final thoughts on autumn as i watch the first Flakes FALL

THE LEAVES ARE CHASING EACH OTHER

LIKE CHICKENS AFTER FEED.


oh but I do love this wild and wooly October time, even though entry into it does rearrange my hair when i venture out into its' embrace and whole conversations can fly away, suddenly becoming the words that are spoken between others someplace else. imagine their surprise!

Where are their manners?

Just LOOK at them! Throwing, hurling, catapulting, jostling, flinging, themselves at each other! In Late October all manner of manners are gone with the wind!!!

Just a Few More....

More Ways of Seeing

So there I was just walking, the cool moist morning mist making cotton candy of my hair, just walking and taking it all in, trying to expand my thought on a particular subject, trying to move out of the small corral my thoughts had been running in into the larger more generous arena of contemplation, when I saw it: not just "a sign" but THE sign, right up above my curly head: the street name was LITTLE WAY and the sticker on the sign pole said "DEAD END"....absolutely! My "Little" thinking on the subject I was kicking around was a DEAD END!; my attempts at more expansive thinking were right on! But wait.....another street sign, a mere twelve paces ahead.....what's that? OH MY! THE ULTIMATE MESSAGE, THE ULTIMATE "SIGN"!!!!......
SUPREME WAY....My expanded thinking was taking me toward the SUPREME WAY of thinking!!! Ah the SIGNS are everywhere; you just have to take the time to LOOK.

CAPE COD

OCTOBER....
flameful trees
attending streets
far more quiet
than July
ever knew
they could be.

when they were tender little shoots, i so easily tended them, knowing always what each look meant, each sound, each word, each sigh, always able to know when to water, when to fertilize, how to protect them from winter winds. now they are grown, each with their own shiny leaves and their own thorns too, having grown into their fullness, leaving me standing, heart in hand, still offering yet not really needed, and i am lost....

when they were tender little shoots, with all possibilities stretched out before them in brilliant array, row after row of dreams sparkling like gems in the high morning sun, it was so easy to believe they would always know the right road to take and, if not, that i would always know how to guide them to where they needed to go. but now i find it is not so. we stand on this road now together, dust in our hair, the horizon escaping our penetrating gaze, not knowing...suspended in the space between questions, my children and i, suspended......i still can see their tenderness, still can recall days of thinking i knew all i needed to know to be that guide to guide them....never has wrong tasted so bitter to the tongue.

As the ocean rises, I see roses

The air was cool but clammy, the sun was struggling to burn off the early morning fog, succeeding quite nicely at its task, and we were waiting in line to board the ferry to Nantucket, bicycles in tow, waiting, waiting, waiting, for this new adventure to begin. I thought about our children, as I always do when we are on vacation in this just-beginning new phase of life, this post-raising children together phase, this back-to-just-the-two-of-us phase, this phase that can find me teary eyed when least expected, not sorrow promoting the tears, just the melancholy that often accompanies the POW! realization, over and over again until I really get it I guess, that yes, our son and daughter are GROWN....and our vacations no longer include them. It is a powerful realization whenever it nudges me, and it nudged me this clammy- but- clearing Cape Cod morning, and as it nudged me my eyes landed on an ocean rose bush. I don't know if this is what they are really called, but it's what I call them: they are petite roses of a distinctly pink hue, a color I only find by the ocean; and on this morning, during this waiting, as my eyes surveyed these roses, Spirit spoke to me, loud and clear, and reminded me of something important.

The roses I was looking at were four to a branch, and it seemed that every branch, every bunch, that I looked at held one sweet tightly wrapped rose bud, just beginning its journey, one that was in full bloom, a rose that had bloomed and was beginning to lose it's petals, and one that was in its final stages, yet still full of unique beauty and life energy...and I got the message: even though our children are grown, even though our vacations are now just the two of us again, the family we were is still within each of us, an energy that will never leave. Our memories may vary, each of us recalling different points in our time together AT different times, but the four of us still stem from the same branch...we always will...and always, always there will be the beauty, no matter what stage any of us has arrived at in life.....always there will be the beauty of who we were , who we are, and who we will continue to become.

It is true: a picture is worth a thousand words.....but I'll stop here.

A SIGH The Size of Texas

So what the heck is a "creative person" supposed to do when it feels quite as if creativity has dried up, leaving behind only a soft, grainy powder on ones' finger tips... blow softly and POOF it is gone, Gone, GONE? I wish I knew the answer. Take a walk, take a shower, stand on your head, stare out the window, go serve up meals at a soup kitchen, stand in the middle of a room , a field, your mind, and scream? I do wish I knew. I know that in the past I have forced myself to just sit and look at photos, some of mine, some belonging to others; sometimes an image can provoke a bout of creativity. How could this photo NOT urge the creative juices toward flow capacity? Well, all it does for ME, besides making my jaw drop two stories in amazement, is make me want to go sit on the beach. Maybe that is the message of the moment: maybe this is the voice of GOD speaking to me: GO SIT ON THE BEACH, YOU NINNY. Well, okay, maybe GOD wouldn't call me a NINNY......I think I will take this internal advice though: eat a bit of breakfast and walk around the corner to the lake, to the beach....and sit. Is this what a blog is supposed to be, me peeling back the layers of my internal meanderings and posting them for anyone to read? Stream of consciousness streaming? I can't say as I really know. But I will keep trying.