that's mrs. mediocrity to you

This was my view last Saturday. The tiny slice of lake we could see through the trees from our cabin, covered in a fabulous morning mist. It was one of the best fall-weather days we’ve ever had in the mountains.

Today I am back in my studio, the view ever-familiar, monkshood, hydrangea, and anemone still competing for attention. There is still green to be seen, though browns and grey have begun their slow creep across the landscape. A confused bachelor’s button has sprung up recently and begun to bloom, just below my window.

Last night, the Hunter’s Moon. Huge and round and refusing to be shadowed by earth. Black sky and golden light, twinkling stars and crisp air that smells of autumn. Every time I walk outside I find myself drawing in a huge breath, trying to capture the scent of another season.

Trying, perhaps, to capture all this color, and hold it deep inside so that I might pull out its memory in the grey months ahead. This was all Mother Nature’s idea, you know, to paint the landscape with extra vibrancy in autumn so that we might have that extra quilt to pull up around our shoulders when Old Man Winter comes to stay.

Also last night, the first indoor fire of the season. Books and knitting and wool socks and this ceiling that hems me in just a bit too much.

But I have a good imagination and if I close my eyes, I can always find Orion, waving down at my gypsy spirit.

Holding a place for me outside, beneath my favorite sky.

I’m off my game lately. Fighting off some sort of illness, complete with dizziness and vertigo, while also trying to function enough to get my work done. My routines are all off, my habits have been altered, my energy is low.

I remind myself, again and again, that this will pass.

Five minutes after this glorious sunset, the sky was dark. Twelve hours later, it was light again. Sunrise, sunset. And back again.

I was still in my studio working when my husband called me out to see the view last night. Perhaps he knew that I needed a break, (and a photo for today’s post). My dog sat in the front yard as I took pictures of the sky, probably wondering why.

Sometimes life is a struggle. A beautiful, messy, blazing struggle.

It’s a good thing we have glorious sunsets to distract us, remind us, soothe us.

The air outside smells of autumn. Gaggles of geese are making their way to warmer places.

Even when I feel like I am standing still, the world moves on around me. At least I am getting lots of reading time.

It seems October’s clouds have a golden lining.

.

and i am basking in her glow.

.

.

Ripe with possibility.

.

Last night I went to buy groceries, even though I didn’t really have time to stop and buy groceries, but you know, a girl’s gotta eat. It had been a day at the races, a day with my nose to the grindstone, getting stuff done, meeting deadlines, time running out.

That kind of day.

That kind of week.

When I got home and opened the car door, I was blasted by the sound of hundreds of blackbirds in the tree at the end of the driveway.

I could barely see them, they managed to blend in quite well with the leaves on the tree, but I couldn’t possibly miss their raucous party sounds.

And so, I stopped rushing.

I listened.

And I smiled.

After a few moments of standing there, grinning like a fool, I closed the car door and they all flew from the tree out front to the tree out back. By the time I carried all the groceries in and my camera back out, they were moving on down the road.

But it was enough, that little reminder. It’s a big, big sky…

Slow down.

Pay attention.

Smile.

i hold this day like a jewel in my palm
knowing soon enough
my gypsy soul will be trapped inside
with fire

this morning there was rain
pulling moisture from the air
in a long grey exhale

everything is damp

and i sit here weaving
magenta colored bracelets

while you dance above my head
with your promise

kiss me over the garden gate

i would, if i could reach
the beauty in your title

instead i sit at your feet
and water you with gratitude

the sky feeds me
and i am always hungry

you know this and still,

you bend slowly
touch your lips to mine

somewhere high above
i see a cloud
shaped like winter

the cat drops a cardinal
at my feet

forcing me to remove it
or watch him eat

all the while
in my arms

i carry
your bouquet

.

.

.

.

Linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night – join us

p.s. the flower in the photo really is named kiss me over the garden gate

It’s a good year for the spiders. Actually, it’s a good year for all the insects, I’m fairly certain that ants and snails will be in charge of everything fairly soon. (Perhaps they already are). But there are also fireflies and dragonflies and damselflies and butterflies.

In general, I don’t spray anything in my garden, so I’ve learned to coexist with the pretty bugs and the ugly ones, the chewed up leaves and the ruined buds. I admit to using natural methods to try and control the ant hills in my flower beds, and there have been some attacks on wasps, because well, they’re wasps.

The birds are quite happy with the assortment of delectables, and the insects that eat other insects, well, they are my friends. So, yes, spiders are my friends. Praying Mantis are my friends. Ladybugs are my friends. Toads and frogs, though unrelated, are also my friends. Japanese Beetles, no matter how much they dress themselves up all pretty, are the enemy. Flies drive me insane.

So I will take an ugly old spider any old day. I never kill them, even when I find them inside (which is fairly often). Mostly, I just let them be, unless there is someone particularly squeamish around, and then I take them outside.

There’s something magical about a spider’s web. Something magical about watching one spin down from the ceiling on an almost invisible thread.

Of course, I’m quite certain I wouldn’t feel that way if I were a fly.

And when it happens right over my head as I lay in bed reading, well, okay, I admit, that’s a little creepy.

But yesterday was that kind of day.

(And no, I didn’t kill it.)

i need
no other canvas

no brush
but these birds

no paint
but this light

no mood
but these stars

space
to sit beneath

quiet
simple

exposed
and not afraid

rain down
upon this face

silence
i drink you

in

My favorite scrabble move of all time was making the word ethereal from the existing word on the board, there.

There is in ethereal, always. And we are always there. Which is the same as here. There, and everywhere.

Or something like that.

Life has kept me very busy lately, and I am missing my writing time, my garden time, my reading time. But it’s okay, because in a small sense I am always there, in one of those places.

At least in my mind, my heart, my dreams.

So there.

each frond