“I am not a has-been.  I am a will be.”

– Lauren Bacall

All I have to do is see the name, “Lauren Bacall,” and I can picture her sultry eyes and her even more sultry voice as her words pour out like syrup and ooze into my brain.  ”I am not a has-been.  I am a will be.”

September has begun as a time of reflection and change for me.  Many friends report a similar experience.  It is a time of slowing down, taking personal inventory, and forming intentions for the next steps in our lives.  Queen Dani defines discombobulation in her post about planets in retrograde.  Other friends speak of coming out of a period of scattered energy and into a time of regrouping and finding their way back to the path.

I know I’ve been writing a lot about summer and fall these days.  It is only natural that I love this time of year, because I adore bridges.  Now is the time when we stand on the island of Summer and realize that its time has passed and we must find a way to leave it behind and cross to a new place called Autumn.  I love the cycles and seasons of the year because I love the way they teach us about the cycles and seasons of our own lives.  Today, as the temperature drops and a light rain begins to fall, I cling fondly — and maybe stubbornly — to the sunny warmth of summer.  I look at the garden that begins to seem finished with its outpouring of abundance, and I want it to stay — just for a little bit longer than I know it will.

This is the risk of investing ourselves fully in each new day.  When we love deeply, we sometimes grieve deeply as the time comes to cross the bridge — especially when we know that it only goes in one direction.  This summer will never come again, and crossing into the unknown autumn feels more like an ending than a beginning as we lift a foot and place it on the bridge that will leave it behind.  My own life on the island of summer is beginning to change as well.  The last child I will raise is entering high school next week.  The role of “mother” that, to a large degree, has defined me for forty years will soon be done.  I have met many people who have crossed the bridge from parenthood to empty nest, and the results are varied.

Some long so much for the summertime days of watching their children grow that they cling to the island and refuse to acknowledge that the season has passed.  They linger, unhappily, in a desolate garden that has long ago stopped producing fruit; and they live only in memories of the past.  There is no need for any one of us to play the role of has-been.  Whenever a part of our lives is over, a bridge appears to the next adventure.  We need only to say our good-byes, grieve what is done, and take the first step toward what lies on the other side.

During this time of September introspection, let’s pull out our telescopes and train them on what is to be.  Let us form our intentions to greet what lies ahead with the same love we have had for where we have been.  Let us travel light and leave behind the tools that no longer apply to the season that has come and gone.  Let’s put away our fruit baskets and pull out our leaf rakes and not miss a moment of the beauty and excitement that lies on the other side of the bridge.

“I am not a has-been.  I am a will be.”