October 2nd

A chestnut cover already discovered by a hungry and resourceful fella....





The last of the beets from the garden...

The swamp during our walk today...

A lone leaf floating in the reflecting trees of the swamp...

A fitted birch sleeve, awaiting the proper wearer...

And just another beautiful byproduct of Autumn....

The Get Away Moments are Here

Now that Humanling is hauled off the a.m. by the school bus, my fiery beloved and I suddenly realized that we can have those Eight Hour getaways again. A horrible thing for anyone when their boss tells them they had better start taking some days off. After the grieving process of having to listen to the boss, we started right away with yesterday being our first.

After patting my adorable girl on the butt and sending her off to absorb curriculum, we delighted in Eating Out. There is a favorite breakfast place for us in nearby Sherman, CT called American Pie. It started out as quite a chilly morning and the feel of a cozy town restaurant was perfect.




The bakery goods are a delight to view through the case. We did our best to talk ourselves down from the sugar ledge and moved on to our main attraction for the day. The Innis Free Gardens in NY. Honey spent an extra half hour reversing and circling and finally realized that he only needed to keep going straight.

I've got a healthy fear of Port-O-Potties. I've got a more robust fear of Holding It. So once we got there and watered the air freshner smelling plastic containers, we started off on our day of breathing natural art.

This tree below reminded me too much of the Poltergeist tree that takes Robbie out of his bedroom window.

Even more special is just connecting with your honey. We've had our share of problems, but where there is love and commitment, there is strength. When it's good, it's simply can't be topped. When we allow ourselves to engage in a bad moment, we lose who we are meant to be. Yesterday was one of those days to put in the memory bank to pull out and revel in. A wonderful day. We remembered who we really are.

I'm fully aware that I've got nothing to give on what kind of tree this is. But I do so heart trees!!!! I still haven't figured out the root of that but in the meantime, I must have photos to remember them by. They are wise, silent, haunting, spiritual and quite the feast for the visual palette.

It's simply too much to cram all these wonderful photos into one blog post. So consider this a Part One!

Now I'm going to use the remaining few moments of silence to Be before my Curriculum Absorbent Child comes in the door and wears another step in that path called "I'm Hungry".

Although I can’t be home every day enjoying the moment to moment blooming that happens during this magical season, I am grateful that the corporate campus where I work has quite the mini ecosystem. As I leave the building and pass the truck docks, I soon come to a small gathering of pine trees, the majestic holders of their quiet corner. Underneath are pine needles is soft and a deep breath will afford you that earthy dirt smell from these microscopic woods. Further down, past the sections made for stretchers and toners where they keep horizontal bars and wooden stumps, is the opening to the pond walk.

This is where I usually become more alert. As a starving reader who can never have enough time to soak in the words of others in the written form, I taught myself by age 21 to walk and read at the same time. Ok, I realize that this post can very well end up on the Darwinian award pages somewhere on the net, but really, so far, knock on whatever is eco-friendly and handy, I have not tripped and lost my front teeth, my dignity or unintentionally shown my underwear. Nor have I simply tripped. Or walked into walls. There are some clever co-workers who have fun with it and will walk directly toward me, hoping to win that first Noun prize – the first person, place or thing that I ever walk into (besides a bar! Ha ha! Well I AM Irish.) Yes, they are so cute and clever and who can blame them? I’d do it too I suppose. And I realize they are doing nothing more than simply reaching out in their own way to make some sort of contact.
Although walking straight into them full force with a book spine is probably not exactly probably the most pleasant.

I digress.

Whenever I enter Pond Area, my walk becomes the most alive. There are, many times, two of whatever creature is stirring. Two ducks. Two geese. Two turtles basking in the sun. Many tadpoles right now. A handful of birds. But mostly, for me, the presence of a Crow.
I realize that many folks associate the Crow’s appearance as a negative thing. I happen to love black birds of all types, but the crow is one of them that I look at and wonder to myself if I will ever pet one. Yeah, I’m forty and I said I want to pet one.

Usually, I will see only one at the pond. It might not be there at the moment I walk into the area, but then I have fun and say lightly and sing songy, “Black biiiiiiiiird….”. And then Snow White shows up and tries to kick my ass for nature rights.

What really happens is that within 20 or 30 seconds of my being in the area, a crow will show up or show itself somehow. I’ll be close enough to it so that we are aware of each other. Then I’ll say “Hi.”. Plain and simple. “Hi.”

The crow stays a moment and then flies off. I don’t know why I find this amusing, but I do. And it happens every time I talk my walks at work.

Other times there will be a small club’s worth of deer standing around looking all Gangsta. Deer do look Gangsta in case you didn’t know. If there is one of you and eight of them, it’s not very hard.

I usually stop under a Sycamore tree at the pond and sit, cross legged underneath, put my book down and attempt to meditate for a few minutes. I don’t work for Google or Amazon.com so it isn’t some extended yoga session. It’s literally five minutes at the moment but very peaceful. If you’re worried about looking like some kinda DAMN fool while other co-workers are brisk walking and chatting with their work wives/husbands, then I can’t promise that you’ll escape that feeling doing such a thing at work. I usually wait until it is Off Peak time for mine. I eat at my desk while working so that I can enjoy my alone time with whatever author out with Crow, turtles and Deer and the Gang.

The somewhat amusing thing (and it has to be amusing because you can’t take life too seriously when it isn’t warranted) is the Sign of the Dead memorialized near the pond. A metal sign, posted in the ground like a grave marker with a number of metal plates on it. Some of them are inscribed with those who have worked here and passed on. After those are a good number of shiny, unused metal plates, just waiting for someone to come unscrew one, have it engraved, and put it back on.

I wonder to myself if those people retired first. I don’t know why that is a point of any kind, but the thought of them dying before retirement makes me wonder how much they lived.
And that’s the point of squeezing in walk time. That’s what I want to do. I want to read and walk on Off Peak time. I want to have what communication I can with Crow as it swings by and then flies in the opposite direction, like a game of chase when I say “hi.” I want to feel brave (or alive enough to feel plain stupid) for passing a pack of degenerate deer (you can’t prove that they aren’t) on the same side of the path. And I want to look as though I’m waiting for a local and organic apple to fall off a Sycamore tree while I meditate for a splash in time. It’s about living my truth as much as I can…all the while learning what my own truths are and how they change. Because life is impermanent and it is change in every moment. As the saying goes, You never step into the same river twice.

Shades Bueller's Day Off

I took a day off! Pffff...big deal, right? Who doesn't.

Being a single mama though, usually my days are reserved for anything with a hair of Humanling attached to it. I decided a couple of days ago that the Fall of 2008 was not going to pass me by without me being carried along the wind for a day. All alone.

My friends at work asked what I would do. And as I told my friend, Ham (she sits across from me and Humanling actually named her months ago), I am going hiking and to Borders.

So I went out to breakfast and used the outdoor seating, with a view of fading flowers, my hot coffee cup warming my hands. I read, ate and gloriously sipped my coffee. After all, I had all day.
I said I was going hiking. Alone. That meant I had to now. Silly me, a small framed female, hiking alone. But I did it anyway. My intuition has been telling me that I need to be still and sit outside in meditation. And its been saying that for awhile. That's all possible but Humanling hones in on the exact moment that I crave silence and decides to share with me every possible word, letter, thought, dream, Christmas list and bodily function that she can think of. And I'm glad. It's her job. She should be manager by now.

Don't get me wrong, I Double Heart my job as parent. It's the best thing that I do. And even though its for a lifetime, I only get so many untainted moments before friends, boyfriends and gangsters take over and move me to the back of the family portrait. Right now, I am IT. So pass me the relish.

Making tracks. I arrived at the park. I've been going here for over fifteen years. My second failed marriage took place here. Drunk nights of falling asleep on the grass with snacks and a roll of toliet paper nearby may have happened here. Along with a couple of Discovery Channel You and Me Baby Ain't Nothing But Mammals moments.

It's safe then, right? This place knows me enough, right?

So I arrived. Time to crunch through.

This is the kind of day it was - look at the sky. Gorgeous.

Just kidding. That's my backyard.

No it's not.

Then I saw one of these. I hadn't seen this in a LONG time. And ended up seeing four of them.

Who wouldn't turn five in a flash?! I HAD to pet it.

And immediately caused anguish and anxiety and the need to play dead. It curled up and refused to move. Like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, I nearly killed it with my Walmart grade Midas touch.

You can't hike without a good pair of rock gripping hiking boots.

So apparently I will be going shopping to get some. Because I feel like Peg Bundy tottering around in the woods in these. And yes, I have big feet. Size eight.

I got to sit around, near the water....trying to live up to that l'artiste image is tough when you work for The Man. Tilt Head, summon the wind, deep breath......too effing awesome.

Further in is a tree you can lie down on since its tilted down toward the water. Laying on the tree, I took this shot.

Observe....for more than a few moments I put away one of my Top Three fears - a bird crapping on my head - and took a rest while looking up at the view.

Another one of my friends at work, who will need a new filter between her brain and her mouth for her next birthday, exclaimed "Be careful of bears!"

I've never thought about bears in all my years of hiking there.

Until I was deep enough in the woods today. Because surely if they are in her backyard (she just had to fill me in on that), they are on this planet and in these woods that I am alone in. I thought about the chocolate coconut health bar that was recommended to me by the doctor's staff at my naturopath's office yesterday. I had one on me. I started thinking what I would do if I saw a bear. In desperation throw a health food bar at it. Which it would swallow while chasing me.

I couldn't stop thinking about this bear that would be around the next corner. The Law of Attraction heard me. It heard the gears starting to turn. And responded with a warning. Keep thinking about it and the next thing Will be a bear.

I don't know if you can see it but I am smushing his head with my fingers. And I am not dragging a body on the right side - that's my Trader Joe's bag filled with one dangerous to bears health food bar and five books.

Speaking of not seeing the forest for the trees....I then didn't see the forest OR the trees because I was busy running like prey past the snake and for about a full minute beyond....all while checking the ground for more snakes hidden under leaves, and bears that were going to hop down from the pine trees and maul me.

In fact, by the time I got to my car, I was convinced that a bear would be sitting in the backseat and would strangle me with a non poisonous snake. The irony, dying from a non poisonous snake.

From there it was on to Borders to just sit with another cup of hot coffee with a dash of hazelnut, vanilla powder, cinnamon & cream. And five library books. And a whole section of manga.

For three hours.

Today was perfect. When I wasn't in fear of bears, snakes or my own judgement call for being deep in the woods.

Mean Girls - The Disney Princess Version

Imagine the expression on its face AFTER Humanling pounded it with a sharp rock, slammed it against bigger rocks, stomped on it with her shiny pink boots and then tossed it without a thought into the swamp amongst the cattails.