Count the Time
The hydrangeas are in bloom again: it’s time to move.
Lately, every time I’m out in our neighborhood, this is the thought that reverberates in my mind. Last year, when we moved in, I was in awe of these glorious globes of azure and violet. Now, it’s a signal that our year here is up.
Something about this time marker has made me think of Kate Seredy’s The Singing Tree, when Kate says:
“Time…there are so many ways to count the time now…. Remember, Auntie, when I came to you six years ago, we used to say…: ‘Time for the tomato seedlings, the apple tree is showing white.’ Later it was time to plant the flower garden because old mother stork was sitting on her eggs. Time for the gypsies was time to dig potatoes in the fall, and when the first snow came it was time to bring out the spinning-wheel and the loom for winter evenings.”
She goes on to tell other ways that they count the time as the war passes, by letters and sleeps and newspaper updates. I realized as I skimmed through The Singing Tree trying to find that quote (and cried—because I can’t read that book without pouring tears and snot) that I’m counting the time right now too.
Although noting the blooming of the hydrangeas is the most beautiful sign of the times, there have been many different ways I’ve noted the dying of this season and the dawning of the next.
Yesterday, the twelve year old kindle decided to dig deep down into its electronic bowels and come up with the energy to turn itself back on (it had taken a month long sabbatical from life)—it must be time for a 2, 572 mile road trip.
Potential RV buyers are coming out of the woodwork like they’ve got a fever and the only prescription is our RV (not more cowbell)—it must be time for us to start packing up the RV to move back into it for the next couple weeks of transition and travel.
The tears are close to the surface these days and I find myself crying about ridiculous things—it must be time for goodbyes, endings, and new starts.
Dinners are random assortments of whatever I can find in the fridge/pantry with occasional last minute grocery runs when whatever I made turns out to be inedible, and snack time may involve the kids eating pickles straight from the jar—it must be about time for the movers to come pack up the house.
In the back of my mind, I know that next year there will be no hydrangeas blooming in the desert, signaling an upcoming move (although I fully recognize we could be surprised by a change in plans). Next year, there will be other ways to count the time, signaling other things I need to pay attention to. I don’t know exactly what those signals will look like, but for now it’s enough to know that:
The hydrangeas are in bloom again. It’s time to move.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV
