Turning

Today marks 3 months since my Dad died, with my beloved friend and mentor, Janne's, death just a few weeks later. It's been a lot.

In the early days before I was back at work, in between all of the busyness that accompanies planning a memorial service and closing out a parent's home and financial accounts, I would take a break in the afternoon to zone out. I'd settle in on the couch with the dogs at my side while the house was still quiet and if I needed to cry I'd turn on Call the Midwife, and if I needed to check out, I'd rewatch old episodes of Top Chef. Familiar British accents and a show my father watched diligently, or pure escape with no surprises. It helped that it was winter, and the cold, dark days matched my mood and my energy level.

This past week I went for a walk with a friend at our usual spot where Minnehaha Creek meets the Mississippi River. Truth be told, I didn't want to go. I've been sick for weeks, the morning was cold and gray, and the forecast called for rain. We'll walk slow, she said, and I knew that movement would do me good even though the pull of the couch was strong.

We weren't too far down the path when we saw it - an old side trail with new guard rails lovingly and intentionally woven, welcoming us in. Branches and sticks and fallen down trees braided together to form an arch and through it, a view and a path to the water with the riot of new spring life starting to emerge all around.

I'll admit that my first thought was self-centered. Who did this? And how could all of this have happened without me knowing it? This was my regular walking path, and a whole world had woken up and taken shape without me even knowing it in the weeks since I'd been there last. We walked closer.

I began to see how the fallen down tree on the left had been integrated into the arch. The tree had come down naturally - the roots that held it pulled up from the ground with the force of its fall - and someone(s) had lifted it up and with the support of all these other sticks and branches, made it an integral part of something new.

I got closer.

And closer.

That fallen down tree had life in it still. Improbably, impossibly, there were buds emerging on the big branches. I imagined that there must be some root I could not see still sunk down into the earth, or some life still left from all of the stored up energy in that sacred body, and here it was doing the only thing it could do as winter turned to spring.

Rob used to quote poetry all the time, and once upon a time he turned and asked, "Is it beyond thee to turn with the turning of the season?" I don't know where he was quoting this from, or if the words were his own, but I feel the turn.

I, too, am made for this. For re-emergence. For weaving the dead into a pathway, an arch, a portal that points toward life and movement and a current so much larger and more ancient than any one of us alone. I, too, am made to pay attention, to feel the support and synergy of the trees and the ancestors within, among, and beyond us, to see and celebrate and join with the rhythms of life. Improbably, impossibly, and unfailingly, I am turning with the turning of the season.