The Final Summer?

This might be the last entry on this blog that perhaps no one has ever read apart from one or two people. And thats fine. I intentionally never added a site metre to this page. Coz I didnt really know at the time, but I needed to write this blog for myself. It became like a sacred space. Its uselessness and obscurity actually became very important. Its random meandering through three or four years of watching the seasons change. A hike through some pretty desolate interior territory. Some pretty black winters. Both physical and mental. A lot of looking out the window wondering what, if anything the future held. Noticing the smallest, insignificant nuances of nature around me, became like a kind of Psalmody. Even the black, gnarled empty branches of the Apricot tree became a symbol. A longing. Maybe a prayer. That there might be some kind of life on the horizon. Though you never really believe its possible. And it has actually formed part of my "journey through anguish to freedom" to borrow a line from a favourite Nouwen book of mine. Though I dont know if real "freedom" ever means freedom from anguish... So who knows if this will be the last entry here... time will tell.

But this entry seems fitting should it be the last one, as it kind of closes the circle, in a way.

I helped Frank to pick the fruit off the apricot tree this summer for the first time since I came to the hermitage. He's getting too old to get up a ladder, so we stood out there together, the other day, while he held the ladder and I filled about four or five plastic shopping bags with the little burnt orange gifts, and then passed them down to him. We left a few branches of fruit that were a bit difficult to get to.

"Gotta leave something for the birds to eat," Frank said. Indeed, Frank. You've gotta leave something for the birds. It did my heart good to help the man. Given that I had watched those limbs and branches through my window over the last four years, through the blackest moods, the darkest questions and terror. The fear that gripped and strangled my heart. The vacuous nothing that seemed to be closing in on me. Sucking any oxygen out of the air, making it unbreathable. Suffocating the flickering light of hope.

At times it truly was terrifying. I wish I could make you understand that.

But Frank didnt know. No one did. And it doesnt matter now. Summer is half done. Soon the leaves will be turning yellow again, and dropping to the ground.There will be more death before there is more life.

There was a green parrot in the top branches of the Apricot tree this morning. Almost the same green as the heart shaped leaves. There wasnt any fruit left for him to eat, so he squawked belligerently and took off over the rooftop and out of sight.