I lay watching the stars late into the night the other night,
listening to an owl hooting softly, somewhere to the north of us,
and listening to my spouse snoozing softly in the delicious cool air on the deck
my mind was busy, but peaceful
the stars, our old and beloved friends, seemed to cast new light on me
and it seemed to me that we have crossed through into a different world

A peace came over me
Despite the chaos in our human world, and all of the work still to be done,
the stars and owls continue to weave their magic

Sometimes it is hard to explain
how much our lives have changed in recent years
When, in January of 2014, the torch was passed onto us
and we became the elders

My great nephew, who was 7,
started coming over every week after school on Tuesdays
He would skip down the road ahead of me on our walk,
run back for a hug,
and then run ahead again chattering as we walked down to the lagoon

We were no longer the adult children with elderly parents.  They were gone.
We were now the grandparents.
This happened just as the calendar clicked over into the new year,

I have tried to articulate how different everything feels now
Our parents being gone, and new little people showing up
Four of them, and another on the way
an entirely new cast of characters.

What I realized that night under the stars
is that I am in a new movie.
The old movie is over and I no longer need things that I was holding onto
I no longer have to prove things,
and I have no desire to remain in a circle where I was never welcome in the first place

The characters, theme, and trajectory of this movie are different from the old one
The stars are the same, and the set is much the same,
but it is a whole new movie
and we are both different in it, too.

Thank God.