Autumn Equinox

Today is the equinox marking the start of fall in the northern hemisphere, and spring in the southern hemisphere. It hold significance as a symbol of balance as day and night are equal length. It also marks a start of harvest celebrations in many cultures. So, rare second post today, as I wanted this posted on the actual day, and mixed up my dates.

*****

The lake shimmered under the setting sun, light scattering in copper and rose over the water’s skin. Removing her prosthetic leg, Olivia lowered herself carefully onto the grass at the shoreline. Sitting with her single leg tucked in close in front of her, she pulled out several candles out of her bag, arranged them around her, and lit them.

It was the autumn equinox, the moment when day and night balanced perfectly before the slide into longer darkness. To most people, it was just another turn of the calendar, but for Olivia, the symbolism carried an almost visceral pull. Balance wasn’t abstract to her, it was the steady, sometimes wobbly art she lived each day.

She closed her eyes, drawing her breath deep into her belly, letting the cool damp air of the lake slip through her chest. The ground was soft beneath her, the kind of soil that gave gently, reminding her she wasn’t separate from it but part of it, rooted even as she swayed. She thought of her body, the missing leg, the phantom sensations that sometimes prickled in the void, the rhythm she had learned with her crutches, tap, shift, swing, that became a strange dance of its own. The world had demanded she relearn balance, not only in the mechanics of movement but in the quiet architecture of her mind.

As the ripples tapped at the stones along the shore, she let her breath synchronize with the rhythm. Inhale as the water drew back. Exhale as it lapped forward again. Each cycle mirrored the equinox’s lesson, equilibrium was never stillness but motion, the ebb and flow finding its midpoint over and over. She thought of her own life, of the anger she had once carried like a storm cloud when she first woke in the hospital, of the grief for a body she no longer had. She had learned to release some of it, to let it drop away like the yellowing leaves now floating on the lake. Not denial, not forgetting, just release.

Opening her eyes, she saw the sky sliding into violet, the last rays of sun striking across the water in a single molten path. She placed her hands to the earth, fingers digging into cool grass, whispering words of gratitude. Gratitude for what remained, her strength, her voice, her stubborn will to adapt. Gratitude for what had been lost, too, because loss had stripped her to something raw and real, had forced her to rediscover herself on new terms.

Overhead, geese wheeled in formation, their cries carrying across the air like ancient hymns. They moved together, each bird balanced against the other, not flawless but functional, beautiful in their imperfection. Olivia smiled faintly, her chest loosening as if the sight had echoed some truth inside her.

When the first star appeared, she leaned forward and gathered her crutches. Rising was slower now, deliberate, there was no shame in the pace. She braced, shifted her weight, and stood, steady in her own form of symmetry. Behind her, the lake continued its endless conversation with the shore, unhurried, eternal.

Olivia breathed in the night air, dress fluttering around her, and felt an almost fierce clarity. The equinox was brief, a hinge between seasons, but the lesson it offered stretched beyond the dusk, balance was not perfection, not halves making a neat whole, but learning to move forward with what remained, trusting it was enough.