the tug of my heart

Long cold nights mark November's return, grey rains fall, wind walks in the bronze oak leaves.

- Gladys Taber

I wake early most days to have a couple of hours or so to myself. Time to gather my thoughts, and write a few words. While my days are pretty much my own now, they are still full, and come nightfall I am tired, good for nothing more than a hour or so of TV.

I look back sometimes, revisiting the different ways I have filled my days over the years and find, for the most part, a logical flow to them. Needs and desires change, as do responsible and goals. It is the natural flow of things and I don’t question how I filled those days, like I use to.

Today I find myself letting go of old self-expectations and allowing myself to fill my days with those things that tug at my heart: light, curiosity, love and beauty. For today I have nothing to prove.

the hydrangea

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

- Mary Oliver

The same hydrangea bush turns a plethora of colors throughout the season. I can’t decide which I like best and make an effort to photograph them all. This year many of the blooms dried up mid-season, however I found their blooms still amazing. I took to deep watering and the later blooms blessed me with rich, deep shades of color. Now the rain has taken over, soaking their blooms and the ground they grow in.

Baker

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

-Mary Oliver

He looks longly out the slider off our family room watching the deluge of rain fall from the sky. After a summer of being outside for most of the day, he is now stuck inside. Oh, we let him go out, but the smells are not the same and he runs amuck in the yard, pawing at the door after a few minutes wanting to be let back in. I dry him off and watch as he darts through the house running off energy only to soon curl up in his blanket on the couch to sleep. I fear come spring he might be a little chubby.

He looks at me as if this is my doing. I don’t tell him how much we need the rain after our long, hot, dry summer. I just get down to his level, give him some love, and take his photo.

openhearted

I watch as fall arrives in earnest, bringing with it the rain and the wind. I upgrade and downsize. Finding my myself overwhelmed at times, but also able to keep the intention in focus. I move slowly, paying attention, noticing, openhearted and assertive, knowing this is just where I need to be.

 

“I remember one morning...
getting up at dawn...
there was such a sense of possibility!
You know? That feeling?
And... and I remember thinking to myself:
'So this is the beginning of happiness...'
'This is where it starts!'
'And, of course, there'll always be more.'
Never occurred to me
it wasn't the beginning,
It was happiness.
It was the moment...”
― Virgínia Woolf

***

rain

“And in this moment, like a swift intake of breath, the rain came.”

― Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms

And it is glorious . . .

time to change

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there's a time to change
- Train ~ Drops of Jupiter

It has been a crazy few days, nothing too serious unless you are me. Let’s just say technology will be the end of me if I don’t simplify things. Somehow life today is harder than it was when I was a young mother with three busy boys at home, and a husband who traveled. So I start a list of things that eat up time and cause me anxiety and start crossing out those things which I can let go.

I already feel lighter.