September

September rollllllls across the hills now, a soft, gray, foggy blanket that covers our valley and makes me forget there is a vista just at the top of the hill.  Even if it also has a big ugly house up there.

The kiddos are in school full swing now, and have each had a sick day already.  Any time  Big Man needs a nap... twice in one week... well, he's sick!  Babies and children, toddlers and grownups, have all had boogery noses and coughing fits, but it seems to finally be evening out... like a hilly horizon settling into the plains.

N is running around today, happy to be home, after her first "full" day at school (she stayed for the afternoon this week at preschool, and rode on home with big sister on the bus at the end of the day), wearing hand-me-down Santa dress, pink and brown striped cloth tights, and dragging the old wooden sword... YEP, that sword that's been around since Aidan was three... as she walks out into the cool, cool September air.  Every walk we tried to take today was thwarted by the rain, and finally I gave up, packed the babies into the car and drove sllllllllowlllllly  down Dugar Brook Rd, used a snack as an excuse for a destination at the Maple Corner Store, and wound my back again.  Babies asleep,  we left them to their dreams, and headed off to the couch to read library books... funny stories about Mountains of Quilt and Rosemary Wells illustrated nursery rhymes.

As the sun and clouds play peekaboo over our little world, and the weather wreaks havoc on my sleep (too warm to really have the heat on, too cool to sleep real well without a million layers), I find time to think about happiness and joy and beauty and perfection and sadness and grief and love.

All at once?  What are ya, crazy?

Well, no... maybe... I just... just... just find the world so breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, and my evolutionary need to hunker down and find spirit rest bubble to the surface, much like I did in a cold swim a few days ago... in my little local pond, which is only Mirror Lake to me when it is fall and still and quiet and the summer people have all gone home.

Here, in this time of year, in the harvest season, in the reap-what-you-sow moments, I find perfection and peace.  It manifests in little ways: the dance of my big girl across the upper floor of the skeletal barn as she laughs and glories in her body, the wind, the music in her mind; my big boy gathering supplies for his next creative endeavor, scavenging and deftly slipping under the radar as he collects and hordes, a magpie in disguise who displays like a bower bird in the end; Little Miss N running past with her overalls and mudboots on as she chases butterflies and then runs to help Daddy hold the measuring tape; Milo man grinning at me as he bounces up and down, so proud of his new standing skill, and saying "th th theee", his tiny tongue held against those barely visible new top teeth, a new sound possible as a result of the horrifying pain (amongst other symptoms) of teething.  Colin whistling as he works, the barn slowly taking shape from an idea in our heads.

Of course, in this time we also tend to look back, to see the beauty in yesterday.  That's the time when we see only what we could have done better, what we would have done, if we only knew then what we knew now... the regret of what we have yet to accomplish, the depth of the sadness over our losses.  Here is the time I remember the last time I hugged a grandfather or grandmother, the soft sadness of the loss of a dream, the regret over the pains caused others.

I heal these wounds through a walk pushing the stroller, a cuddle of a child in the middle of the night, a nice word softly spoken about those I once injured, a memory shared, and dinner on the table (an art of love, a painting of my soul, a dream of a life I know not)... and in those moments find a quiet breeze lifting my soul, my heart opening to the new, the beyond, wrapped in the beautiful gift of right now.  Here.