Nothing Lasts: How to Live Fully in the In-Between

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen.” – Pema Chödrön

I’m constantly being reminded that there’s something contemplative about watching life take shape in its own rhythm. How flowers lean toward light, how my garden lies dormant and then — almost overnight – bursts into color, only for a gopher to eat the flowering heads. Or how a long-awaited visit with a friend can suddenly fall apart because, as life often does, it interrupts even our best-laid plans.

More and more, I find myself pausing and noticing the full arc of becoming without judgment: the seedling, the unfolding, the wild and the return to earth. I see it mirrored in my days — plans shifting, friendships taking unexpected turns and hopes dissolving. The more I notice these cycles, the more grounded I feel. And in those settled moments, I’m reminded of our own rhythm of simply being. In this space where culture, nature, beauty and values converge, we’re invited to witness, to participate — and to let go.

Nothing lasts. Everything changes. And that makes everything more precious.

One vivid example unfolded right outside my door in my Northern California neighborhood. For years, I grieved the loss of the lush landscapes I loved. Hills that radiate vibrant green from winter rains fade — between May and the next rainy season — into parched, café-colored tones under the strong sun.

I’d notice resentment rising — focused on what was missing, what no longer pleased the eye. I longed for the green to stay, struggling to find value in the season’s transition. Sometimes I even thought the hills looked “unattractive,” as if nature was failing us.

Then, as life tends to offer small awakenings, I came across Louesa Roebuck’s Foraged Flora: A Year of Gathering and Arranging Wild Plants and Flowers. Her words train the eye — and the heart — to attune to the beauty of what is. She writes about embracing seasonality and finding richness in each stage of life, from first bud to withering seedpod. Her perspective reshaped mine, echoing something I was starting to sense but hadn’t yet named.

What shifted in me wasn’t just aesthetic — it was something deeper. I began to see aging, friendships, politics and even death through a softer, more spacious lens. The discomfort I had projected outward — onto the fading hills and barren landscapes — was also within. It wasn’t the land that had lost its beauty, but my own perspective that had contracted. I’d stopped looking with curiosity and wonder. As I became more mindful, I noticed how often I met change with judgment rather than presence. And in that noticing, I softened. Transitions no longer felt like losses to resist, but invitations to integrate — moments that asked for humility, attention and a willingness to see differently. I realized it was me who was in the way of acceptance.

That’s the heart of mindfulness. It invites us to stay present without grasping. To meet each passing moment — noticing, naming, allowing, letting go. When we stop fighting change, we release the exhausting struggle against life’s rhythms. We let go of the tight fist of control that leaves us more depleted than nourished. We simply witness what’s here — including the ache, the ruptures and the breakdown of what was.

And in that witnessing, there’s space to hold the complexity with equanimity — a steady balance that allows us to meet what is. Not with resistance, but with a willingness to work with what’s real, even when it’s messy or difficult. As Pema Chödrön reminds us: “The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen.”

I’ve come to recognize that when I stop separating my experiences into good or bad, right or wrong — and allow both the bloom and the decay, the drought and the downpour, to have their place — even when life feels unfamiliar — something essential begins to emerge. I show up — with an open mind and open heart.

That perhaps it’s not what happens to us, but how we respond, how we connect, how we care in the midst of change that shapes the heart of our lives. And maybe, in those small moments of presence — when we simply let life unfold — we remember:

Nothing lasts. But everything matters.