Archives for category: autumn

This is a nice one, too. A great latte, almost gone now. A great article on feminism attentively read over the rim of the warm porcelain coffee mug.  The trickle of the aquarium in the background, and the stillness of the sleeping household is interrupted only by soft footsteps on the roof  as the cat creeps across. I look up to see her peering through the skylight inquisitively, but I am not fast enough with my camera, and she slips away as quickly as she came, on her way to other cat endeavors.

It is a nice morning for mindfulness, for observations, and for experiencing the moment.  It’s easiest with the nice moments, isn’t it? 🙂

I woke in the night, around 1:30 am, although I don’t know what woke me. Maybe nothing.  I woke again, earlier than I cared to on a weekend day, around 6:30 am or so, to what I thought was the sound of laughter, but once awake, the house was quiet.  I lay awake watching fish swim for a little while, then meditating.  It is a very pleasant way to get the day started.

As I contemplate what else I might share, the household begins to awaken, and the real living of my life beckons me enticingly.  It’ll be hard for the day to measure up to the morning, and I know this is one to enjoy, arms wide to embrace the world, eyes open to see the wonders of it, and enough words at the ready to share the experience, later.

Enjoy all the day offers you – or try again tomorrow! I hope you have a wonderful day. 🙂

What delights could the day hold?

What delights could the day hold?

Autumn is coming. I can feel it as my morning routine shifts and changes with approaching colder weather. Funny to say that, the morning after a 90 degree day, but I feel it. I feel a little slower this morning. My bones ache where arthritis has already settled in. I feel stiff and tired, and lingering in the shower, while refreshing, did nothing to improve my range of motion this morning. My head ‘feels foggy’ too, as though my body woke without letting my mind know. My latte tastes wonderful, and feels necessary. The sky is still dark, although I’ve been up now for nearly an hour. So, this morning, a slower start.

I’ve started playing SuperBetter. (Wow, that seems completely off topic, somehow…) I’m not sure what else to say about that. It seemed worth commenting on at the moment I brought it up, but I am still a bit groggy from staying up later than I usually do… and now I don’t recall why I mentioned it. lol. It’s a cool game, though, that brings self-work into the gaming arena.  I’m finding that it makes staying focused on improvement, growth, and change feel fun and rewarding, where so often it can feel a bit isolating and frustrating [for me].

Anyway… another work day. Another day for love, Love, and romance. Another day. By itself, that’s enough most of the time, isn’t it? 🙂

Oh, right… it’s September 11th.  I’m American. I could say something about that, but my opinion, once heard, can’t be unheard – and often my opinion on such matters is less well received than I expect it to be. lol. Why trouble you with it now? We can talk about it tomorrow, or the next day, or perhaps sometimes when it seems harmlessly apropos. Today, pundits will fill the airwaves with their opinions, and some portion of the world will listen, and repeat it as original thought, or nod along as to the beat of music no one else can hear, and everyone will go on with their day satisfied with themselves, and feeling righteous, patriotic, and justified.  I don’t know how much of that is really a good thing… I dislike knee-jerk patriotism. (When people dance like puppets, I’m pretty sure there’s someone pulling the strings.)  Suffice it to say that I don’t find violence as a political solution any more effective, appropriate, or acceptable than it is as a relationship building tool for individuals.

"9-11" 2001

“9-11” 2001

Enough about that. How are you, today?  Do you find that your peers, friends, and loved ones respect you and treat you with consideration, compassion, and affection? Have you found the balance between life and work that fulfills you, and provides you with adequate resources to pursue your passions in life? Do you feel ‘successful’? Did you wake up eager to face a new day, with a smile, or a song in your heart? Were the first words you heard today words of encouragement and love? Are you ‘happy’? Are you content? Is your relationship with yourself more about delight… or criticism? Do you have a plan? Do you have a Plan B?

Sometimes there is real value in slowing myself down for a moment, and letting my brain catch up with the rest of me. The unanswerable questions about you, out there, somewhere else in the world, enjoying the dawn, or sleeping through it, do that for me nicely. Thanks for ‘being there’ for me. 😀  I pose these questions relevant to you, but of course they are also questions to answer about myself, aren’t they? (Nice one, Brain, way to sneak in some quality introspection. lol)

This sort of chaotic mental wandering is what happens when I write before I’m quite awake. lol.  This morning I’ll have a second latte before I head to work, and take a few moments alone, content, and serene as the dawn unfolds.

