Landslide

reading time 3 minutes

Fall. The air is changing. It’s still muggy but less hot now. 

Though it’s hidden behind the clouds, the moon is full today.  

Oh, mirror in the sky

What is love?

I’ve done my best, tried until I couldn’t see straight anymore, or find any other errors to fix. It’s 9/29/23, 18 days until . . . my book, my beloved son, both fully grown now, will soon fly away, and be free of me and my perfectionist ways. To live their lives on their own. Though not alone, never alone. 

Can the child within my heart rise above?

Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?

No more trying to shape and mold them? No more fussing over the way they look, the words chosen, or how perfect the voices sound? 

I don’t like this free-floating uneasiness of being done. Done? What now?! 

Why do I feel like small stones are starting to tumble, rolling down, skipping, bouncing, picking up speed, like a landslide is beginning? 

Though a landslide can also be defined as an overwhelming victory.

Yes . . . it could be that. Maybe it’s the overwhelming victory, having crossed the finish line after running a 16-year marathon, that’s got me feeling shaky, or is it the ground that’s shaking?  

Once it’s out there, I won’t be able to hide anymore. Writing a book was safe; no one could see or read my thoughts. 

Maybe it’s just the ramp leading up to it, that dreaded (or celebrated!) publication date, that’s causing me to slip backwards a bit. 

Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’

‘Cause I’ve built my life around you

It’ll be okay, I tell myself. Friends assure me that my book is going to help so many others who have suffered unimaginable loss. 

I hope so. 

I hope it helps so many others who are, like I was years ago, questioning how long they’re supposed to feel such pain. 

Or are wondering, in their grief, if what they’re experiencing, panic, or paralysis, is normal? 

Or are contemplating, perhaps lying in their bathtubs, water rising, how they’re supposed to live the rest of their lives with this ever-present sorrow? 

I hope so many others find in my book an explanation, an example, a timeline, some thin thread of hope, or perhaps, just the words they were looking for to help them feel less alone, so they can get through yet another day. 

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I’m getting older too

In 2021, Landslide (the Fleetwood Mac song written by Stevie Nicks) was listed at No. 163 on Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”

For over 25 years I’ve loved you more than all the sidewalks in the world! For 16 years we’ve been together—never apart, sleeping, waking, breathing, walking, writing, every minute of every day, sitting together, counting every passing full moon, watching, waiting . . .

The writing and endless rewriting have helped me to process the seasons of my life. I’ll keep going, but I’m unable to keep up. I’m tired. It’s time now to stop. To let go of the decisions I’ve made, the book I’ve written, the son I’ve been holding on to, and let them both rise above . . . 

It’ll be okay, I say to myself. You’re done. It’s time to let go now, time to help others who are grieving. And let the stones tumble and roll and skip and bounce.

It’ll be okay. 

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