Over The Threshold
On seasonal change, true new years, and intentions for the next chapter
Dear Reader,
With the vernal equinox just days away, it finally feels like a new year is upon us. Star gazing astrologers mark this time as the beginning of a new cycle as Pisces season — the concluding sign of the twelve zodiacs — clears way for fiery Aries — the beginning, the catalyst — and the wheel starts again. The New Year of the Gregorian calendar landing in the dead of winter (if you’re in the northern hemisphere), when our soft bodies and all of nature itself still resists to unfurl, just feels cruel. January is not for setting out to fulfill the year’s visions, but for lingering in the dreamy underground. Even February is for opening eyes and gentle stretches and getting one’s bearings. Come late March, when the elements have given the signal, it is time to reemerge — rested, resourced and ready.
On days like this though, spring is hardly detectable — the island rains rolling through like wave sets, marking this the official thick of Mud Season; winter advisories for our tallest peak; cold fronts that crawl down from the mountain in the evenings and force us to put on socks and long sleeves (poor us). As I write this, I am wearing said socks and sweater and am on my second plate of buttered sesame toast from the bakery down the street, the rain continues to fall as it has for the last twenty-four hours, and my boots by the door are caked in mud from this morning’s outing. But this is when we know. These are the signs that tell us it’s moving time.
In our ten-plus years together, this will be our third move. Three for three, moving happens in the spring, usually in the rain, usually with some incident involving car tires and mud, and usually with our destination being semi-complete. Two vehicles filled to the top with boxes of our most important treasures, an un-kenneled cat (this year three) wide eyed on the passenger floor, windshield wipers on high. We consider this the stuff that forges a forever love if you’re lucky enough to come out on the other side of it together, and luckily, we always have.
As we prepare to close our chapter in this home we built eight years ago, I’m remembering snapshots of those days, much like these, just before move in. It was — and is — a dance between creation and deconstruction, completing building projects at the new house while disassembling our life at the old one. The last time, while working at the new house on a morning just before the spring equinox, I’d received a phone call that my grandmother had died. Tears didn’t come until I was back at the old house, alone, boxing the last of our things, then a deluge amongst the packing paper. Some years later, while still in this house and just days before the equinox, another beloved matriarch lost.
That liminal space between seasons, between moves, between life chapters is full of potential, the kind that comes from the ending of one thing, toes on the threshold of another. As we have before, we carry our mourning for the dreams unfulfilled in this space, the highlighted moments encapsulated for our memories, and our brimming excitement to greet the life that awaits us.
I dream of —
Early cups outside, morning birds cooing and sleepy goats still resting in their houses.
Midweek dinner parties on the regular, a full table as the norm, gorgeous food from a modest kitchen.
Gardens of leafy greens, gem-like tomatoes, and ancestral go-to’s.
Flowers wild and imperfect, for our table and to share with others.
Choosing more candlelight when the sun goes down.
After dinner fires.
Moonlit baths.
Quality time — in every interaction and moment of solitude.
In so many ways, our shared dreams for this new space is informed by the grandmothers we’ve lost to spring. These women, who mastered the art of hosting, who had an innate ability to create beauty in their environments, who found grace in going slow, who gathered us and then left us with everlasting jewels. Packed with the grief and the mementos and the optimism, are the dreams they left behind that we now carry with us, over the threshold, to the other side.
