Savoring the Season

This time of year makes my socks go up and down....

But it's packed full of activity -- family birthdays, my OWN birthday, the end of Fest followed by all the post-Fest clean-up and the post-Fest art commissions and the post-Fest recovery period. And don't forget my favorite holiday: Halloween.

The season deserves all my attention, though, it's that spectacular. I wish it wasn't so brief.... I could spend whole hours/days/weeks just being still and watching it, feeling the temperature changes, following each leaf as it falls, enjoying the fragrance of loam and woodsmoke, wishing on each milkweed seed as it floats away....

But by the time I stop to do this, it seems I'm already smelling snow. Autumn is curled up and sleeping, and I have yet to rake her leaves! And so I don't.... I don't put the gardens to bed either. I leave them wild and shaggy like little enchanted forests full of burrs and brambles, where rabbits hunker and mice burrow under the leaves....

Maybe it's just that I can't bear to let go of my season. If I rake, if I garden, it's like I've tucked it all away like my Halloween decorations, to be forgotten about until the holiday sneaks up on me again and I hurriedly pull them out and enjoy them briefly without really smelling the candles and tasting the pumpkin spice and wearing the witch's hat....

My season deserves to be savored.

And so THAT is what is on my list today. Savor the season. And do it all again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Join me.

Back in my Shell

I'm still here. Pulled within....

The over-the-top crazy energy of Fest is over now and I've reeled my vulnerable self back into my shell. It's necessary.

So today I stayed still. I finished a book and began another. I wrapped my head in a scarf and my hands around a mug of hot sweet tea. Rain lulled me. I heard crows in the trees and buses lumbering children home from school. I saw autumn colors burning in the distance and mistook them for sunset.... I lit a lamp, pulled on a sweater, and wondered for a second if I'd just dreamed my time at Fest.

I didn't. It happened.

Later perhaps I'll endeavor to get my post-Fest thoughts organized. Try to recapture some of their sparkly sheen. Maybe begin a letter about it all and how I got caught up in its magick and about how it changed me. And about how things look now from a little distance. Kind of like fool's gold.

Or maybe that's just a trick of the light....

It's hard to tell from inside the shell.
...

To Fairyland and Back Again

I haven't written in a bit because I've been away.

For a whole wonder-filled week I was on a grandparenting adventure. I'd wake every morning to a vista view of skyscraper pines and distant snowcapped mountains, and spend long morning hours rocking my newest grandbug and enjoying girl talk with her mama. We 'grown-ups' enjoyed huge cupfuls of fancy coffee, and breakfasts of hot bagels and homemade pancakes, and sweet moments spent listening to the wind in the trees and little Abigail sighing in her sleep.

Abigail is a fairy child if ever there was one in my family. Little and long, with laser eyes that look right into my soul. Every time we walked past a window together she'd arch her back and look out at the forest, as though remembering that that's where she came from. And if she was fretful, all that seemed necessary was to lay her down by a view of the trees. (Changing table right next to a window = best idea ever.) 

Three days into my visit and we were already on an adventure together as her parents drove us high into the mountains for a picnic. I closed my eyes to avoid seeing the narrow switchbacks and plummeting ravines, but Abigail rode peacefully in her carseat, staring out at the world with wise eyes. This was her turf. Such a nature sprite couldn't have found herself in a better situation, and I suddenly suspected that she'd be leading her daredevil parents on even bigger adventures than they were already used to. (And they're used to big adventures.) 

My daughter and her husband live in a sweet little California town full of quaint shops and cute cottages, and every drive down the hill towards it brought new discoveries: Clouds of roses billowing over a cheery picket fence, or chickens pecking in a cottage garden. The place was right up my alley and I couldn't help but ponder a move there, until I thought of my other grandbugs back at home, and then all plans went out the window. I'd just have to be that grandma. The one that travels and likes it. It'd mean buying some rugged shoes for the constant stepping out of my comfort zone.

Before my arrival I'd imagined that sitting in a chair and staring at that beautiful baby would last forever, but Time fast-forwarded through my week there. As was predicted, I didn't want to leave. The tears began days before my flight home again. Leaving my baby and her baby was enough to send me into a tailspin. I said goodbye and rode the tram to the airport terminal sobbing my heart out, surrounded by businessmen who openly stared at my tears. How could they not know what was going on inside me? My daughter, the one I suspected was too daredevilish to tie herself down with a child, has embarked on The Adventure of All Adventures.

And now both my Girlz have children of their own, families to raise, lives to live. My work here is ending.... Suddenly I realized that Time had fired a starter pistol and begun a mad dash with me roped to it unwillingly. And dragging my feet was not slowing us down....

I've been home for over a week now, and sometimes I wonder if my trip to California even happened at all or if I just dreamed it. My days are full once more playing catch-up with all I've got on my plate for the summer. There are drawings to do and gardens to weed and thoughts to think. And another trip to plan for.

