To Every Season, Turn... Turn.... Turn.....

One of the most consistent things about parenthood so far (besides all of my clothes being covered in some glaze of peanut butter, snot and chalk dust) is that no matter what phase we’re in, change is inevitably around the corner. Fine motor, gross motor, speech, interests… as soon as Adalyn’s got one thing down, she’s adding something else, or changing another piece. As she shifts and moves and grows, so our routine moves in little clicks forward, from pointing and grunting to stringing words together, from just turning pages of Dr. Seuss to understanding. We were just measuring out rice cereal that amounted to three spoonfuls, and now she is sitting on a stool swinging her legs and drinking from a big girl cup while eating a sandwich.

Interestingly enough, I’ve [mostly] always been a fan of change. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the renewal that comes with even small change, whether it was haircuts, furniture, wall colors, boyfriends (oops), or hobbies. I have lived all my life in Virginia, the perfect state for seasonal changes, and my anticipation for the next season is, as Sheaff will point out, ridiculously predictable. March hits, and I start to long for color poking through the branches and brown grass – the greens and yellows and purples of crocuses that dare to brave the last frosts. I can’t wait to dig in the garden, pull weeds and water new plants, knowing that summer will follow, and with it, open windows, fireflies at night, popsicles and trips to the green of the mountains and the salted air of the beach. And I love it.

Until the end of August. The flowers are browning, the grass is harried, the misquotes are eating us alive, and summer has nearly run its course. That’s when I start craving that chilly snap in the air in the evenings. The cool that urges on pumpkin decorations and the need to buy school supplies and sweaters. The first apple pie of the fall. The orange, yellow and red against the sky in October. I used to think that if god were a color, he would be that blue of an October sky.

September is around the corner, and I’m ready. As we go through our own adventures of our family, I find the seasons to be even more comforting, knowing everything does in fact, turn in its own time. I’ve found parenthood is like looking out a window of perpetually changing views and shifting seasons. Only each one is something we’ve never seen before. It’s all new to us. I have a hard time (this will come as a shock to No One) with not knowing everything, not being able to predict everything, plan everything, fix everything, and put what we want in an organized, detailed and complete outline like I’m teaching my students to do.

But one day, I will be older. I will know what I don’t yet today. We will have watched thousands of leaves turn brilliantly against a thousand skies, and we will have weathered thousands of ordinary and monumental changes in between. And as much as I want that knowledge of who we’ll be, the joy of this adventure is so cliché-ly in the dreaming and the doing, not the knowing. Even within the not-so-joyful parts. The 3ams and oh-so-long days, the decisions and sacrifices, the mysteries and the hopes that still perch on the edge of the page, like a prayer flag of color, waiting for the wind to take it to the skies…. The joy of living lies in the smudged and doodled upon and dog-eared and crossed-out then re-written, colored-on, wrinkled up and weathered lines of our story. After all, that is what makes it Ours.