Spring is a marvelous time for opening the windows and letting all that fresh, fragrant air come into the house; It is also a great time to open the windows of our minds to new thoughts, new beginnings, and new insights. Change can be good!
It seems in life that as soon as we arrive at one place, it is time to move on to the next. In that way, we are sort of vagabonds, as we are always ‘traveling’. We stop along the journey, but then there is the moving on again.
This is much the way it is with raising children. One minute they are three years old and we are getting them ready for preschool. We want to be sure that they have a little jacket in case it gets chilly, and a favorite snack they like to eat. And then in a heartbeat, fifteen years have passed by and they are graduating from high school in a cap and gown.
The little caterpillars who inched along before our eyes are full-grown butterflies. It is their time to fly and the windows of the house are wide-open. There is grace in that flight, and we no longer worry about little jackets or snacks. Now, we pray that the butterflies will find time to dance; we pray that the winds will be fair and the storms, few.
Our lives are made up of these ‘heartbeats’. It is as though a soft rain falls in the night while we are sleeping, and when we awaken in the morning and go outside, the grass is wet beneath our feet. Is it dew, or did it rain as we slumbered? The time passes in moments, but the years are harder to pin down. Our toes are wet, and pieces of verdant grass stick to our feet. Surely, we remember it all, yes? Or is it the heartbeats we remember most of all?
We remember the faces of our children when they were first born, and how we hugged them long into the night, as if we could hardly believe that they were real. We bonded in an instant; there had never been a time before; only now mattered.
It is the love that is real in these heartbeats, and it permeates everything in our lives. That is why we remember our first kiss, our first dance, our first everything, because it is wrapped in a cocoon of innocence. It does not know of the struggle yet to come; it is a moment lived in the present tense.
The struggles of course are real, and we must continually change and adapt day by day. The ‘windows’ of the mind require greater and greater imagination as we age. But if we are wise, we do not jam the windows down, and bruise our hearts and fingers. We let the light into our houses and into our souls.
Age is a teacher as no other. And yet, it we can hold onto that spark of innocence, aware of the heartaches, but not broken by them, we can stay open to the wonder of life. We can celebrate the dawn of new beginnings, our own wings brushing softly upon the beauty that is everywhere around us.
The windows are wide open; the caterpillars and the butterflies are bound together in a silken embrace. And the light is boundless, full of reverent joy for the holy ground we walk upon.
Was it rain, or was it dew? The beads of water shimmer like so many diamonds. Grab hold of the glitter and let everything else go. Dance barefoot in the grass. And when you grow tired, remember the caterpillar inching along, making his way into something altogether beautiful.
