I Love My Rut

There's something very comforting about my routine. I suppose I might as well admit it - it's really just a rut. And perhaps I'm a dullard for loving it, but I do. Following a simple, pleasurable pattern, slipping into regular habits like a well worn pair of slippers, eases my mind and relieves the stress that has become such a part of everyday life. I love my morning routine most of all. Waking early, the coffee freshly ground and dripped just minutes before our classical radio station clicks on, I pour coffee for both of us and bring it back to bed, where we bolster ourselves with pillows and pick up the books we've nodded off over the night before. This reading together every morning is a new habit, and one we've both come to love~snuggling in bed (with Magic and Molly still lost in doggy dreamland), companionably sharing our books together, is a gentle way to ease into the day, and well worth rising early to enjoy. When Jim reluctantly tears himself away to shower and dress for work, I move to the living room and my big green chair, where I take up my notebook and write those all important morning pages. I feel the sunrise over my shoulder, casting its warm glow on the paper in front of me as I let my thoughts spill across the page. When the pages are done, it's time for breakfast, which we usually eat together while watching one of the morning shows. If it's not a work day for me, I will often do some yoga, then end the morning with the all-important dog walk to the park. It's a simple, relaxed way to start the day, this quiet hour every morning. It allows space and time to prepare for entry into the busy world, time to connect with one another before we separate for the day. Probably everyone has their own daily routines that become almost sacred times and spaces in their lives. I've been re-reading some of my favorite Madeleine L'Engle books, and came across this passage from Two Part Invention, which prompted me to so lovingly consider my own daily rut. She writes of her afternoons with her husband Hugh Franklin... "When we are together we enjoy each other's company fully. Our routine is simple and pleasurable. In the late afternoon I read the mail, then play the piano for an hour. At seven Hugh comes in to me, clinking a glass, while our dog barks with joy, and we repair to the kitchen to cook dinner and talk over the days events, in our lives, in the world. At dinner we light the candles and sit in the dining room, often quietly, kything, rather than talking. Then we take the dog for a walk in Riverside Park, come home, and prepare for bed. "Several times Hugh has said, 'I love our rut.'" "So do I."

How about you? Do you have a simple routine that means the world to you? A rut you love?

Writer's Island - The Gift

"Everyone is gifted - but some people never open their package." Unknown

Gifts - what else can I write about, except the abundance of them in my life? Anything less seems churlish and ungrateful, as if I'm embarrassed by the surfeit of riches piled in this package I've been opening for the past 51 years. A family that cherishes me, a husband who supports me in every possible way, a son who has grown up well and strong with a family of his own to love ~ a wealth of gifts indeed.

In truth, I wonder sometimes whether I deserve them when the world around me is rife with suffering and want. How-and why-have I been so "gifted"? And I try to remain properly grateful, in the hopes that my acknowledgement of good fortune will keep me safely encsonced in its favor a just a while longer.

Of all my good gifts, perhaps the one that is most key, most valuable and cherished, is the gift of my mind, my memory, my ability to read and write and reflect. It is this particular package that I open so gratefully each time I turn the pages of a book, sit at the piano to play, pick up a pen to write, open my mouth to speak. Because I have seen first hand what it means to lose this gift, in this terrible stealthy disease that's sweeping the nation and robbing thousands of people each day of their memories and thoughts.

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste." This slogan for the National Negro College Fund bears truth for the entire human race. "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most," is another humorous version, seen on greeting cards and refrigerator magnets. It brings a smile, but, in reality it is far from funny.

The gift of thought- it's priceless. I hope I'm putting mine to good use.

