As the line between late summer and early autumn blurs, I find myself acutely aware of people willing it to be autumn. Admittedly, I am sensitive to this mainly because my summer was spent preparing for, moving through, and helping my partner recover from hip replacement surgery. I feel as though I arrived to the party just as everyone was leaving.

Beyond my personal and temporary sensitivity, I realize that this experience is a lesson in being present with what is, in what ever season it is, and with what ever situation is happening.

It is curious how people jump over an end and head straight for a beginning. There is so much missed in that jump including the healing and deepening experience of BEING. Not planning, not daydreaming, not looking to the future. Just being in the now.

There is so much to learn from the ending. It is often such a delicate place. A place of loss. A place of pause. It is also a revealing place showing us what we have and haven't been tending to prudently. The end is the place where we can best reflect on how we lived all the moments that lead up to it. The end of a relationship, a career, a season, an era... a life. Being present with the end makes beginnings so much sweeter.

As my partner moves into a healing place and we begin to enjoy our version of summer (for the next 10 days) I will breathe in every minute of every day and savor it for what it is. For its unique and fleeting contribution to my life. I will welcome the qualities of the end-of-summer with out labeling them as "autumn." I will allow it to be itself, full and fading — pushing into a colder, crunchier place. I will practice being happy with the moment without labeling it.

Autumn will come. Halloween is inevitable. Then winter holidays... the seasons and their respective holidays will come and go every year. I choose not to rush any of it. Not even the boring parts. Life is going too fast — Halloween decor at stores in August is an indication of how we rush the pace of life. I don't want to wonder at age 85 where all the days of my life went. I want to feel full and abundant with the memories created from being present.

This is always a practice, never a perfection.

present with ends