She moved in on a grey, wet October day, carrying what she’d salvaged from the ruins of her life. Her tears were long dried but her heart wept blood tears unseen as she tried to make a new home. She gave up and settled for a place to lick her wounds in private.
She started cutting back the overgrown garden on a cold, clear December day. New Year’s Eve came and went; no kisses for her.
Instead she donned gloves and hacked away at brambles and nettles. With the right protection, she faced thorns and stings without fear. The compost pile grew. Her muscles strengthened. She transformed pain into something good, something that could feed new possibilities.
And one bright April day, once-hidden daffodils greeted the sun in the spaces she created, happy that their time to bloom had come again.
A huge storm blew through here yesterday. On my way back to work, I was stopped by an enormous oak tree that came down, taking part of an old stone wall with it and blocking the road entirely. Along with many others, I had to turn my car around and find another way.
Today, I see the tree surgeons have done their work. Vast trunks and branches lie sliced up on the side of the road, never again to see in the spring with green shoots. The weather now is cool, but bright and calm. If not for that pile of lumber, you’d never know the drama that unfolded here.
I think life is like this.
You spend years, decades even, building something strong and vital. It gives you comfort, protection, meaning. Then you watch as the storm grips that impressive canopy, rocks it and, finding it unyielding, overcomes the roots and the stem and all its strength. It shrieks, and cracks, and topples ungracefully.
You shout and rage and cry.
Someone, who hasn’t seen the storm, says it’s better this way. It was probably rotten at the roots. At least no-one was killed. You want to scream at them. They don’t understand.
You weep, for a while.
Then, you roll up your sleeves and clear away the fallen limbs. And something shifts. Once dark places are now light. In the ground, hidden life stirs. Daffodils push up through the soil, long forgotten seeds take root. There is space now, space to fill with new, exciting things.
And look, here is something you can use. Destruction begets creation; a table, a chair, a sculpture. Small branches make kindling for a fire. Fantastic fungi appear in autumn, and snow dusts the last crumbling branches with a veil of white.
Our creations, like our lives, are not meant to last forever.
Relationships, careers, structures are built, destroyed, mourned, and built anew. There is no escaping change. It is often resisted, and all the more painful for it. And it sweeps away the old, the rigid, the unexamined elements that are not as solid as they look. Once we dismantle our misconceptions and assumptions about what is permanent, the way ahead becomes clearer.
In the calm after the storm comes a chance to regroup, rethink, rebuild better and stronger.
