On My Way Back from the Mailbox

Outside, it smells like wet leaves and sunshine. The soggy town newspaper leaves print on my hands, and the stack of bills are addressed half to the me in Ohio, half to the me in Maine. My mail stands divided, but I am altogether here. At least in this particular moment.

Good news came this morning, a crucial and long awaited piece of paperwork arriving scanned and paperless. It wouldn't have been a big deal if we hadn't been forced to wait six months for it.

In that waiting and the limbo caused by delay, I might have learned to trust in perfect timing. I might have learned to live with loose ends and frayed edges. I might have learned a bit about taking my anxious and impatient thoughts captive. I don't know if I really learned any of it, or whether I'll have to repeat the lesson. (I probably will).

But here's what I do know. There is a time to rejoice, to clap hands, to dance silly, to breathe relief, to give the sort of thanks that comes easily. And this is that time.

Outside it smells like wet leaves and sunshine. The sun pushes the gray of the morning storm into a blueish black bundle to the left, says to the clouds, "I'll take it from here."

This is the sort of morning in which the sun is supposed to shine. There's no other way to cast it--to stage the scene--than to put me in with the sun, walking up the driveway on the soggy leaves and in the crisp breeze. And then to open the door, to breathe in cinnamon and the fulfilled promise of a new morning, to feed the hope that followed me inside on the way back from the mailbox.