Surprise Beginnings

Things have a way of coming 'round.  And when you least expect it.  Endings have beginnings attached to them, the sort that aren't always evident.  And they manifest as surprises...the very best sort.

Diane's farm.  The precious farm--the one where she planted her feet, and finally her soul.  The one where she hunkered down and gave it life...while hers gave way.  Diane took such care.  Nothing was left undone.  Each detail had a reason and a thought.  But as October descended and her days there reached their end, the details of its future lay fallow by winter's weight.  Yet, as if by an unspoken promise, The Pony Lady and Her Partner stumbled onto the farm and fell in love with it just a short time ago.  They see what Diane saw...its river, love gardens, and a life abundant tucked between wood and iron, rocks, memory birds, and deeply webbed roots.  A tangle of history, housed in those tendrils.  And in their search to learn more about Diane, they found me.  And as we scrambled to find each other, we found ourselves in a new story--one that takes an ending thread and braids it together with a beginning and a promise.  And so we arranged to meet, only to discover that our lives have crossed paths unknowingly over the years, for they live just down the street! In a teary-eyed evening, an ending was woven into a new beginning...one that Diane would have loved and chosen.  The farm is in good hands.  That's a promise, my friend.

Another Ending-Turned-Beginning is the story of the Baby.  This grand Baby has raised three generations of children.  All those curly fingers, all those melodies!  It too has ended its days in our hands, but has begun a new life in the happiest of places.  As the team of expert movers rehearsed and rehearsed its exit down my long stairs and into the van, I too rehearsed my goodbye, preparing myself to let it go so that it could come back.  That turning point happens in a subtle pivot...how quietly it comes. But come back it will, to new curly fingers and new melodies, and with generations of joy as its echo....And as they drove away, I intuitively knew that I was saying hello to a new life.

And now there's now.  Right now.  A Now that's also very right. Another ending is making its beginning, surprising me in the most quiet of ways.  I am rapt as it unfolds.  This Verge began at an ending but has unintentionally become a beginning.  Such beginnings keep themselves secret until the right moment and right time, when they can at last be born. I am trusting what I know about that and trusting even more what I don't know.  And to that end I welcome these Surprise Beginnings....