How painful it must be to bruise so easily

This morning — out of Nowhere — my throat got that “stabby ache”, tears welled up, and I was overwhelmed with a familiar sensation: Sadness

Maybe it was the boys scrambling to get out the door to make the boat to go to their dad’s for the next 5 days, maybe it was the pile of #AlvesStrong me·men·tos Blain’s mom sent my way the night before - but the circular story of our end -of- life experiences had built up and was spilling over.

Silas caught the moment and froze. He is like me - he has no idea what to do in the face of intense emotion. I get it. You know intuitively what to do but you just can’t go to there.

(It's a pity
It's a crying shame
Who pulled you down again? 
How painful it must be
To bruise so easily inside

- Natalie Merchant, Life Is Sweet)

They all look at me and I wave them out the door. I finish my coffee. I wait it out.

And you do, too.

Severe Seasonal Sadness is all around.

I feel it.

You have lost parents or you are are losing parents in various forms of “goneness”, pets are dying, friendships dry up like they never existed, a marriage that once was, a sister is slipping away because mental illness is so FUCKING cruel, a little boy splashing in a tub, a mother has lost her son — and I spin on the finality of it all. You can’t predict when it comes - a song, a smell, a certain light opens up that void and wounds bleed.

Autumn is the saddest season therefore it is my favorite. I love this time of tipping into darkness disguised in a veil of brilliant colors and scented nostalgia:

Wet, rotting earth, woodsmoke, salty-yet-oh-so-sweet ocean brine, wooded portals, the musky scent of white-tailed-deer soaked in a dog’s scruff, axle grease smeared on a homemade hydraulic wood splitter, Merlot spilled on silk, Gordon Lightfoot on repeat - they are the sensories and soundtrack of my childhood and they send me into a tailspin of nostalgia, sadness, and the giddy and guilty anticipation of entering darker days ahead. I know people Struggle. Walking wounded.

No, it doesn’t come out of Nowhere. It comes from Here, right where you are. And it is OK.

We are OK.