Finding the Sunbeams

She's an old girl now; it's evident in the gray that runs through her fur and the age spots dotting her soft pink nose. Her walk is slower and more laboured than it once was; often times she chooses just to lie down in a favourite spot and sleep. These days she cannot hear much at all, and she howls in confusion in the early morning hours because she doesn't remember where her people are. But she has never forgotten the radiant warmth and joy found in a morning sunbeam as it peeks through the front windows of our home. Each day she seeks out its welcoming presence and stretches her limbs to bask in its relaxing glow. I don't think I've ever seen her happier than she is in those perfect moments of light.

I've not been good at taking time to enjoy the sunshine recently. There have been many to-do lists staring me in the face each morning, and I seem to have become a little too caught up in the ever-moving machine of busy family life. Routine and structure and organization are good things, to a point, but I find myself resenting them lately, for making me feel as if I can't ever stop and enjoy where I am right now, that I need to always be thinking ahead to what needs to be done next.

This morning, perhaps because I was still feeling the calming effects of a long weekend of family and turkey, I decided to ignore the notepads full of lists and to take a long walk down one of my favourite local trails. It was unseasonably warm in the early sun-streaked daylight hours, and I knew I only had a short window of time to enjoy this rare autumn weather before a forecasted week of rain rolled in.

The trail was quiet and soothing in a way that felt different from the times I had walked it in the spring and summer. There was no sense of urgency anywhere; it was as if Mother Nature herself was whispering the wise words I needed to hear as my feet strode lightly along the paved path. I sensed it in the insects that hummed a low tune in the tall grasses beside me, and in the birds of prey whose powerful wings held them aloft, seemingly without any effort at all, as they hovered on the gentle breeze in the blue sky above. I noticed it in the woolly black and russet caterpillars who meandered across the trail, pausing every now and then to change direction, and in the golden leaves that fluttered gently towards the ground as they left their branches, their faces reflecting a last glimmer of beauty in the sunlight. As I breathed in the sweet earthy scent of the forest in fall, I heard the spent leaves rustling and crunching pleasantly underfoot, and the water in the stream trickling gently over smooth stones. It seemed so clear to me in those peaceful moments that really living is about being open to seeing and feeling the light.

The truth is that as living, breathing creatures we are all travelling a path whose end is both mysterious and certain. This season of falling leaves and suddenly bare branches reminds us that our time here is finite, that we do not ever really know what's around the next bend as we bustle about our day-to-day business. Let's all remind each other to slow down and take the time to be warmed and made happy by light in its many forms. It's waiting patiently for us to discover it in all kinds of lovely places.