It’s been a lovely evening after an interesting day.  It’s been a day of ordinary pleasures and extraordinary love.  Good lattes, great conversations with people I love, moments of delight and respect, moments of wonder, moments of excitement, even a moment or two of complicated emotions I don’t really have words for at all.  Now, night has fallen. The household is quiet. Ahead of me, a few moments taking care of me; meditation, yoga, a shower, and some unmeasured time gazing at my aquarium before I sleep.  There is really no need to look back to see what is behind me, not right now. Now is simply…this quiet place, this quiet time.  I am not always this aware of how little assurance there really is of having one such beautiful moment of peace and contentment. I am aware, for now, how unwise it is to count on having this moment – or any one moment – of such specific pleasure.

Still… and it is ‘still’ right now… Still, this moment is this peaceful, and I am content. Quite content. It’s very nice. I’d be happy to feel this way a lot more than I generally do.  I’m here right now, though, and I am enjoying it for what it is, without reservation.

There are so many small delights in this brief moment… the laptop… the MC Frontalot t-shirt… the knowledge  that so many people who matter so much to me are only as far away as this keyboard, and their own. In that sense, we’re almost touching… I hear the rain coming down again, and the cat creeping across the roof… and quiet.

Shhh… Here comes the future…

I’m having an unusually chill morning, without it being overly cheery.  I feel good, comfortable, reasonably balanced and satisfied with the day…only… there’s this undercurrent of…something else. Something sort of… a yearning for… more.

I put what little news I am still inclined to read aside before I got further than headlines, this morning, while I sipped my latte. Really there was no point continuing. I almost immediately felt that I was ‘being set up’ for an argument I didn’t care to have.  I ended it quite efficiently, and rather abruptly, when my consciousness replied with a firm ‘Who says?’ in response to headline after headline. I am clearly in no mood to be pressured by the news makers to think what they want me to think – and since I’ve no reason to be persuaded that the writers of ‘the news’ are any more expert than I am, myself, at reading some small number of purported facts and coming to an ill-informed conclusion, I think I’ll just go with my own. Some small amount of real research regularly reinforces my suspicion that most of ‘the news’ is not at all ‘news worthy’, and in fact is often well-crafted deceit masquerading as information. I’m skipping it today. Why? Because I said so. 😀

The other thing is the mildest taste of impending autumn in the morning air. We still have summer ahead of us, but this morning the temperature wasn’t quite summer, and the smell of watered lawns and dampened leaves hinted at cooler weather in months ahead.  It tends to find me a little nostalgic for things that have been… autumn is generally my ‘favorite season’. So many lovely autumn memories…

…crisp colorful leaves whispering shiff-shiff under my feet as I walk along a the lakeside path, and around through the trees on new route to work…

…a warm dry towel in the arms of a lover, as I arrived home from work on a rainy day…

…unexpected espresso and chocolates after a cold windy walk home on a day when I was feeling cross with the world…

…sleeping in and making love on a stormy November Sunday, listening to the wind howl around the eaves from the safety of my lover’s arms…

…picking out furniture in a new apartment, and the fun of making a home for the holidays happen out of boxes and packing materials…

…sharing tales of past misadventure with a dear friend, and seeing shared experience reflected back from his loving eyes, and laughing with him, or being astonished, as I listen to his tales, words shared between lovers in the security of total trust…

…watching the wind toss the trees from behind a glass patio door, from my lover’s warm embrace, listening to soft words of passion and love, and watching the rain fall, and feeling the irresistible pull of love…

There’s just something about autumn…I’m already yearning for it.  Thinking of love, thinking of romance, thinking of the sorts of day-dreamy wonders and delights that make my heart thump eagerly, wanting more.   I’m not so complicated; I enjoy love, loving, being loved in return.

If only I knew more, better, words to communicate my love… maybe in time for autumn?

...thinking of love, sipping on coffee.

…thinking of love, sipping on coffee.