Drop-off was a little rough this time around. My Sun, as usual, wanted to do the whole thing alone … with me in the background.
“Mom (not Mamma anymore), relax. I’ve got this. I want to do it myself.”
So, I stood in the doorway watching the empty side of the dorm room go from bland to anything but, blooming into a space that so clearly belonged to My Sun.
If you have been following, number two has now flown off to college. The one that’s been trying to spring from the nest even before wings were fully formed. The one I finally had to release, now ready for flight, launched out of the nest before I could even blink. That one.
That was yesterday. This morning I took my usual walk with the dog, Dante, leaving a completely empty house. LM was off starting his day at school. And, there were signs everywhere.
When we are a little … say, vulnerable, do our minds scramble to see signs, invent them to make sense of things? Or, are our minds simply more open to receiving them?
I am sure, that if I did a little research I could come up with arguments, data, testimony… But, I am not going to do that. I am going to embrace and enjoy my signs, ride the waves they stir up inside me.
While walking along the path chosen for our morning outing (I generally take one of two paths. No reason behind the choice. I just go), I encountered a bittersweet image of the past and the present, the old and the new.
It spoke to me.
The end of the tree despite its deep wandering roots. A sudden break after years of growth in one direction. Roots
The flower shining, enjoying its shallow hold on existence where its seed happened to fall one day.
There is even a line of prickly cacti in the distance, perhaps future obstacles to tackle.
I continued on, soft music pumping into one ear, the other open to the sounds around me. Dante heard them first and slowed to observe. A doe and three fawns stood watching us, alert but not particularly disturbed by our presence. We stood watching each other for several minutes after I had captured the moment.
On my left, further down the path, I saw a man and his dog. He snapped a couple pics of his own, then waited patiently with his dog, allowing us our moment. Time seemed to stall, Dante and I looked at them, they watched us back … even took a few steps towards us.
I looked at her and saw myself, when two of the fawns wandered from her in different directions, one a little more hesitant than the other. The third lingered at her side. How could I not see myself? Was my mind stretching to search out and capture some symbolic meaning to bestow upon our encounter?
Perhaps.
But, does it matter? Seeing her there, so tranquil as her babies wandered from her side, meant something to me. Noticing that the song playing in my ear was survivin’, was simply frosting.
When Dante and I started back on our path, the doe turned and the family headed into the brush. I greeted the man and his dog as we crossed paths. He smiled and said, “wow. I’ve never seen three fawns together like that on my walk.”
Embrace the signs around you.