One morning this week I stood at the kitchen sink, feeling the gentle morning breeze, inhaling the scent of a warm summer day beginning, hearing the faint sound of early traffic , and I realized summer had at last arrived here on the BC Coast! It has been slow in arriving - up until the end of June we have had rain rain rain and unusually cool weather. As the warm air, the morning scent, and the music of summer drifted through the window, my mind returned to languid summer days that have held the full meaning of this season that invites us to revel in the season full of light and warmth. Always, always my mind returns to my year in Italia and the hot days of May when I arrived. There was the early morning train ride from Castellammare to Napoli for Italian lessons, and then home in the midday heat. The 10 days in old Montreal last year were a glorious gift of solitude and time to drink in life surrounded by another language. At the end of the time when my friend Angie joined me there was much heart story to share with each other.
Perhaps it is "heart story" that I remember as my senses step into summer. This season that calls us to dress more lightly where the wardrobe waits with the fabrics that brush against your skin so lightly, or that allow your bare arms and legs to be bathed in the sunlight or moonlight and walking barefoot lets you experience the heat and the freedom of summer. Funny, as I write that I realize how much each season reveals facets of love and perhaps summer is the one of lingering, and in the lingering the opening of the windows of the heart and mind to experience the freshness it holds. My life theme of "barefoot freedom" feels so delicious in the long warm days of summer.
My mental meanderings ventured down another road as I read the bittersweet story of letting a precious pet go, over here at Living On Both Ends. For 4 of the 6 years I have lived out here on the West Coast I have had Sebastian the cat as a companion in my cosy apartment. He has been a great little companion greeting me at the door when I return home, seeking out my lap when I sit to read or watch a movie, licking the tears off my face as their warm salty liquid released the pain as I walked through the wrestling of another part of the inner healing path. Come September Sebastian will need to adjust to a new home, joining 2 other resident female cats that belong to my beloved. David and I will have a blended family - of cats!! In the meantime Sebastian spends more time than usual alone due to my spending more time with David than alone at my own home. I feel guilty that my little (well he is rather a large cat) feline friend is a bit neglected right now.
Having been single for a long time I find myself reticent to share my joy at this surprise of love in my life, with friends who would also like this kind of gift in their lives. I realize how much easier it is to share sorrow than to share joy in some respects. The enthusiasm of and love a friend as I shared the story of David and I was delightful and yet I know that she too would love to have such a story in her own life. I realize how closed my heart has been to others joy in their story when I wished the story was my own. My heart is not always as generous and as gracious as it should be as an "image bearer" of the Almighty. I have much to learn yet.
I have pondered why I write less these days. While life is busy and I have much less time in solitude, it also seems that I am "living" my story in a way that is more participatory at present than ever before. The writing will come again I am sure. Like summer, full of warmth, colour and delicious breezes, this particular segment of my life fabric holds change, wonder and the realizing that it isn't leaving an old life, but embracing the new into my present, that gives the shimmer and the texture to the present.