For more on gifts, go here

Encyclopedia of Me Monday: F is for Friends

As an only child, I take my friendships pretty seriously. My closest friends become the siblings I will never have, and so I'm grateful for their willingness to share life's vicissitudes with me.Unlike siblings, however, friendships tend to come and go, don't they? Right now, I have a core group of three or four "fristers," women I have been through the fire with in one way or another, and women I know I can hail when the flames start licking at my feet. But, twenty years ago, my inner circle was comprised of completely different women. For various reasons, these women have disappeared from my life. With one exception, my best friends right now are all significantly older than I. With no exceptions, my relationship with each one developed through music, and each one I considered a mentor before I considered them a friend. Sometimes I wonder what that says about me. Often, I feel that I get more than I give from our relationships. These women are strong, independent, and talented. And, for some reason, they have swooped me under their wing, nurtured my talents, and encouraged me to cultivate my abilities. How lucky am I? My friend Leigh, at 41 years of age, the youngest of my BFF's, recently gave birth to her second child. When she told me she was pregnant, she said, "I kept thinking about what you once told me -that one of your biggest regrets in life was having only one child. And I thought I'd better do something about that before it was too late for me."Wow. That was pretty huge for me, to think that my experience could have made such an impact on another woman's life. Reflecting on that, and on all that I've gained from my relationships with each of these women, I feel humbled by the power of friendship, of what we can give to each other, often without even realizing it. And I also feel a little frightened, knowing that sometimes friendships are vulnerable to loss for all kinds of reasons. Time, distance, illness - all of these can stretch the bonds of friendships, until they eventually break and fade away.

As I age, my hope is to one day influence the life of a younger woman in the way my friends have influenced me - to be a source of inspiration as well as companionship, an educator as well as a buddy, someone to respect and admire as well as someone to gossip and giggle with.

Friends. A good entry to have in the Encyclopedia of Me.

Flavors of Fall

I could get used to this. Fall, I mean. Every year, I forget how much I adore it, until it sweeps down upon me, bruising the sky with purplish clouds, sweeping the air clean with stiff, chilled breezes, painting the landscape with brilliant reds and golds.

Yesterday morning, a fall preview arrived somewhat unexpectedly, sending me rummaging through the storage closet in my basement searching for favorite jeans and fuzzy sweaters, inspiring me to pull out the remnants of my faded summer flowers and drive to the market for big baskets of mums, their russet and purple blossoms the jewel tones of the season. Apple cider was on my mind, hot and spicy, a cinnamon stick set jauntily within the cup for an added burst of flavor.

My friend Pat loves fall more than anyone I know. Every October, she gets in her car and heads out on a "leaf chasing mission," which usually takes her into Western Michigan, Southern Ohio, and the Amish country of Indiana. These trips "feed her soul," she says, as she travels winding back roads admiring the splendor of God's palette covering the trees and hills.

Fall refreshes me, this beauteous bridge between the green easiness of summer and the grey freezes of winter. But as much as I love it, as much as it energizes me and lifts my spirits, I'm mindful of the loss inherent in this season. Winter's coming, and I know this last burst of beauty has to sustain me through the endless grey days ahead.

But today, with the sunshine still warm on my head and the breeze refreshingly cool on my face, a pot of chili simmering on the stove and brownies baking in the oven, I'm just loving the feel of fall, wishing this season could last a long time.

Yes, I could definitely get used to this.

Comfort Reading

Booking Through Thursday asks: Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better. What do you read? (Any bets on how quickly somebody says the Bible or some other religious text? A good choice, to be sure, but to be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of fiction…. Unless I laid it on a little strong in the string of catastrophes? Maybe I should have just stuck to catching a cold on a rainy day...) Reading comforts me. Holding a book in my hands comforts me. Losing myself in the imaginary lives of others removes me from the daily aches and pains of my own life. When I was very small, I often awoke in the night with asthma attacks, and my grandmother would nestle on the couch and read to me, the vaporizer puffing clouds of steam around our heads. So for a very long time now, reading has served as comforter in times of stress.

But what would it take to get through the griefs piled upon that poor hapless person in the example above? I don't know if even books could help me in that scenario. But if they could, they would have to be giant books full of interesting characters...books like Julia Glass' The Whole World Over, or Penny Vincenzi's Into Tempation.

Or maybe tightly written, atmospheric mysteries~anything by Elizabeth George comes to mind. And certainly the dilemma's faced by any of Jodi Picoult's characters could distract me from my own.

These are the kinds of books I love whatever is going on in my life, books with richly drawn characters facing real life situations, characters toting lots of emotional baggage and working their way through the inticacies of personal relationships and life in general.

Comfort books.