More things I know about seasons of life...

I sit here today, I watch the rain falling down outside. The splashes it makes when it falls into the puddles already made by last nights rain. The sound of it hitting my windowsill and the screen are a little like bacon sizzling in a pan. Leaves once set tight onto their branches now roll down the street as if they are late for an appointment. No rustling sounds as they are soaked by the rain. A calm fills my soul as I watch nature going about it's business, oblivious to my watching eyes. A hot cup of coffee warms me against the chill that sneaks into my window. Through it all, I find myself thinking about the seasons of life again.
In a low that has stayed with me for what seems like weeks now opens my mind to the sadness that sometimes comes with a season ending as another one begins. It is early September. It should be hot and humid and yet, I watch the temps plunge into the high 30's, rush to find room inside for what have been outdoor plants since spring. Check tomatoes closer so I know when to pull the green ones and wrap them in paper to finish their ripening indoors. And I think to myself how much like life this often is.
I think about friends that have come into my life. Close, meaningful friendship with the potential for so much more. Some that simply filled a spot in your heart for a time or that you perhaps filled in theirs. Each one, special and each one different, just as the seasons are. I think about the times, like today, when the season, the weather that it brings seems to be out of it's time. Fall rushing in before it need be, only to bring winter long before we are ready for it. Into our lives often come people that perhaps seem out of time. But they are brought into our lives or us into theirs for a reason. Sometimes, the road we were walking on at the time allowed a door to open for them to come in. Sometimes, we have gone out, even perhaps unconsciously, and sought them out. What we do with the moments in time we are given is how we will face the next season. The next step in a friendship, a relationship. Much like the impending season coming that follows the Autumn coolness, we can choose to breathe in and go forward, knowing that Spring too will follow Winter, or we can sit and mope and worry and wonder. In doing so, don't we risk missing the enjoyment that is Autumn? Will we be so absorbed in the coming season that we miss the smells of the first Autumn Bonfire. Will we sacrifice the fragrance of a fireplace somewhere in the distance? The soft gentle breeze that warms our days and the crisp coolness that causes us to snuggle under a light cover as we sit and watch the evening fall?
People, friends, loves come into our lives like the seasons. Not always as expected, not always when we thought they would. Sometimes they come early or out of no-where. But their gift, their beauty and all that comes with it is still ours to enjoy as long as it is there. To embrace it snuggles and fragrances for as long as the season stays.
A tear finds its way down my cheek as I think of winter waiting so closely in the wake. The teardrop perhaps for winter itself. Maybe it is for the season we fear may end all too soon. Long before we are ready for it to go. More tears, a feeling of alone. But also, a feeling that maybe, just maybe, you opened a door for someone. Thinking now it possible that you DID touch a life or two and gave to them something they thought lost forever. Even...even that They brought to your life a gift that you thought also lost to the winters of time.
Fall is here early, like it or don't. But do not let the thoughts of the next season steal from you what is beautiful today. Embrace it, play with it, laugh and smile as much as you can. It is only here for a time, a blink of an eye sometimes it seems. Let it be yours until it goes away. Who knows, maybe it will be a long, beautiful Autumn... Darrel