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A little over two weeks ago, I said goodbye to my job with the Times Union. In nine days, I start another one with the nonprofit webzine MadinAmerica.com. 

So I’m in limbo. And  limbo feels strange. Limbo always feels strange, hovering between the last leg of the journey and the next one, between the past I know and the future I can’t, between all the rich and crazy chapters that came before and the Lord-only-knows what and how many lie ahead. And by “limbo” I don’t mean either ye olde celestial abode for the unbaptized innocent or the bendy Caribbean dance I have never and will never attempt. Not with my knees. That’s a future I can see. I also don’t mean to imply that there’s anything negative in this limbo, that I’m hanging out in some nasty patch of oblivion and neglect.

I’m just not where I was or where I will be, and I can’t see around the bend. But can I ever? Isn’t something beautiful or odd or agonizing or potentially batshit always up ahead? Life dishes out the unexpected no matter what we do to guard against it, and no matter how many months in advance we make our dental appointments. I can say I’m about to start a new job next week, and right now that’s the plan, but what if a meteor slams into my roof? What if lobster-shaped aliens land in Albany and beam me onto a giant ship filled with corn and boiled potatoes? Don’t laugh. It could happen. Weirder things have.

Acting on faith, whether your creed is a question of religion or life itself, means making plans in the hope they might be realized and the understanding they might not. “Hope for the best, expect the worst,” as my surrogate dad Dan used to say, and let me tell you, he knew both. “The only constant in life is change,” said Heraclitus, whom I did not know personally. Or as my late husband Chris used to put it: “God can only help us in the present.” Not back there in the before-time. Not up ahead. Right here, as this second spills into the next one.

All we have is now. All I have, as I type this, is the chirp of sparrows in my tiny, leafy backyard and the sun that dapples the grass. I have my health. I have my hands. I have my nutball cats on the porch. I have my wonderful son working on a piece of furniture in the basement. I have my amazing daughters in Brooklyn and Detroit. I have the sweet man I’m blessed to call mine preparing to come over in an hour. I have my neighbors, my family, my pals, the bustling, friendly streets that I call home, and all the many gifts that fill this interesting corner of the world.

I look up at the sky and watch the clouds drifting east. I hear crickets. I hear a jet moving north, then a mourning dove sings its eulogy from the huge silver maple arching above me. Then a flutter of wings somewhere. A mewling sound from some agitated little scamp, probably a squirrel. Leaves rustle. A grackle lands on a bush, then flies away. The mourning dove sings again, the clouds cover the sun and drift on again, and the crickets just keep at it.

This is limbo. This is change. This is the moment that is no longer, and then this is the moment that is no longer, and then this and then this and then this. It’s all fleeting. It’s all cause for gratitude. So I look at the life behind me and say, Thank God. I look at the life ahead of me and say, Thank God. I look at the life before me now and say, Thank God.

And then, once I say it, it’s behind me.