The Fall. . . to Fall into Fall.

   It is September already.   School has started.  The rush to can and fill the freezer is underway.  Morning needs a jacket, and the evening starts sooner.  I am totally unprepared for this.

   Fall is my favorite season, but its surprise appearance inoculates me with the sense that it is all moving too fast and before I have a chance to really enjoy it Winter will be here with its gray, rainy skies and short-to-shorter days.

   I need a plan.  A commitment to pausing.  I need to remind myself to take stock of the smells and tastes and joys of the season.  It helps to have Boot Camp.  The soreness in my muscles is a physical reminder to pay attention.  I just have to transfer it to my eyes and ears and remind my mouth that these tastes are fleeting.  King salmon fresh from the Columbia, sizzling off the grill; served to friends with a generous dollop of cheesy risotto.  Early mornings in the hot tub, when black-capped chickadees are swarming on the red berried hawthorn tree.

  Focusing on the here and now is hard.  The Fall foreshadows the rush of holidays-baking and socializing, all which takes planning and thought to go smoothly.  To say I am just going to be "in" the moment without considering what this moment needs to carry into the next is a hard one.  But this is the only way to slow it down.  Let go and fall into the moments of Fall.

4th of July

  The 4th has never been my favorite holiday.  Lately I have been thinking a lot about how African Americans feel on the 4th.  Does it really feel like their holiday?  Does history cling to everyone the same?  When do we celebrate "true independence'?  Independence from what?  Women can't exactly claim independence on the 4th of July. 
   What am I teaching our son?   "Yeah, fireworks are cool",  "Bombs bursting in air",  the wealthy landowners are so happy that they can keep their land and their slaves, and not pay taxes to England anymore.  I do need to do a little research on this holiday.  Would be fun to see what is out there about people's different viewpoints.
   We are having friends over.  We will roast chickens over the fire.  Eat and drink well and play yard games.  I am making a berry galette.  Thrown together from our own berries; raspberries, marionberries and strawberries.   I don't have enough of any of them to make a dessert by themselves.  The weather has been lousy.  Hoping for a little sun, and if not that, no rain.  Glad to be on the island, away from the crowds.

Water, water grey and wet

     It is raining.  Something quite familiar.  The hummer at the feeder is all rusty, and red capped.  He doesn't seem to mind the rain.  It's early enough to find quiet in the house and space to think.  Don't believe I could deal with this all the time, but a few hours a week it's nourishing.
     Dan's family reunion was last weekend.  It was raining there too.  A dark and sheltered log cabin near Mt. Hood, 19 of us packed in.  It was enjoyable, yet separate from reality in a way.  Would love to see these people in their regular lives, doing ordinary things.  I have been with Dan now for 16 years, married for 10 of those, yet I have not been in the homes of most of his family.  Getting to know people without knowledge of their surroundings and how they move through life is a little complicated.  It really comes down to various bits of information gleaned over the years.  Short conversations held during brief visits, anecdotal stories my husband tells and entirely subjective feelings I have over time accumulated.  I find them all to be interesting in their own way.  And I am left with being curious and wanting more.
    Quinn just has a few more weeks of school, and then we are into the summer swing.  Wonder if the rain will stay.  It is an El Nino year, and the weather may be unpredictable.  It seems to be this way all over.   This brings to mind Emergency Preparedness and Sustainable Practices.  Makes me want to store some dried food meals, and work in the garden; put survival gear in the car, and remember to teach Quinn how to build a fire or a shelter.  Why my mind goes to these things is not something I want to explore right now.
   Most of the pressure that is raining down on me now is just organizational.  Getting Quinn's summer time planned and paid for. Paying the bills that come due at the first of the month, doing the books for Dan's business so that he knows how much money he can spend. Figuring out if I have the time to start Boot Camp [(an exercise program that seems to be taking my friends and acquaintances by storm) I need to lose about 40 pounds to get back to my pre-30 weight. Then there is the garden, fixing regular meals, yard work and do I even want to bring up the reason I'm blogging, to begin with. . . will it help me to learn to write with greater skill?  I will need it to get into the MILS program and pay them a lot of money to make my life even more complicated. Yes,  that is the point.  It is part of a"Follow my Joy" program that I seem to have placed myself on.   The rain appears to bring me back full circle.
   When I first came to Seattle, 18 years ago, it was during a particularly gray and rainy winter.  There was something in the air here that felt like home.  I don't know if it is the few drops of Scottish blood that I carry from some long dead ancestor or the grayness itself that spoke to an aspect of my personality, but it still feels like home when it's raining.  Not a home of memory but the mind place of home.  That is where I like to be, and where the "Follow the Joy" idea originated.  Doing things, saying things, being things that place me in that frame of mind.  It's raining.

Lunch Time

  So it's been weeks since the last post.   What good is a writing blog if you don't write?  So much going on.
Got the book to help me study for my GRE.  Heard about a page at the library that got into the MLIS online program at the UW this last Sept.  There is another volunteer at the library who is looking to apply.   I wonder how many spots they actually have?
  Summer stuff is starting.  Just a few more weeks till school is out.  Family reunions this year.  Want to get in some camping and a beach trip.  Is this possible?  To write. . .  Maybe a technical writing class at the community college would help me.  Can't seem to focus on one thing right now.  Reading a Philip Reeve book "Fever Crumb, great teen book.  Also checked out some knitting books and a beautiful recipe book from the library.  Booking the trip to Michigan.  Wondering how we are going to pay for it.  Hoping I can make a big dent in it before we actually leave.
   Feels like my mind is pulled in a thousand directions, nothing I can focus on for long. Almost time for me to get back to work.

Messed up already

I've missed two days of writing already, and here I am at work and remembering that this is something I promised myself.  I believe I need to set aside a specific time to do this.  Organization, the key to success in a busy world.

A Start

     I know I need to improve my writing.  The more I talk with people who should be aware of it, the response has inevitably been "Write."  Practicing seems to be the only way to get comfortable with the words and let the language flow.  So here I promise myself that I will write every day.  Maybe I will even be able to find a few people to read what I write and make some constructive comments.
    Trying to balance my days has been a challenge.  I have an eight-year-old, who seems to need my attention; a full-time job that fortunately doesn't occupy my mind when I am not there.  My personal life, which includes trying to keep up with current affairs, working in our garden and last but not least, pulling together what is needed to go back to school and get my Masters degree.
   It has been over 20 years since I was in an academic setting, and I'm not sure how good I was at it then.  Times have changed, and I am wondering if it is really possible just to step right back into the fray.  It is true that the few times I have been around those in the academic settings I have had no problem feeling like I could keep up.  I think it is just the unknown that is making me uncomfortable.
   More tomorrow.