I have read the last of Earthsea, and I plan to write the last several posts of my Earthsea series tomorrow. Ged is on the other wind, and there is no more Earthsea for me to discover though plenty more Le Guin to read. I feel like I could be discovering new fiction and non-fiction from Le Guin for the rest of my life. I’m grateful for her literary companionship.
I am stuck with the sense of a chapter ending in my own life and the lives of those I care about. In the last couple of months friends and relatives have had terrible health scares, unfortunate turns for jobs and businesses, and personal heroes like Bobby Cox and Ted Turner pass. A man we only barely knew but admired passed and his restaurant, a place we treasured, went with him. Then a week ago we got the news that a dear friend was dead suddenly and without explanation.
We have had plenty of the bitter, and I do not know whether to anticipate the sweet.
Change always seems to come in waves, not one big change but two or three or a dozen and a thousand other smaller changes. The steady patterns of life are irrevocably altered when the water recedes, but you build the sand castles anew, march on, find new joys, celebrate the ones you retain.
We’ll do that, of course. If you’ll pardon my metaphor mixing, this isn’t the first turning of the page for me or for my loved ones. Still, it is hard to anticipate opportunity and newfound joys when the changes have all been for the worse.
Nevertheless, we persevere. Until next time.
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