For a little over nine years (barring an approximate year and a half absence), I have looked out the same windows at work. When I'm out on rounds, I always stop to look out the window in the day room on our Skilled Nursing Unit. It overlooks the marina. Year in and year out, I've watched the boats clear out in the Autumn, the leaves change color and fall, not long after, I watch the snow come and the ice take over, trapping the marina in a beautiful, austere still life. Come Spring, the leave return, followed shortly by a smattering of boats until the marina is packed.
Given that we have four distinct seasons, I've witnessed these changes numerous times, yet they aren't changes at all, just part of a cycle. There is something very comforting about witnessing that. In truth, it is equally unsettling. There is the illusion of change, and on a small scale, I suppose there is legitimate change. But when those changes happen in the same way every year, it is more of a pattern or course of development than a change.
Which makes me wonder what that means to me... having stuck around to play my own role in this for so long. It always goes back to the marina, though. Time is measured there.
3 comments:
Lovely post. I get the same rhythm from the sea and the tides where I live. The greyness of the winter, high spring tides and awesome waves, silver seas in summer and the dappled greens of autumn: all makes you feel a little bit more connected to this world.
Bonequeen ~ Thanks, and you're right. It really does. I've always found it humbling to be near the water. It is (not intending a pun, here) almost like an anchor for me. I think anyone that is near the water has gauged their life, and the general passage of days, based on the water being a constant.
Have I mentioned I now live at the seaside? My days seem to measured by the rise and fall of the tides, now. Could be worse.
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