This past week has seen that subtle but wonderful shift in the light, the feel of the air on my face and the colors all around me that signifies the autumnal equinox has actually occurred. Today on the way home from church we noticed a tree beginning to change color. It is so incredible to me that the world works so perfectly. It is to me an evidence that there actually is an organization to all this. It just can't be random. As I sat at Evan's soccer practice on Tuesday after my run, the sky danced through the most beautiful sunset I've seen in a while. This picture shows the last faded vestiges of the incredible blaze of glory that I saw about 10 minutes earlier. Imagine this view except in living breathing pink, purple and orange pulsating across the entire sky in waves like liquid fire. More evidence that I simply should NOT go anywhere without a camera.

The equinox also is a signal to me that things really are settling down from the wild, wonderful abandon of summer. It is time to pull in a little, focus inward a bit and get ready for the total introspection and rest of winter. I love the rythmn of the seasons, can you tell?

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New York, New York

I wanna be a part of it-New York, New Yo-ork...Bah bah badada, bah bah badada, bah bah badada dum...
This past weekend, my dear friend Guinevere put together a sort of reunion weekend so that all her good friends who had never met could finally meet. So, it was not a re-union, it was a union. I guess. Anyway, it was delightful. I had met Jane, who used to be G's roomate and also finally got to meet Krissy, whose name I have known for many years. It was so nice to put names with faces and enjoy the fact that when you have a friend in common, it is a very good chance you will become friends yourselves. K and I hit it off and I hope I will be able to stay in touch with her. Jane is lovely and actually remembered me even though I think we've only met once. Guinevere and I haven't had the chance to spend that much time together in a while, so that was special.
New York was Fab! in two days I ate myself around the world at La Bottega (Italian brunch to die for), Le Pere Penard (wonderful down-to-earth French), HSF in Chinatown (Dim Sum-if you've never "done" dim sum, try it out), MarieBelle for Iced Hot Chocolate (mine had cardamom in it-and I thought chocolate really couldn't get any better) and then finally a little Vietnamese place in Chinatown (chicken curry that was so, so good). It was so much fun to drive around NY with natives who knew all the non-touristy places to go and could drive around without ever once looking at a map. We did try to get into Serendiptity, the famous dessert spot (check out the movie of the same name with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale-it is a cute love story), but it was crammed and our native guides were not interested in waiting 2 hours for a table. We concurred, so I bought the recipe book so I can try some of their more famous dishes. We did not get to see the temple or ground zero or anything really famous, but as I said, I liked walking around just feeling the vibe. We did go see Spamalot which was laugh-out-loud funny. We also got to see Lenny Kravitz's actual recording studio because K's hubby Dave is part of Lenny's production team. Way cool.

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Seminary and the computer lives!

Well, seminary is off to a pretty good start. I have 20 attending regularly. Brent tried for a couple of days then gave up. That broke my heart a little, but he may let me work with him on a home-study basis. That would be a good thing. The other good news is that my computer has come back to life. The geniuses at the Apple Genius Bar backed it up for me and saved most everything. Then I (gulp) wiped the hard drive clean and started from scratch. I have had to spend a lot of time rebuilding things. The worst thing I lost was my music library from itunes. I did NOT lose the music, just the database overlay. So, definitely not the end of the world, but it has been a little arduous reconstructing all my playlists. I started a new playlist while I was working in Itunes. It is for Jeff Lowry for him to listen to while he undergoes treatment for his cancer. He is so dear to me and I was so touched by the mix my pal Corinne gave me that I thought I'd try to pass that same feeling on to Jeff. Off to finish my lesson...4:30 comes early.

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Waxing Poetic for My 40th Birthday

Sunshine on My Shoulders
So, my other blog is supposed to be all about knitting and I felt conflicted when I would want to just write. So, here I will just write. I will post my poems, my photos that have nothing to do with knitting and maybe I'll relax and do a better job at updating and enjoying my blog. The name comes from the song by John Denver that still makes me feel warm and safe and happy. It was part of the soundtrack of my childhood and hearing it gives me a physical sensation of everything being all right. As I strive to be an optimist in spite of my perfectionistic, negative, uptight tendencies, this will help remind me. My 40th birthday was last Wednesday the 23rd, and it passed me by quietly and gently. I worked on my personal history, wrote letters to my kids, and made a musical retrospective of my life. That was fun. The next night I had a party for my other 40is girlfriends, most of whom I've known for the majority of my married life, or at least since we've lived here. It was a quiet party with chatting about real life with real women that I love. It was the perfect way to celebrate being 40.

Significance

today. a milestone
many call significant.
is it the sign I have arrived
somewhere?
finished something?
or is it just a single grain of time
from among inummerable sands-
no more precious
than any other?
I would sing about
ordinary days
gotten through with
ordinary grace
and not mark time
as though i am only
waiting.
I was already somewhere
yesterday,
and today I am here.
tomorrow's
significance will happen simply
because I will be there.

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Book Review: Everyone is Beautiful

Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center
I read the Kindle Version
Genre: Fiction
You might like this book: If you enjoy stories about motherhood, womanhood, and marriage, or if you are interested in reconsidering the idea of beauty in society today.

This book went on my list after a trusted friend and bookblogger Morninglight Mama told about her experience reading it.  I usually like what she likes so I bought it for my Kindle in like, March.  Today, in that lull after Christmas, with nothing really tangible on my to-do list, I stayed in my PJ's all day and read it. Uff. It was a gloriously interactive experience. As Morninglight Mama opined, this may be the most accurate book ever written about the day to day demands of motherhood and how women start to see themselves in terms of the people and circumstances around them. This is the story of how a woman named Lanie changes her life, but not in the way she first set out to do. Her arc is about self discovery, yes, but more importantly, she re-learns to see outside the tiny world that her children's needs have drawn around her.  I have experienced the odd kind of selfishness that somehow coexists with the utter unselfishness of motherhood. We draw into ourselves and become needy for attention, for tangible evidence of hard work. It is hard on marriages and on all the other people around us. Lanie's story teaches the importance of finding a way to take care of the core of ourselves. This story reminds me that it is okay, even important for a devoted and fully focused mother to have a piece of the world that is all her own. Woven in among that message are others, just as compelling, about the beauty of everyday people; the special comfort of marriage, even in its persistent unglamourousness; and the fact that what we have is usually way better than what we think we want.

I'm so glad I read it.  It gave me the same kind of warm feeling about my life and the state of the world as watching the beginning and end of Love, Actually. I just want to go and hug all the ordinary, beautiful people out there.

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