The Morning of the Turn

Walking to the bus stop this morning I breathed it in, the turn of the season, each chill lung full of air an awakening. This is the true beginning to my year; the autumnal stripping off the lethargy and sloth of humid days. I am invigorated and inspired by the coming cold, the burning colors, the instinct to wrap oneself inward under layers of early darkness. When the world herself goes stumbling towards a long nap, I awake, drowsy from my summer stupor. This is my season.

Jacob and Wilhelm, the brother hawks, watched me from their usual perch in the bare tree top across from my house. I named them this year after the Brothers Grimm. I wonder if that means we are connected in some way since I've named them. They would surely scoff if they could and remind me we are all connected regardless of words. I was grateful to see them hulking there, silhouetted against the indigo line between night and dawn.

Now is the time for cassoulets and thin sweaters. Knitting and Romantic classics. Perhaps a Gothic horror. Maybe Jane Eyre? Long rambles in the piney woods, a glass of wine before bed, school parties. And curling in, looking in, summing up the year's bounties and debts. This is my harvest.

Seven is an Odd Number

I've received an incredibly thoughtful award for (k)creative blogging from the always inspiring and entertaining Left-Handed Housewife. Thank you again, Frances, I've taken your description of me to heart. Honestly, I don't usually blog these awards out of sheer laziness, but when I realized the majority of you are going to jump ship over the fact I haven't finished the socks yet, I thought I'd play along. Accepting this award means I am beholden to share seven facts about myself, which is difficult because people I know read this and I can't get away with telling you I am a secret agent working on an international cashmere goat poaching case. Good thing since that kind of sharing would surely upset Ms. Thin Mint, my super secret super spy boss.
The fine print: (which I am only posting for informational purposes and only following four steps. I'm a rebel, Dottie.)

1.Thank the person who nominated you.
2.Copy the logo to your blog (or at least into the acceptance post...).
3.Link to the person who nominated you.
4.List 7 thing about yourself people may find interesting.
5.Make your own 7 Nominations.
6.Post links to those 7.
7.Leave them all a comment to let them know you nominated them.

Get Ready.

1) I never graduated college. I took a couple of years worth of core classes, couldn't bear the boredom and hated every minute of it. I wimped out and have never looked back.The final straw in my school career was when my philosophy 101 professor accused me of cheating because "no one had ever aced his tests before". The exams were multiple choice. What a prat.

2) I tend to be overly honest, sticking my foot in my mouth more often than not, but I have come to realize people turn to me when they need help because they trust my sincerity.

3) I wish I could speak Italian. I love the poetry of it. I completed four years of French and can only curse and ask the time fluently. I guess that means I could navigate a French train station pretty well.

4) When I lived in downtown Atlanta, a drunk homeless man ran into the road and fell against the side of my moving car. He landed on his butt and then stumbled away but I was too scared to get out and help him. The witnesses just kept walking. The whole scene still haunts me.

5) I am the soccer equivalent of Bobby Knight. I actually balled my hands into fists at my son's game and shocked myself by telling him to "Just kick her and get the ball !" I should be banned from spectating for the rest of the season. It is a league of four year olds by the way.

6) I love randomly complimenting people. It surprises them and makes them think which is always a good thing.

7) I have a restless soul. I question, analyze, seek knowledge, teach myself something new every day, and still I dream of wandering the world to figure it all out. The reality is I live a small life and love it, so this restlessness pools in my imagination, and I burst at the seams with creativity because of it.

Thanks for sticking around; you all mean the world to me. Consider yourself nominated.

It's the Wonder of You

I know what you're thinking.

"She's going to write about change again. Always with the change, this one. Transition this, acceptance that. Yada yada yada."

Not today. Today I'm wondering what happens after the change? What do you do then, if it's what you waited for or never saw coming, where do go from the new first step? I guess the answer to that is different for everyone. For this butterfly, the answer was to hang out on my window for an hour and watch me. I watched him too, wondering what he saw to keep him riveted. Eventually he flew off and I stepped outside to peer into the window out of curiosity. I saw me, reflected, with the clouds behind my head.

Butterfly was watching himself float on the clouds, not seeing into my house at all. I sat there for a spell, doing the same, taking in my reflection framed by clouds. I think we both liked what we saw and took the time to appreciate the wonder of it. That, in itself, should be a first step everyday, don't you think?

Love Is So Short, Forgetting Is So Long*

Cloudland Canyon, after rain, summer 2009

Tonight I Can Write
by Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.


*maybe it is the glass of wine or the moon and Jupiter dancing outside the window now, but these simple words are calling my name and I'm not sure why. Just thought I'd share the moment.

Busy As A

I am checking in because I received an email from my husband requesting I post. He even gave me topics. He must be bored. I, on the other hand, am anything but bored. Guess what I've got? Over 50, 000 words and counting in less than a month. Why can't NaNoWriMo be in August instead of November? It is quite possible 48000 of those words are total crap, but they are mine and I like 'em.

You know that squirmy feeling you get when you've worked really hard on creating something? When you pour all of your passion and heart into it, drowning in your own enthusiasm whenever you (not so casually) mention the project to friends (or complete strangers) who invariably give you the stink eye after ten minutes of your gushing? I've got that squirmy feeling- I think it is happiness*, but as I near the end of the first draft process, and prepare myself for someone to read this, I get another feeling altogether. I want to throw up.

I'm still knitting that second sock, it is mocking me from the dusty little corner I left it in. I fear it will start speaking to me when I walk by like the man eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors. I can hear it now, the merino begging,"knit me, Heather" as the kitchen lights dim and a chorus begins to sing duwop from the pantry. I need to finish that sock before it finishes me.

* I think there should be a happiness test, like a pregnancy test:

no line-depressed

one line-content

two lines- delirious

(They could sell them in two packs for the skeptics and the schizophrenics.)