When It Is Dusk

I’m sneaking away from bedtime for a moment…two little girls aren’t ready to quiet down yet.  And I’m looking outside at this hot summer day ending…orange light reflecting on green leaves and baking on orange bricks and turning burnt grass to gold and trying to soak in the last of this day.  When it is dusk and the day is ending and the night beginning is when I recall all the things that are finite around me.

 

Littles only stay little for a time and they are growing in front of me quickly and quietly yet steadily and my mind is changing and shifting and realizing that maybe I don’t really know what I should be focusing on. 

I look around at the living room strewn with forgotten toys left after play…the kitchen with never-ending crumbs…outside with toys peeking out of buckets.  My everywhere is full of little lives and here is my own life that I’m not really sure I’m living – but I must be if I hear them laughing and playing and jumping and hugging me…feeling their little arms around me.

This life – the days run together into a quiet rhythm of cooking and cleaning and picking up and folding and sweeping so that all of a sudden it is dusk and I realize that a year has passed since I have been home with them.  I wish I had something profound to say – a way to hold onto this day as the light grows dim – but maybe that is the trouble with me anyway.  I always know what to say and when to say it and I’ve found these past months to be strangely without words. 

I write best when full of angst and this year has been one of the most profoundly peaceful and joyful periods of my life and like this sun fading I’m holding onto it with dear life unsure of how to process it all to say what it all means and to fold it deep into myself forever.

I can only be thankful for it all.  But isn’t thankfulness everything?  The first stars are appearing and I look up to them anticipating the gentle night ahead.