Nothing ever dies, however, it does change form.
A few weeks ago, I made a trip back to Virginia for a meeting. When I left, the leaves had been dazzling me with their party of colors. The days were getting shorter and the nights colder. The trees where bare, a thick blanket of leaves covered what was once grass, the Sun that was mostly shaded from my view entertained me with a glorious sunset. Life was reflecting, it's time for change. The once thicket of trees now naked revealed the tiny abandoned house that I could never quite bring my self to venture to, until today. Today it swelled and said, come see me.
Step by step, leaves crackling underfoot, bypassing dead trunks, naked trees guiding my way. Upon reaching the tiny abandon house, I took in the horrible roof shingle siding, glorious pine wood floors, nasty peach interior paint, beautiful rustic depression glass windows, old newspapers from the '60s, a piece of time locked in place, and a stubby NO.2 pencil with the eraser intact. WTF!!!!! How the hell does that happen?
Perhaps it's my love of pencils that drew my attention or that its Christmas. Every Christmas, I would get a brand new pack in my stocking. One Christmas, I even received a pack with my name on them...OMG!!!! That same year in school, someone stole my pencils, and the proof was right there, embossed on the NO.2, Janell. To this day I'm leery when someone asks "lemme hoe yo pencil". Yes, perhaps it was my love of pencils.
Then just like the naked trees revealing what once was hidden, so did the message of the stubby NO.2 pencil with the eraser intact.
Most of the moments that we would like to erase followed moments that, at one point in time, mattered more than anything. As a culture, we call them regrets, followed by shaming ourselves, beating ourselves up, and then a rebound cover-up, blaming the other. A big fat eraser in the form of it didn't matter that much to me, it was their fault, or I wish it had never happened.
If you erase one, you delete the other
This is where the NO. 2 pencil with the eraser solidified its message. If you put energy into erasing those things from your life, you'll be deleting the best parts of you. You are, because they happened. Nothing ever dies, it changes form, Fall becomes Winter, Winter becomes Spring, Spring becomes Summer, Summer becomes Fall. Homes change, jobs change, people change, lovers change, and the only thing permanent is impermanence.
The Winter Solstice is the end of the beginning. A new Volume on the horizon. Its time to abandon this year's house with everything intact. On Christmas Day, as your stocking is hung on the fake chimney with care, I hope St Nick leaves you a brand new pack of NO. 2's in there.
Love & Wisdom
