accident and time

We returned after some time away and it was good to be home, to be surrounded by the familiar. But the return is a reminder too that time has passed, that there are days that won't be repeated.

Past: the slow, easy mornings walking along the narrow mountain roads, the profusion of spider webs on the grass and in the brush, visible now, wet with dew, the long threads shimmering in the early light. Past: afternoons on the deck, listening for birds. Bluejays, warblers. An occasional woodpecker. Sunset in the mountains.

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It's been difficult to write, so I work with my hands instead, sewing, drawing patterns, mending socks and sweaters. I find this, floating on the internet, plucked from a book by Ursula LeGuin:

When mind uses itself without the hands it runs the circle and may go too fast; even speech using the voice only may go too fast. The hand that shapes the mind into clay or written word slows thought to the gait of things and lets it be subject to accident and time.

Subject to accident and time. Letting the world in. Not fighting it, not trying to bend it relentlessly, to the will. But allowing the days to unfold as they do. Loosening our grasp.