Impermanence

Wind blows as the magnolia tree’s final bloom falls. I can hear the promise of rain outside, the season was supposed to have turned the corner weeks ago but here I lay tucked under the covers watching the sky darken ever so subtly as the morning moves forward as I guess it always has.

I feel the weight of my dog pressed up gently against my toes sleeping lazily away.

Weight

He’s warm and cozy. His name’s Milo like the drink, same colour too. He smells a bit like autumn his curly fur a little wet from his last call to nature. It reminds me of fresh earth; wet, teeming with life, but also heavy, held with care and responsibility.

He belongs to me, and in a way I to him. We are connected.

It’s funny he’s barely a year old and my wife and I already worry about what would happen if we lost him, we think about his end. Because impermanence is something always in our lives it’s something we constantly come face-to-face with, a part of life.

A friend I’ve held hands with all my life. The constant reminder that the only thing constant is change. So multi-faceted and also terrifying in a way. What once was won’t be tomorrow and what will be won’t be what was.

But in a way, comforting because I appreciate the moments more knowing they won’t be again. Holding the responsibility of the connections of our lives in my left hand and the impermanence of life in my right hand is what makes me feel intuitively for the future how will I move forward knowing nothing stays the same? How will I move past events that I know will eventually bring me pain, love, death, and loss all part of the facets we go through in life.

And I feel the passing of time more intricately than I have before knowing how much I appreciate being a part of this network of change. I love being able to enjoy the breathless nature of the past having passed by me fretting over not the what if but the what was for me.

So I sit here moved by the world around me even while I lie still. And the only thing I can think of is:

I’m here. Right now. This is me.