Not everything drifts far when it leaves. Some things stay close, quiet, steady, waiting. They return through light, through rhythm, through breath. When they do, it’s not always with answers, but with a kind of knowing. There are days that feel like memory before they’ve even ended. When something barely visible rearranges everything, and the air starts to carry its own weight. You may not realize it right away. Only that you moved through it slower than usual. And afterward, something in you kept turning back.
The trail was just beginning to give beneath our feet, soft with melt, edged in thaw. His boots made small impressions beside mine, snug now, nearing the end of their season. We’d gone out for a short walk before dinner, just the two of us. The others were inside, and I’d needed the quiet. He brought his usual bundle of questions. I brought the hope of a pause.
We walked the path behind the house, the one we always return to when something needs settling. It’s never quite the same—the light changes, the ground shifts, but it holds us like it knows the weight we bring. A cold wind moved through the pines, threading through the sleeves of my coat, and the light had started to loosen, gathering on the bark like warmth remembered, catching in places it hadn’t touched in months. He didn’t say much. Neither did I. We just kept walking, side by side, through the quiet.
We followed the old trail behind the house, the one that winds past the cluster of aspens and circles back through the pines. We’d walked it many times before. Once when he needed help finding his footing, another when he stopped every few steps to collect sticks and turn them into swords. This time, he walked calmly beside me. Just his breath and mine, and the soft rhythm of our feet brushing the thawing path.
His fingers slipped from mine just as the trail began to bend, where the trees draw closer and the light begins to change shape.
He didn’t ask. He just caught sight of something between the branches and moved toward it, the way children do when wonder pulls harder than what’s familiar. I almost reached out. There was an ache in my body before I named it—something old rising again. There was a time I wouldn’t have let him go ahead like that. Not without checking the ground, the slope, the space between us. But instead, I let the moment hold.
I stood where I was. Feet planted, hand still curved around absence while he moved forward, the soft hush of pine needles brushing beneath his steps.
He wasn’t leaving me behind. He was just following something I couldn’t see. I stayed back, not just as a figure in the woods, but as his mother. The one who had once cleared every branch from his path, now standing still as he made his own way. I noticed the quiet more without him beside me, like the ground beneath had rearranged itself just slightly.
I didn’t call after him. I just listened. To the rhythm of his footsteps ahead, the creak of the woods adjusting around me.
There, in the pause that followed, I noticed a pine cone lying in the path. Still warm, as if it had been held only moments before. He must’ve dropped it when his attention was pulled toward whatever drew him in off the trail.
I knelt to pick it up, holding it like something left behind on purpose. Not a message. Not a marker. Just a trace.
It wasn’t just the letting go that stayed with me. It was what lingered in the quiet after. Parting, I think, is what we carry long after they’ve stepped away. It’s the lingering of scent on a scarf, of last words replaying like a song caught in your throat. It’s the doorway moment, when one hand lets go before the other.
I’ve learned that parting doesn’t always come with closure.Sometimes it comes with quiet, with a long look over your shoulder, with a prayer whispered into the space they just left behind. Even in his parting, he left something behind. The hush between sentences, the echo of something true, the feeling that I had been seen and asked to remember.
A pine cone, still warm in my hand. A trail, still holding his shape.
There’s a kind of invitation in the way someone walks ahead of you, not out of reach, but just far enough that the path becomes yours again. He hadn’t meant to leave a sign. But still, I followed.
The trail curved gently toward the clearing, where the light spread wide and flickered between the trees.
I walked slower than before, tracing the places his feet had likely touched,the quiet marks of having passed through, flattened dried grass, a twig snapped in two, a streak of mud where he must’ve slipped and kept going. Each one felt like a whisper. Not “come back,” but “keep going.”
So, that’s what I did. Following not just him, but what had stirred in me when he let go.
I carried the pine cone with me the rest of the way. Not because I needed to, but because it had passed through both our hands. His, and mine, and the girl I once was, who knew parting before she ever knew how to stay. By the time I reached the house, the light had changed again. The wind moved softly through the branches, as if the woods themselves were exhaling.
That night, as I folded blankets and turned off lamps in the house, I kept thinking about the trail—the letting go, the space between us, the way I’d sat with a version of myself I hadn’t known was still walking beside me.
Reunion isn’t always loud. Sometimes it comes in the shape of something familiar; the way your fingers curl, the way your breath slows, the way you know when to pause.
Maybe that’s what mothering is, learning how to part and reunite over and over again—sometimes with your child, sometimes with your own self.
Maybe it’s less about holding on, and more about learning what it means to witness. To walk beside. To stay long enough for something in you to return.
Parting, I’ve learned, is never just about leaving. It’s about what you leave behind that still holds your shape. A pine cone. A gesture. A quiet kind of knowing. Not a trail marked with signs, but one scattered with traces. Just enough for someone else to find their own way through.
Kindling: A flicker of thought. A small moment waiting to catch light. A place to begin, not to rush past, but to rest within. This ember is here for pausing for warming your thinking, your noticing, your remembering.
Today’s Kindling: The Long Quiet After
You kept going.
Of course you did.
You moved forward because that’s what was asked of you.
But somewhere in the quiet, something shifted.
And you didn’t name it.
Not then.
It’s there, woven into your breath, your pace, the way you notice certain things without knowing why.
What if that was the moment everything began to return?
Name it now.
Write from that place.
If something surfaced as you sat with these words, you’re gently invited to share in the comments. A memory, a noticing, a sentence you’re still holding. Only if it feels right. There’s space here.
I’m definitely going to sit with Today’s Kindling invitation and see what is unveiled! Thank you Jennifer
Thanks for sharing!!!!!