Transition

Stay close to yourself

I’m walking home from the morning school drop — pavement damp and littered with the first scattering of yellowed leaves, still warm enough to not really need a jacket… 

I notice the subtle yet distinct sensation of urgency — I’m holding my breath, pulse slightly tense, leaning forward just enough to make my trainers slip on the decay underfoot. I’m hurrying, I realize, toward nothing in particular. I’ve left myself — here but not, having not fully left one place or arrived in the next.

Maybe you’ve experienced this kind of noticing?

As always, there’s work to do, yet no need to rush from the chaos of readying and transporting small children to school, to my desk where my work will be waiting when I arrive. Maybe you have a train to catch, or a call to make, or a friend to meet… same same, transitions to make from here to there. 

Autumn herself is a transitional season — existing somewhere in between the brightest light of summer and the deepest dark of winter. A reminder to pay attention to the in between spaces and to stay close to yourself as you go — dropping kids off, to clocking office hours, to cooking dinner… regaining breath post-run, moving from plank to downward facing dog, inhales becoming exhales… all the hats we wear, roles we play, jobs we do…

Slowing down
Breathing deeply
Paying attention

I realize
I nearly missed it — 
backlit color palette shifting across the treescape
smell of damping earth after autumn’s first heavy rain
wispy clouds painting morning blue
still mild air tickling my face
opportunity, so clear
to soften my jaw
feel the beat of my breath
and my feet
*just* walking down a city street
no scrolling or chatting or listmaking…
inhabiting
extraordinary, ordinary moments
so easy to miss
and also not 
because transitions, like practice, only really ask you — 

Slow down
Breathe deeply 
Pay attention

I turn down the passageway, my kids’ favorite shortcut home, seeing the first few red leaves join the ivy cascade, blurring the rest of the foliage into the background. Or maybe it was there yesterday and I wasn’t paying attention.

These liminal moments — they deserve lengthening, being prioritized like the breadwinner, inhabited like home. How you are as you move between, rather than fixating on what you are going to, or the outcome, is deeply settling, especially as change is so married to uncertainty. Regardless of your agenda, you don’t know what will happen. But you can stay close to the certainty of yourself as you move through space, right now — not instead of but as you get to it, whatever you need to do.

Where are your transitions today — what does it feel like to stay closer to yourself as you move through them?