It Was Autumn

It was autumn when I nearly left. I was 18 years old. I had thought I was crossing to the freedom of college life. But I sickened so quickly with that encephalitis virus. While my body lay in a hospital bed, I spent an entire month of my life – elsewhere. The threshhold of adolescence I thought I was stepping over – became a threshhold much more final, but one where I was plumb paused.

It was autumn. I was 18, my forward motion abruptly halted. I was lifted away. Lifted away into timeless floating. No awareness of my burning skin, or my long black hair matted with sweat. No awareness of the cold coils running through the special mattress to cool my fever. Only floating. Despite my flaming brain, quiet floating. Elsewhere. Would I cross? Leave my young body behind? The doctors said most likely yes, nothing to be done. For thirty days I journeyed away from usual awareness, journeyed elsewhere, to consider. How did I wish to get on with my life? Did I wish to get on with my life? Those around my bed who came and went sometimes bothered me, like flitting insects. I wanted to be left in peace. I was occupied, exploring elsewhere. I was letting my body take care of itself; while I was away, considering things.

It was autumn in Minnesota, so I know there was crunching underfoot of all those dying leaves. But outside didn’t exist. There seemed to be, not only no window, but no world. Everything from before was gone. I couldn’t think of anything from before, so how could it matter. The inflammation of my brain gave me autumn respite. I found not-thinking so comforting and restful. In that doorway time when summer ends and autumn starts, they tell me my body was turned on the mattress like a pancake in a pan. I don’t remember that. I remember drifting, I remember hovering. I don’t remember pain. The sense of suspension felt natural, felt right. I liked the lightness very much.

One autumn day I floated back for a moment, and happened to open my eyes. How curious, there stood my parents. Together, leaning over the railing of my bed. But so far away. They were becoming smaller as I, dispassionate, tried to keep my eyelids open. It was they who were shrinking away. And someone next to them, someone tall, or, no, it was his hat, he seemed to wear a bishop hat, a pointed mitre. The three of them, shrinking into distance. I caught a whispered word, Extreme Unction, the old Catholic name for the Last Sacraments. But I couldn’t be bothered to keep the watch.

Autumn leads to winter death, but it was Autumn when I must have decided to come back. I wish I could remember deciding. I do remember everything felt backwards. Clumsy. Sitting in a chair. How did I get there. And the doctor said, Get up. What could he mean? Getting up, falling down. Getting up, falling down. Careening down the endless corridor, arms flailing out for balance, on the tightrope of the hospital hallway.

It’s Autumn again. Every time the doorway of the seasons opens into Autumn, I remember the easy floating. The drifting. The years that have passed since coming back now number fifty-nine. Every year I remember the simple sense of abeyance. The lightness, oh, the lightness. Every Autumn I used to wonder, where that ‘elsewhere’ was, and what made me decide to come back. But this year, the mystery is less. I came back for my beautiful son, and I came back for my vocation as a poet. (Yes, Sister Mary, I did have a Vocation) I came back for every amazing day of my long story on this dazzling planet. Maybe during the month of lightness, I had a glimpse of my future. I chose, then, the exploration of dimensions that I am living now.

This is the Autumn season, not only of this year, but of my lifetime. The lightness of age feels familiar, so similar to that floating time of long ago. This Autumn, there is a smoothness to my story, a lovely legato sense of flow. This Autumn, in the spaciousness of aging, I am more alive than I have ever been. Floating is once again my natural way of life.                                    ©Susa Silvermarie 2024