Life's Autumns

Our world tilts a bit these days.

When my mom, who is 89, could still visit, a few years ago now, I would always take her over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain Park, so she could see the Fall colors, which were resplendent. It's the highest continuous paved road in the U.S. and the views are spectacular.

Lime greens, bright yellows, burnt orange and flaming reds splashed in swaths of varying widths, over thousands of undeveloped acres, as if God Himself had flicked His huge paint brush for our pleasure.

Fall is my favorite season in Colorado.

And every year, the winds eventually blow in the first winter storm of the season, and take all those Aspen leaves with them.

The brilliance of the colors always signals a necessary transformation, an inevitable death.

~

My dog, Murphy, constant companion when I'm home, turns 14 in less than two weeks. I can see him slowing, struggling with the indignities of old age.

Sometimes now he sits quietly in the grass of our front yard. I watch him gaze, at what? He seems to be lost in thought, looking back as much as looking out.

Stiff and sometimes halting, he naps more now, as if readying himself for a great journey.

I just want him to know how much he is truly loved.

~

This is what I was reminded of when I heard Steve Jobs had died. He was only 56, and billions of dollars and worldwide fame could not exempt him from the inevitable:

No matter our age, we are each in our life's autumn.

We don't often live that way, but when we turn off the TV, nd the cellphone, and the iPod and iPad, when we shut out all external noise and stimulation and just sit with ourselves, we feel it.

We are not meant to be here forever.

Life is so fleeting, so tenuous. It has to be a preview of something even better. And even if it's not, all the more reason not to waste any of it.

Yet we fill precious time -- years -- with envy and judgment and doubt. We stress over image and possessions and status.

We so crave approval that we often spend half our lives working at something we no longer love, for people we don't much like, to buy things we don't really need.

We're a bit like hamsters, running faster and faster in a spinning wheel that never takes us anywhere further.

~

I believe you have gifts you were meant to use. I think you believe that, too. I think you've always known it.

If you can use the stage provided by your station to share your gift, do it!

And if you can't, find some way, even if you have to change jobs.

Stop doing the urgent long enough to sit quietly for a minute and gaze at your life.

Perhaps the winds are blowing a bit harder in your face these days. You see it. You feel it. Now embrace it.

Share the brilliance and beauty of your life today. Create. Inspire. Love.

It's autumn.