“Life will wear you down,” I said.

Did I mean that life was a destructive force, an enemy to be resisted? Is it our fate to fight and ultimately lose? Life cannot be an enemy, because what would be left if we defeated it?

“Time will wear you down,” was my revised thought.

Things change. To be present on earth is to see gravity, erosion, and the cycles of seasons take their toll. It is to experience developmental growth but also decline, the arrival of every good thing that comes to our doorstep and, eventually, its departure.

“Life will change you,” I decided. “It will raise you up from the ground and clothe you in fragrant woodlands, but sometimes strip you bare. The rains will soften your features, or give them a newly grooved and wrinkled expression. Birds will sing in your hair, and then the music ends until a new season renews the song.” Always a new season is arriving.

(A fragment from my notebook in September of 2021 when Meghan and I were in the Big Bend working on the mindfulness book.)