Because I will see that fairy baby again while she's still tiny enough to hold in my hands. :)

  ...

Signs and Symbols

Such a weird day. Such a wonder.... I'm far inside myself somewhere, interpreting signs in everything I see like the weirdling that I am.

 

I was feeling particularly toxic earlier and so I hied my ownself out into the cold. Layers and layers, except for my face, because that icy wind straight to my forehead opens up my brain like nothing else. It startles me like a slap upside the head. Wakes me up.

 

And it surprised me to see my Minnesota neighborhood in the very heart of January with no snow to speak of. It's not like I didn't already know this, but again -- the cold opened my eyes and made me really see it.

 

Friends are quick to scold me lately when I say anything negative about the weather, like how weird is it anyway that our winter is so unwinterlike. I don't mind the unseasonableness of it, necessarily. There was a time when waiting for the schoolbus in negative temps and without a coat was uncomfortable but certainly do-able. But not anymore. My bones caught up. Now reaching into the freezer for my supper ingredients is enough to set me back a bunch. So it's not like I haven't enjoyed being able to navigate the Village on foot with no icy sidewalks and bulky snowbanks to impede me and just a sweatshirt to warm me. I'll admit it's convenient. But still.... It's odd and noticeable. Plus, in my head I'd imagined November - December - January being all about Me trapped in Tumbledown with my books and my pencils, happily creating art at my leisure while blizzards rage.

 

There's still plenty of time, I know. January's not over yet. And truth be told, even WITH the bad weather of my imaginings I wouldn't have been able to devote any time to personal creative endeavors anyway. Things have been that out of whack around here.

 

But I can't help but see this weather and make it be All About Me. Like it's a sign or something. The Universe telling me to wake the heck up already and get it in gear. There's no time for cocooning or reading or leisurely anything.

 

Things need doing.

 

NOW. 

 

And there's no time like the Present.

...

The 'T' Word

I'm writing from the hip today, just throwing stuff out here without too much thought or edits or even the benefit of Spellchek (sorry!). Because it's that time of year again. The one where 'time' is the operative word....

Do you do this?: In my head I envision late autumn / early winter as 'that period during which one holes up and cocoons.' I see myself in my comfy chair, curled in lamplight, with a purring kitten on my lap and a book or project or drawing pad in my hands. And snowflakes dancing outside my windows, of course, turning my garden into a wedding cake. And the whole big beautiful scene wrapped in all the time in the world.

No surprise: The reality of it is just the opposite. (Sigh.)

I'm not alone in this, I know. It's chaos where you are, too, I'm sure. Less than a week until the holiday and I've only just begun to shop. Any baking has yet to occur. There's no snow (yet) and little is expected before the Big Day. The stomach bug has infiltrated our ranks and is gleefully running amok, so in addition to being overwhelmed and sleep deprived I'm now a freakin' germaphobe, washing my hands until they're raw. I don't have time for this.

Not surprisingly, my cocoonish fantasy has gone by the wayside to be replaced by January in all its Snowpocalyptic glory. In my head I see drifts up to the windowsills, a pantry stocked with soup ingredients, that warm and lamplit corner by the faux fireplace where the kitten is already curled and sleeping. And the holiday all cleaned up and tucked in for another year.

Wait.

What am I doing, wishing the holiday the heck away?!

Let's start again. Ahem.

Here's me now attempting to enjoy the moment while I can and not thinking about germs or gifts that need buying. And one way for me to do this is to focus on wishing YOU the very best of holidays.

SO: I wish for you good health. Safe travels. Good moods and warm smiles. Enough to eat and a safe place to sleep. Sincere hugs. Family and friends to surround you, laughter and memories to cheer and comfort you. A cup of Christmas tea in that Cup of Christmas Tea cup (you know you've got one; we all do). A kitten on your lap or a dog at your feet or both. A good book to unwrap and enjoy at your leisure, one that warms your heart and whisks you away. Eggnog. Layers. Something handmade to keep your neck warm. Money enough to cover your needs. Courteous faces in the check-out line. Eggnog. Preferably with a little brandy in it. Some big-as-sequins snowflakes to put you in the holiday spirit, and some snowshadows to add to the effect (they're blue, did you know that?). Maybe an ethereal soundtrack wafting in the background, like lutes and woodwinds playing The Coventry Carol (oooooh, one of my FAVES). Pine-scented greenery. Red hollyberries. "Five gol-den rings!" Mistletoe. SIMPLICITY. Lots and lots of rest! All the blessings of the heavens. "And a par-tridge in a pear treeeeeee!"

There. Now I feel better. Thank you!

And may you have a most magical holiday, my friend.

<3,
...me.