Do ALL the things?

I am toddling curiously toward the dying of the year, still feeling young and flowerish inside. I am holding onto summer, green leaves, the mystery of swimming. I never want it to end or even change. I may trade out frozen drinks for pumpkin beers, but they're still cold so I tell myself that doesn't count.

You see, this time of year I catch myself thinking Phineas and Ferb had the right idea. I feel like doing it all. Summer is like that. Even after you're done with your formal education, summer is packed with things you don't have to do but NEED to do. I haven't quite figured out my version of climbing the Eiffel Tower, creating nanobots, or finding a dodo bird, but here in the sunny South, it feels like there's still time. I know the kids went back to school already and we just had a Mabon ritual, but in my heart (and my armpits) it's still summer.

Oh, the seasons change here, but you have to be very observant to notice. The sandspurs don't grow so feverishly anymore. The leaves are still alive and clinging to the trees for a little longer. Their colors will change soon, but they will be muted pastel yellows and oranges. Autumn here is as gentle and subtle as the summer was not.

Just the same, I'd like it to stay summer all the time, and it just doesn't. I want all of the flow and none of that ebb that makes us appreciate it more.

I don't want to slow the pace, but I need to. I need to be reminded that we will not all be living this present life forever. I will not always have my parents here on this plane with me, for instance, nor will I always be here. Sometimes I forget this.

Even my own nature demands a change. My body's cycles tell me when it is time to slow down and look inward. This is that time. There is so much birthing and dying going on at once, right this second every second, that I sometimes want to go someplace where the earth doesn't keep turning so fast. There is so much that I wonder how any of us can take it even for a day, let alone a lifetime.

So for a day or even a few days, I will slow down when I can manage it. I'm pretty sure the meaning of life is not Do ALL The Things! or even Save or Feed or Heal All The Things. I thought it was when I was younger and scoffed at those non-religious or not-my-kind-of-religious types who did good things just because, well, it was good. I feel different now.

And if I discover that the meaning is BE all the things? That's a matter for another lifetime. Or more.