FALL HAS BEGUN

I love the fall - I love the need for socks and a sweater and a blanket in the evening. I love the fall harvests of apples and squash and sooo many tomatoes that must be eaten right away. I love September being about learning and school and always wanting a new pair of shoes to get the year started properly.

We have been through so much in 2020 already. And I keep thinking, we just need to make it through November and then I adjust that to January 2021 and then I realize that I've been adjusting for a number of months now, wow, a lot of months. And I'm learning where I adjust easily and where I don't. And often when overwhelmed, I will lay down in the middle of my living room floor and ask for help in dispelling a dark and bottomless moment. Owning it as fully as I can and realizing, eventually, well, yep, here I am. And it is the simple things that bring me back and get me up off the floor. To the present moment. To now. Not a few months or years from now or what was. But now.

The people I know and love, they get me back and up. The work we're all doing. There are so many good and smart and brave people in this world. And hope. Even when it can be hard to find, I realize it can still be found. Because hope is simple like that. It's a breath. It's a step. It's a laugh. A good cry. It's wrapping a package. Smelling fresh laundry. Drinking a cup of coffee outside on a bench. Listening to music. Dancing. Taking a nap. Saying good night to the world and whispering a fervent "rest well and be safe, I love you".

So thank you, all of you, for the sparks and stretch in my heart and the balance in a world that can seem anything but.

And as we move into fall:

Let's keep our necks warm with luxuriously soft scarves.

Bake apples and roast vegetables.

And breathe, exercising our amazing lungs - 5 counts in, 5 count hold and 5 counts exhaling - allowing for all that tenderness and strength we have.

Sending a sky full of autumn love,

Cindy