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And so we go back to real life. The past two weeks have been such a lovely break from regular life – with vacation and time alone, etc. And this morning I woke up, put on the fall clothes (close-toed shoes, black patent, etc) and headed back to work.

“Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” was talking about all the ways in which plants and animals use day length to drive major decisions: not just hibernation, but mating, and blooming, and sprouting, and birthing. It is deeply rooted, this instinctive reaction we all have to the waning length of days. We come honestly by the vague gloom that earlier evenings brings upon us.

The trees on the drive down were more mottled with red than they were two weeks ago, and the sky had that saturated, intense blue that I associate with early September. The light feels somewhat elegiac too but I think that is probably in my mind.

“I will try to give thanks for gifts strangely, beautifully, painfully wrapped.” – Rebecca Wells

“We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It’s a messy business, life. It’s hard to figure – full of surprises. Some good. Some bad.” – Henry Bromel

“I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can’t read any poetry.” – Randall Jarell

“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.” – William Blake

“If you listened hard enough the first time, you might have heard what I meant to say.” – Anonymous

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.” – Barry Lopez

Sunrise. This seems apt as we enter the season of new beginnings, fall. I linked to Catherine Newman’s back-to-school blog last year, and quoted her expression of this season’s “happy-sad feeling.” I am feeling that again now.
New beginnings, new patterns, new commitments and a sense of purpose. But also a sad goodbye to the freewheeling summer where all seems possible. Nothing to do here but try to embrace the good, because as we know the crank of time moves inexorably forward.
As Lacy said, appropriately, in a recent email: Onward.

‘I pretended to be somebody until I became that person. Or she became me. In the end, a woman turns into who she thinks she is, however large or small. It is the reason why certain people are prone to colds or catastrophe. And why others can dance on water.’

One of my favorite stories is of a long, delayed flight from Chicago where I read six magazines. I believe they were: Vogue, US Weekly, BusinessWeek, Yoga Journal, Parenting, and Cooking Light. The person sitting next to me asked me, at the conclusion of the flight, if I suffered from multiple personality disorder.

I do read an awfully long list of magazines each month (a couple are weekly). I’ve never listed them. Here I go:

Cookie
Parenting
Food & Wine
Vogue
Parents
Redbook
Elle
Harpers Bazaar
W
Town & Country
BusinessWeek
Cooking Light
Fortune
The Economist
Self
Real Simple
Bon Appetit
Blueprint
Allure
Domino
Everyday Food
Boston
Body & Soul
Rachael Ray
US Weekly
Yoga Journal
Vanity Fair