when joy sits on your chest and squeezes all the air out of you



photo from here

So, yesterday was Rosh Hashanah...the Jewish New Year. I'm not Jewish, but I totally get that. This always feels like the time of year when things are starting new to me, too. I think it traces back to childhood and going back to school in the Fall. School WAS life back then. The world around me transformed in color and texture and smell. Getting dark earlier meant spending more time inside with my family, playing games or coloring or watching Barney Miller or Disney on a Saturday evening. As I selected my new clothes, shoes, pencils, backpack, and Trapper Keeper, it all felt like an opportunity to remake myself, decide who I was going to be THIS year as a 5th or 8th or 11th grader. Everything felt fresh and new and organized. Opportunities were seemingly limitless. Anything could happen. It was Fall.

*****And it still feels that way.*****

More than any other time of year, I seem to have such moments of clarity and peace and utter joy in the Fall. Like collapsing into a soft chair and being given a drink of cool water after crossing the long desert of  summer.

Just last Saturday, I was in the kitchen chopping red peppers to make my first batch of practically famous Chili. The house was freshly cleaned. Vince Guiraldi's Charlie Brown music was playing quietly on Pandora. The boys were in the next room watching a Halloween episode of Bob the Builder (yes...even my 13 and 11 year olds :) ). My lungs were still stretched and strong from the  great hike we had gone on with Dr.  Yummy that morning, and I was eagerly anticipating the drive we were planning out to the country to visit family and friends that night. So, I'm there chopping and chopping, when all of a sudden I have to stop and just have a short, happy cry... because I was so darned overcome with joy. With the sudden realization of how wonderful the world was and is, and especially my little spot in it at that very  moment. My bank account was still dwindling. I was still unemployed. My body was still not the size or shape I wanted it to be. My van still sounded like it was breaking in a million places. I knew within the next ten minutes, some squabble would probably break out between the boy squad. There would be a new mess to clean up. I still didn't have any real answers to the big questions in my life. But, in that moment--none of that mattered. Or maybe it all mattered. Maybe it was because and despite of it. But I was happy. Blown away happy.

Then, there was what happened on Monday. About a week earlier, I had mentioned (via Facebook) that I frequently left out paper hearts for my boys to find in the morning. Inside, I would write things I thought were great about them, or things they had done recently that I was proud of. The boy squad loves getting them. Anyway, I had mentioned that I could sure use a paper heart of my own that night, and wondered if I left one out, if God would write something in it. I came home from my run on Monday to find this....

My yard covered in paper hearts--each one saying something nice about me: Great Mother, Good Writer, Faithful, A Friend to All, Creative, Kind. And my favorite: "You're on the right path. Keep going."

I plucked each heart out of the grass one by one, read it, then stood there clutching the bouquet of them, and yeah...bawling.

Things are good. In the midst of the scary and the unknown, things are still so, so good.

The leaves are just starting to yellow and red. The smell of dirt being turned over by tractors and chaff being burned by the farms at the edge of town is just starting to fill the air. The mornings and evenings are just starting to require fluffy socks and a blanket thrown over my shoulders like a shawl. The possibilities of this time of year still feel sort of magical and limitless.

Thank you, Fall.
Thank you, secret heart leaving friend.
Thank you, little moments of joy.
Thank you, perspective from God.
Rosh Hashanah.
May all things be new for you, too.