Letters. Emails. Phone calls. Words fly from mid-Tennessee to New England these past few weeks in a flurry of condolences, wrapped in a shawl of sadness embroidered with memories of too many yesterdays.

It seems that such losses occur in clusters, in groups or two or three or four, sometimes more, before the waiting game begins again. It comes with a certain age, though now that I am breaching the "age" the age of these lost friends seems to be younger and younger. Or is that simply my view from this new pinnacle of 60?

I found myself writing more letters, sitting at my mother's drop leaf desk (recently refinished, all traces of fire finally finally finally removed) from the wood. I pull stamps from one drawer, envelopes from a cubby, address labels from a small interior shelf. Though I've tried to use technology (Hi-Speed net running at less than the speed of dial-up most days), I find myself reverting to hand-written missives, seeking the comfort of sending something I've touched into the hands of another.

In the past few weeks, contemplation has been the order of the day: once I get my body moving in these days of interrupted sleep, oddly-timed naps and nagging pain at inopportune times (all the time in truth), I find myself doing a few chores almost in reverse before settling into pieces of silence. I sit alone with my thoughts. It is part of my process of change, that is to say, dealing with change. And loss. And grief.

I haven't felt much like writing for public consumption these past few days.

Curled up on the couch, I pull back the curtain, looking for "specks" of expected snow, hoping for a dusting that will make the world brighter for a bit. February and March are otherwise so brown and gray here in these days just before daffodils and magnolias.

I sift through random photos unearthed in the process of filled the desk, of assigning places within. Each photo holds a story, and I make a plan to identify them all, a process enabling memory, not just for myself but for those who follow. I remember sitting pen in hand with my mother, when her mind still had some clarity, making notations on dozens of photos.

With each memory that passes through my hands, I work consciously not mulling over sorrow but focusing on the joys that each lost soul of these past weeks, brought into my life. I, and all of us who knew them, are the better for it. We've held them all for a very long time, gladly.

Passages

Decades ago -- that makes me sound so old -- I read Gail Sheehy's Passages many times over, finding succinct bits and pieces of theory and analysis that have become benchmarks of a sort over the course of my life. "The size is the same but the fit is different" is one of those tidbits that describes a life ever-changing.

Sheehy categorized the cycles of growth and development, charting how we as humans move through various stages -- everything from teenage rebellion and the passage to our 20s, to midlife change (crisis included) to aging. Though our youth-oriented culture seems to fight these transitions, I never did, and often feel like a bit of an anachronism.

Turning 30 didn't phase me, 40 was a breeze, 50 was a piece of cake (I graduated college, started a masters program and climbed Machu Picchu), and 60 is just fine (even if my body is my body is doing a bit of an arthritic/back injury dance). Somehow, along my journey, my life has in fact fallen fairly neatly into those segments of passage, those transitions that seem to come in seven or eight year increments.

I feel another one coming on.

Sixty brought with it a variation on a hectic work schedule and a new injury to cope with. I am coping. Sometimes when life is steamrolling over us, we must be knocked flat; it's life saying stop and re-assess. For a month my brain focused on pain and pain management; sadness followed, linked in part to a holiday season filled with enjoyable temptations I could not partake of. I became angry at my inability to do some of the simplest things -- including standing at the stove making gravy for a holiday meal. I didn't have to cook the meal, just the gravy. I did it, but was "whipped" by my body for the rest of the day.

Not good, I said in a conversation with myself.

So what are we going to do about this physical quagmire and its mental morass, I said in a conversation with myself.

With ample time for contemplation, I sat by my windows, watching my birds, watching snow, waiting. I realized that in the hustle of business I had let go of my personal sustenance. No, not let go, but rather, let slip away those things that fuel my spirit. That was the first snippet of change.

I renewed my rituals of meditation, I began writing on a personal rather than professional level, handwritten scraps of poetry, narrative, and letters. I started a blog and joined A River of Stones.

I resurrected several projects, most which would have consumed a couple of hours just a year ago but now will take a week or more to complete, on bit or piece at a time. I break everything down to manageable parts. And I have my hand on a manuscript that I now believe must be a play. I've never written one before; I favor prose and dabble in poetry.

Returning to my place on the couch by the window, birdsong filtering in, I scratch notes and patterns and positions and dialogue. In my mind I see staging, movement, lighting. In my mind I hear dialogue, the rise and fall of voices from whisper to rage. In my mind I want to see a staged reading sometime in the next year or so, and must put pen to paper to make that happen. It is like nothing I have ever done before, which is the perfect reason to do it.

Right on time, I am entering another passage, taking a risk, moving along a new path. It's not a rejection or elimination of the old, just new addition. My life has been filled with them. I feel change surrounding me: missions accomplished (really accomplished) opens the door for growth and change.

I itemized in my mind what I have and don't have (a much longer list) where I live, what I miss, as well as what I want to have, and that brings with it more seeds of change. I don't know yet where all of this is going, and I certainly don't know when or where it will end. I am on the front end of formulating a plan.

The change of seasons are passages, and I view the coming of spring this year as still another of my life's new beginnings. Finally, I am beginning to feel alive again.

Cycle

A handful of ash
cast into the current
returns a raindrop
or flurry of snow.