Passages

“Life is a series of passages; movements from one stage of living to another,” a friend told me. These stages aren’t like the ascending rungs on a ladder, always onward and upward. Neither are they clearly marked steps, as if one can travel along an obvious, well manicured path. Life is much more muddled than that. Still, life is in forward motion, and it carries us toward the future, even if sometimes by bewildering means. We get in trouble – or “stuck” is probably more accurate – when we refuse to go on, and instead, retreat to the life we used to live; the life that used to work so well for us.

For example, in my grandmother’s old house there was a stairwell that led from the basement to the first floor. Upon leaving the basement, the door would shut and…