A few weeks ago we drove up to New England for a family wedding.  While we were there, we decided to visit Mount Auburn Cemetery in the Boston area.  Last fall we were there at the peak of the fall foliage, mid-October, and the colors were astounding.  Since this time we would be there mid-November, we weren’t expecting to see anything buy nearly bare trees with a few brown-leafed hangers-on.  We parked the car and walked, the sky overcast and the temperature hovering in the forties.  I rounded a corner and was greeted by two bright little trees, flaming out their colors in an otherwise grey setting.  Their presence was startling and unexpected.  They were not willing to give up their beauty, holding on tenaciously this late in autumn.

I, too, am in the late autumn of my life, and I am not willing to give up it’s beauty.  Indeed, I seem to see things more clearly the older I get.  Maybe it is because I have more time to reflect without the press of a job or a family to raise.  I live with more intensity, every day a precious gift I savor.  It is an intentional living, not a haphazard, come-what-may approach to life, images sharper, emotions on edge.

So many things have changed in my life, and I miss them dearly.  I miss being a young wife and mother most of all.  I miss people and places I shall never see again.  T’ai chi is teaching me to look inward and enjoy the universe inside of me.  Eternity is all around me.  Eternity is now.  I have nothing else to wait for.  And I intend to flame out like those two trees before the coming of winter