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.

Remembering

It would be wrong, I think, to let this day go by without stopping for a moment to remember and reflect on what happened in New York six years ago. A nation, a people should never forget, should never try to gloss over or let slide, as tempting as it may be, the memories of events pepetrated on other human beings that are just seemingly too outrageous and horrific for any but the most evil imagination to conjure. And while what happened that day was certainly not about me, or my family, in some ways it was about me and my family, because it forced me to think differently about the life and the world that I had taken for granted since birth. I was on an airplane that morning - of course, not one of the airplanes, another airplane, going to Florida, a trip I've taken countless times before (and since). We were in the air somewhere over Pennsylvania I think, when we got the news that the plane would be making "an unexpected landing for a matter of national security." People immediately started powering up cell phones, and snippets of news reports came flying throughout the plane. "Someone's bombed the Pentagon!" we heard. "A plane has crashed into the Capitol!" came another voice. "No, it's the World Trade Center! It's collapsed." I noticed the woman across the aisle from me, a woman about my age, whom I had noticed earlier in the flight because she was reading the same paperback book I was (Follow the Stars Home, by Luanne Rice) and because her sandals were really cute. But when she heard these scattered remarks, she turned whiter than any cloud flying by outside the window.

"My sons," she whispered, when I reached across to touch her hand. "One works at the Pentagon, and one works in New York." I gripped her hand across the aisleway between us, and held onto it as tightly as I could. Within about 45 minutes we landed in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jim and I had made our plans - we would rent a car, and drive the rest of the way. Ha! The airport terminal was like a madhouse, and there were certainly no rental cars to be had anywhere in the state of North Carolina. Like sheep, we followed the other passengers to a hotel in town, where the lot of us stayed for the next three days, sitting cross legged on the floor in the lobby, on our beds, flipping channels on the television sets we were glued to, watching as what seemed to be the end of the world unfold before our eyes. (By the way, I stuck closely to my seatmate from across the aisle, who eventually heard from both of her sons that they were fine.) Trapped 1000 miles in either direction from my son and the rest of my family, I was forced to confront my own complacency. "Bin Laden" and "Al Quaeda" were words I'd barely heard before, and now it appeared these people had the audacity, and yes, the power, to attack this country of mine. What struck me about that time was the way we were united in our grief, our horror, our disbelief, how our differences were forgotten and everyone wanted to help someone, anyone, somehow, because in doing something-anything-for someone else, we were in some small way a little less powerless. And what has struck me in the intervening years - just six short years, an eyeblink in historical terms - is the manner in which we have so quickly reverted to our self centeredness, our negativism, our crabbing and carping about the petty realities of daily life in these United States. Can we regain that sense of unity, that feeling of determination to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and take back our lives, that willingness to unselfishly give whatever measure of devotion might be required to make the world (and our loved ones) safe from that kind of horror? Politically, I have no idea. I'm not politically savvy, I never have been. I can't help but think, though, that individually, if we can try to remember those feelings from that day and use them in a positive way, each in our own small corners of the world, that life could be better and stronger for us in these United States. It is a day worth remembering, in many, many ways.

Writer's Island - My Imaginary Life

The older I get, the less I imagine what life could be like. Writing those words, I feel a little uneasy. Because although my real life is just fine, perhaps I shouldn't be content to settle for "fine" ~perhaps I should be reaching toward some far more fulfilling and creative life, setting my sights on the stars, like I did when I was a teenager. Just recently, events have occurred that should have drawn me up short, should have sent warning bells resounding in my ears about the finite nature of my time on this world. Events that, by rights, should spur me into a frenzy of action to accomplish all the things I want/need/hope to do. You know all the sayings - life is short, here today, gone tomorrow, make hay while the sun shines. I should be busy pulling out all the stops to make my imaginary life a reality, now, while I still have the time.

Then again, why should I be presumptuous enough to even imagine a better life than the one I have? After all, I have a loving and healthy family, a safe home, plenty of food and water, cars and clothes, and luxuries far beyond what most of the worlds population could ever imagine. What right have I to yearn for more than this?

Ahh, but its human nature to want more than we have, isn't it? Human of us to expect the world, to see the ever greener grass, to dream ever more fabulous dreams.

So, enough prevaricating. Here goes:

In my imaginary life, I always see myself living in an old, historic home out in the country, a home near enough to water that I can walk my dogs through the woods each day and listen to the sound of a babbling brook talking in my ear. I'm surrounded by books and music in this house, and I have plenty of time to indulge my love of words and notes each day. I will write - novels perhaps, or memoirs, even biographies. I will play - a chamber group, of friends and musicians, well known and very popular in the community and surrounding towns. In this imaginary life, my family is all nearby, so I can see them whenever I want - in fact, they come in and out of the house at will, my grandchildren bringing me handfuls of flowers plucked right from my own garden. I see myself wandering the woods in well worn jeans and soft sweaters, coming in from walks to hot coffee in the winter and mint-sprigged iced tea in the summer. I picture Jim and I sitting on our porch at night, watching the fireflies twinkle over the meadow, sipping wine as the sun goes down.

It's not a fancy imaginary life, is it? And, in fact, after all these rambling thoughts, I have come round to describing a life that's not really all that diverse from the life I have right now. Does this signify a lack of imagination on my part? Does this mean I don't dare to dream?

Probably not. It may be that I've simply already forged a good life into existence. Rather than spending time imagining something different, I would do well to enjoy and enhance all the good things about the life I already have.

~to read about others imaginary lives, visit Writer's Island

Encyclopedia of Me Monday: E is for Energy

I have been sick this past week, really down and dirty sick, and while I'm beginning to recover some of my equilibrium, I have not yet begun to rebound from a very profound loss of EneRgY. The thought of getting out of my chair takes a supreme amount of effort~really, you would think I was being asked to run a marathon just to get from here to the kitchen to pour a glass of water. I have never considered myself a highly energetic person, for I would choose lying on the sofa with books and bon bons over planting a garden or going dancing. But the past week has brought me to the realization that I had a good bit more energy than I gave myself credit for.

After all, most days I'm up at 6:30 to get in my morning pages and some yoga before work. After working all day, I often go to an evening rehearsal. Or I walk the dogs, do some shopping or cleaning, then finish out the day by writing and blog reading. This week, I was lucky to crawl out of bed by 8, after which I would perform my necessary morning ablutions and then crawl right back in.

No energy.

How I've take my energy for granted! just like most other aspects of my good health. I've expected it to carry me through work, concerts, chores, social events, all without even a tiny acknowledgement of gratitude.

That ends now. As soon as energy returns to me (and I'm surely hoping it will!) I promise to be a better, kinder steward. I'll take note when it flags, and give it some rest before it collapses in defeat. I'll nurture it with plenty of fruits and vegetables, my daily vitamin, and of course, lots and lots of water.

No more thumbing past the entry for the letter E in the encyclopedia of me.