I am fond of autumn and spring. They are the transition seasons, and my soul lives, and moves, and breathes in the in-betweens. The tension of the “almost,” but “not quite yet.” In the space between black and white. I do not see a blended grey, but an array of color, variation, possibility that exists in the “what if.” This is the way my eyes were made, and I feel it in my bones in the changing of the seasons. As the leaves begin to turn color and fall and usher in the dead, cold, quiet of winter. The long wait. And again as the first green shoots burst forth from the hardened ground, heralding the tender beginnings of life reborn.
I’m reclining in this idyllic field, the trees creaking as they sway around me. The gentle warmth of spring sunshine gingerly spills onto my pale and thirsty skin. The once bare limbs of the deciduous trees are dotted with tiny green buds. The birdsong chatters melodically and the wildflowers bloom. I know it all so dearly from my childhood spent camping on the island. I would fall asleep to the lullaby of these tall and slender fir trees, humming like the strings of an orchestra as the Whidbey winds rushed through them. Adapted in structure, they bend easily in the familiar gusts. “Celery stalks,” is what we used to call them as they danced by firelight. I would waken each morning to the dawn streaming in and lie dozing, surrounded and enveloped by the unique songs of each bird. They are familiar to me, the voices of friends. Now it is home.
Last year at this time, I was just beginning a transformation; a revolution. For me, the 20’s were for delving deep, uncovering, uprooting, facing the ugliness within my own heart. This is by no means “done.” I imagine that’s a lifelong process. The 30’s though, I have decided, are for truly living and walking in the changes I have experienced. No more excuses, just be and do the things you say you have always wanted. In many ways it has been just so silly and easy—and yet also the changes that should be simple are often the most difficult. They get overlooked and pushed aside. Making a chore list so I remember to scrub my toilets once a week. Setting a reminder in my phone to take my vitamins every day. Changing my sheets at regular intervals. Becoming a morning runner. Putting away technology during time with family and truly giving quality presence. Getting away by myself to recharge. Spending time in the mornings in silent prayer and reflection. And writing. Every day. Well mostly every day. My excuses fell with the autumn leaves as I leaned into these habits, that are not complicated and yet so easy to ignore. What once felt terrifyingly constricting—having rhythms, a routine—has become a source of comfort and freedom.
Now a year later, I again sense the awakening of possibility within me. What will come to life in this season? What will this year bring? More importantly, who will I be?
I feel a settledness creeping into my being. One I didn’t think would be possible until my hair was grey and my back bent. The restless clawing for significance and the incessant internal voice pulling me to be and do more, is not as strong or loud as it was a year ago. Instead there is an inexplicable peace in my core; contentment. I have lived much of my life longing, standing on the outside looking in, wanting more. More that I thought would come once I had arrived somewhere. And I have not arrived at that ambiguous somewhere, yet I feel enough. Not always, but more often now.
Maybe it’s because I’m finally consistently putting pen to paper and fingers to clacking keys. The thing I’ve always known I was made to do. The thing He whispered to me in my childhood. The thing all of my loved ones have spoken over me. The thing I have avoided forever because of fear.
In the week before her death, my beloved grandmother again spoke it out loud, in the presence of my family: “Katie…she’s the writer.” And aside from the thousand “I love you”s and farewells, these were the last coherent words she said to me. Those four words were powerful and weighty and prophetic. She voiced them as if they were already true, with one foot in heavenly eternity, and with pride in her sparkling eyes.
Nothing published. Nothing measurable to show for the hours I have spent pouring out my soul onto paper in the wee hours before babes arise. Yet. But I’m trying to live into them now, her words, as if they are true. As if they mean something.
I was writing at an outdoor cafe yesterday, all alone and in blissful reverie. The barista brought me my drink and casually asked, “Are you a writer?”
My gut clenching, I wanted to tell her “no.” I wanted to release the flood of fear and insecurity. To tell her all the reasons why I’m under qualified. How I don’t know what I’m doing. How I’m not even sure anyone is reading or cares about what I write. You can’t really call yourself a writer until you’ve published something worthwhile, until it’s a source of income, right?
But I didn’t. I looked at her and I felt the holiness of the moment. Words have been the source of my joy, my consoling hand in sorrow, my means to deep understanding for all of my life. They are in me, they are a part of me. And everyone who has ever loved me has seen it and known it so clearly. And I’m choosing to believe it and see it and make space for it now too. And so I paused and replied with a simple “yes.” I spoke into existence, what my grandmother knew so well, who I know I have been made to be.
She smiled and walked on without a clue as to the internal wrestle, the struggle that had taken place beneath the surface, for me to form that one word answer. She probably forgot a few seconds later. This is Langley after all, where everyone is a writer, or a poet, or a painter, or a musician, or some sort of obscure artist. But for me that moment was sacred.
New life. Like a green shoot bursting from the earth. Perhaps I am not a magnificent fir tree yet, bending gracefully, purposefully in the winds; but this is the beginning of something. And I am coming alive in the stirring of the in-between, the “not quite yet.”
