Photo: Zarah Sagheer by Collyn Ware
Life is a transition from one form to another. The life of this world is the material for a new form. Leo Tolstoy
Southern Iowa is beginning its transition from late summer to autumn. Eighty-some-degree days give way to 50-some-degree days and to nights cool enough to warrant firing up the furnace. Ditches of tangerine day lilies and periwinkle chicory give way to stands of crimson sumac and burnished heads of goldenrod. Life as we know it is transitioning from one form to another.
Lovely though the autumn sumac may be, its crimson beauty pales in the presence of a young woman who wears it even more elegantly, a young woman who will soon transition from the smaller world of home and high school to the larger world of university and new possibilities. These moments of transition, writes novelist Jhumpi Lahiri, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments that we tend to remember.
We do remember these backbone moments, indeed. The moments when sons and daughters reach out to take diplomas in hand and walk confidently forward with eyes fixed on the future. The moments when fathers place their daughters’ hands into their soon-to-be husbands’ and when mothers see beyond lace veils into the shining faces of little girls-turned-brides. The moments when children leave for new homes, the remaining remnants of their childhoods packed neatly into boxes and stored in basements. The moments when minds are renewed, souls are revived, and lives are refined.
Director, screenwriter, and producer Steven Sonderbergh claims that the key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between the scenes. Truthfully, I think it’s safe to say that we tend to focus on what comes before and after such transitions. We fixate on the scenes. This is the good stuff, we think. But the transitions between scenes? Not so much. Yet, such possibility and such tension lives in these transitions. And though we take them for granted or tend to ignore them altogether, they are the key to making good movies and, more importantly, the key to making good lives.
Transition may lead to transformation, which is often more about unlearning than learning, writes Father Richard Rohr, spiritual adviser and writer. I admit that any transformation I’ve experienced has involved a fair amount of unlearning. For any significant and lasting change to occur, I’ve often had to unlearn some safer but potentially stifling processes: sticking with what has worked, seeing with old eyes, embracing the same perspectives, and listening solely to voices of agreement. Paradoxically, unlearning can open the door to genuine learning, and this learning is the crown jewel of transformation.
And the best thing about transition and transformation? These are not singular experiences. Instead, they offer plural promises that span lifetimes. French-American writer Anais Nin writes: I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me. As I think of my niece, Zarah, I can’t help but smile at the many women she will undoubtedly have in her throughout her lifetime. This is the magnificent power of transition: it is the means to new women and men who live as unsprouted seeds, waiting in the fertile soil of former selves.
And let it be said that transitions are often not sudden, but rather, as writer C. S. Lewis explains, like the warming of a room or the coming of daylight. When you first notice them they have already been going on for some time. Zarah’s transition into womanhood and the larger world of the university experience has been going on for some time. Ask those who know who best, and they will tell you how resourceful, how financially responsible, how goal-oriented, and how generally wonderful she is. They will tell you that she will transition gracefully into the next phase of her life. And, most certainly, they will be right.
My daughter, Zarah’s photographer, is a master at capturing the light in any scene and using it to bring the essence of her subjects into every photograph. Journalist and writer Teresa Tsalaky writes that light precedes every transition. Whether at the end of a tunnel, through a crack in the door or the flash of an idea, it is always there, heralding a new beginning. In this photo, Zarah stands at the threshold of this light that precedes every transition. And if we have eyes to see, this light is always there, heralding a new beginning.
For Zarah and for all of us who stand at this precipice and who will stand at many more: we can take heart in the promise of so many fellow transitioners who will encourage and sustain us through all of our changes.
