I recently let go of something (does it matter if it is a person, place or thing?), and I was—in Kate fashion—getting ready to explain the depths of what had happened, when over coffee on a very bright, and sunny Tuesday my girlfriend shrugs, “It died a natural death.”
My mouth gapes. “That is exactly what happened,” I realize.
“Yeah, I know I just figured that one out myself. It just died a natural death. It’s over.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah. A natural death. Saying ‘natural’ is the most important part,” she shifts her shoulders to demonstrate.
“It is,” I squeal, confirming my perplexed awe at the simple truth. “It happens all the time in Nature.”
“Yeah, it happens all the time everywhere. It returns. And something new is born - eventually.”
“Yeah.” I am pretty sure my face is still squinting at the simplicity because it is true. I was hunting for a story—I now realize—and had been practicing the arc line when I was telling it to others in order to justify it to myself, but the truth…the truth is: it died a natural death.
It was time to let go.
End of story.
Let it go.
Yep. Let it go.
Happy Monday, friends, make space.
In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
lends back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
P.S.
Housekeeping here on the ideas of making space + letting go. First. thank you for sharing + weaving The Golden Thread. I really like writing here and tuning in to what the Muse + the Moment seem to be asking of me to share. Feels good to create.
I have decided to share the longer writes on Mondays (of the mind) and do quotes + resource + little inspirations on Wednesdays to get you through to that gorgeous Friday vibe. We’ll still have monthly writing prompts and the Q + I’s are going through a little reno(vations) too. More on that later. xx, Kate