The Sunday of Summer.

August Bloom In Our Garden

August is much like a Sunday. It is still weekend, but the threat of Monday is imminent. In the case of August; it is still summer, yet autumn is approaching fast.

The second season this year was a total disappointment weather wise, going down as one of the coldest and rainiest in history. Luckily, its ultimate month did granted us a few warm days, even if they came a little too late. That unmistakable finale hangs now in the air, while the sun lies ever so low above the horizon and its shine grows golden. The atmosphere resonates with maturity, as crops grow heavy and all the fruit and berries ripen, getting ready for the harvest at the onset of fall.

Although I am saddened by the fact that my favorite time of the year is concluding, the seasonal changes are nevertheless reassuring and simultaneously alluring. The natural circle mimics the events in our own life, where the good and the bad alternates, creating a vital balance.
The older I get, the more I begin to realize that everything, whether it is positive or negative, has its purpose to play. So many times in my past have I seen my dreams crushed and that which I have hoped for pass me by, yet in hindsight I know that the doors that eventually opened led me to better places.

Heart Formed By Our Candle

This is how I met my husband - after a period of tragedy, disappointment and personal loss, feeling discarded and abandoned, I painfully watched as a door slowly closed forever on an ineradicable dream. Yet as I picked myself up, gathering the last of my strength, ready to continue living again, refusing to give into despair and resignation, for once I decided to walk through the gate that was opened  -  and there he stood, the man of my dreams. The one I have been waiting and feverishly searching for my whole life, offering me hope, love and new dreams. I will forever be left wondering how this came to be and only a belief in the spiritual and divine offers any explanation.
Very soon I will once again gaze into those steel blue eyes of his, deep and enticing like the North Sea, holding so much love and affection, as I once again fall into his embrace - the only place I feel completely safe and sheltered.

Until then, I see those same eyes in his children, while they laugh and rummage through the house, having kept me company this week. Thus my own, however deeply embedded parental instincts are brought to life. I am glad to notice how relaxed they are now around me, as compared to the initial few encounters - they behave currently very much the same as when their father is here with us. A time span of a year is certainly much longer in a child's perception - at this point my presence in their reality is something constant and comforting.

My Pasta Salad

I am therefore becoming more sensitive and experienced in areas I have not needed to before. Being thrown into parenthood, never having to raise my own children, I am excelling in other parts of life, such as improving my culinary skills. Considering myself at all times a disaster in the kitchen, I have come to the conclusion that this might not necessarily be the case. I just need some practice and perhaps one day I might even enjoy cooking - and be really good at it.

So much change has taken place in the past year and a half. As I briefly return to read my old posts, I can feel that I have changed too. All the challenges, alterations and new encounters of the past sixteen months have created a novel me.

Whether I am better or worse than before is impossible for me to asses, all I know with certainty is that I am the happiest I have ever been. Every change takes something from us as well as it gives.
The best life however is the one which is a work in progress, an unfinished painting, a diamond in the rough. A blank page to be yet filled with sentences describing new adventures and life altering reflections.