines. Fog softened mornings with the spray of sea mist settling in my hair. The fog horn on the jetty sounding, and the flapping of cormorants as they dip and dive. I have fallen under their spell. I am flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty. What a wonderful life, I think, turning it around in my hand.
Patience is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith.
It occurs to me that all summer there have been too few empty hours in which to stand alone and find myself. Now it is summers end. The last of the summer vacationers have packed up and gone home, the beach cottages are vacated. At night I hear the return of owls. The leaves on the maple trees are beginning to fall. I listen to the wind spilling through the pines. The tide rolls in, the ocean swells and my thoughts turn over like waves on the beach.
