Time Swings in A Wheel

Very few things stir my soul like the changing of the seasons. The first cloud-smothered autumn twilight, the first snowfall, the first May morning on which you can smell new grass warmed by the sun, that day in August when the sky is deep cerulean, cloudless, and high enough to seem like forever: all of them have their places in my heart. I am enamored of all of them, and of all of them equally.

There is nothing that so viscerally reminds me that nothing lasts forever as the changing of a season. There is nothing else in the world that so beautifully, tenderly, and forcefully reminds me that this, too, shall pass with time. The bone-cracking cold of February will pass away; so, too, will the humidity of late summer when the air is so thick you can feel it slipping over your skin like a warm silk sheet. This perfect day under the sun on the sand will end, and that perfect afternoon watching the snow fall with tea will end.

Everything changes. Everything passes away.

But time swings in a wheel, and everything returns. The cycle of the seasons reminds me of that, too. Happiness will come again. Love will grow anew. Death will occur, over and over.

Nothing lasts forever, but everything comes back again. I am reminded of this with every change of season, and I am grateful beyond words for the assurance. Every time.