The tempo of my current season beats with a restlessness. I strive for quiet, stillness and a place to sink into the present moment, but yet, I tilt in a way which keeps these treasures out of my grasp. August and September pushed me to difficult places, confronting personal truths about myself and others.

I tend to look for comfort in places beyond my comprehension, namely bright pink flower petals, the slender curve of the cacti and the vastness of the sky. I look up and every single time I find a welcome. Certainty streaks through the sky with its brilliant sun, while in some moments the thrums of what I don’t know linger in the wisps of white blanketing the blue. What am I meant to see? What must remain hidden? Staring at the texture of the sky, my eyes dart to the hues of pink-yellow-purple and then in the periphery, I see a white half circle, the moon dwarfed against the light blue.

So much of life is encompassed by where we direct our attention. The frayed edges or the concrete whole. Half-full or half-empty. Years of a good relationship or one bad act or argument. Tilting to what is or what we can’t catch. Right in front of us or looking back or forward. It is a daily practice to focus on honoring the goodness of what exists in the singular moment which feels real and reachable and not let the intrusion of what isn’t to pulse as the primary character in a story. Cultivating this kind of gratitude requires a conscious practice.

For several weeks, when my gaze shifts to the sky, I’ve let the marshmallow clouds, the stretch of the sky, and the brilliance of the colors embrace and hold me. Its become a compass and each time when I look up there is a new kind of welcome, a serenade of the twists of what I recognize and what is wholly uncertain. The accompanying feeling is one that I don’t understand entirely, but recognize as an epiphany of some kind. I am not meant to comprehend the mystery, but sink into appreciation, instead of understanding the details.

As a classic over-thinker, this revelation hit me like a feeling of falling while in my deepest sleep. Aren’t those the best kind of truths? The ones where the terrain is so treacherous you aren’t certain of the right call or direction – but an unexpected wisdom reveals itself in the right moment. For me, it is to stop fighting what I don’t know. Because at any given second, we are strangers to what will come at the end of the day or the following year or even the next second.

Romancing what is right in front me and paying deference to the vastness of what I don’t understand is a choice I am making to usher in the fall season.