Deep October

 So, October's a bit warm right now. We sat on the patio at the local steakhouse for dinner last night and it was only a tiny bit cold in my shirt sleeves. Even when the cold front comes in Thursday, our highs are going to be in the seventies.

Even though the days are gloriously warm even as the leaves turn, I strangely look forward to the snap in the air, the frost, the chill rain under black skies.  Especially the rain. 

I had a cloak, a heavy and billowy thing of burgundy tweed with a lining of velour. There was nothing better than that for an autumn evening, especially if it was misting. The cloak had a bonnet hood with it to keep off the rain. I still have the cloak, but it desperately needs cleaning from hanging on a basement rack and there's rips in the lining. And I feel a little self-conscious wearing it now, to be honest. It's a quite spectacular cloak.

I look forward to the withered grasses, the brown, sere roadsides, the grey skies. I await the chill evenings, the dreary rainstorms, the crisp orange and brown mornings, the touch of frost. Summer has been with us too long.

Day 35 Lenten Meditation: Rain

I could use a good spring rain right now. A real gullywasher, where there's no question of going out in it unless one wants to get drenched. And then I would go out into that rain and feel it drench me to my skin. 

There is something purifying about standing in a torrential shower. From the skin to the soul, rain washes away all the dirt of the day. It chills my skin, reminding me that I am alive. 

I was born for autumn

I'm feeling in the mood for autumn. Meterological fall started August 31, but it hasn't felt like fall lately given the 85+ degree weather, and astronomical fall won't be for a couple more days.

Today, it's raining outside, which puts me more in mind of fall. I like fall best because it is a season of introspection, of putting away the revelry of summer and taking stock of how many leaves I've seen fall in my life. The crisp mornings with scarlet and orange maple against the clear blue sky recall perfect moments, while the dark, icy rain reminds me of past travails.

I was born in autumn, born for autumn. It suits my dramatic side, the part of me who wants a black cape to walk through the whispering leaves. It suits the writer in me who wants to write of the dark corners of the psyche. 

I will welcome autumn with a cup of cider or a glass of brandy, toasting the harvest and the darkening nights.

Every which way

I'm sitting on my couch, before the day's meetings and errands and editing (and no gardening as we're on a flood warning with rain expected. My mind is going every which way:

•  So much to do these next couple days -- meet students, prep for conference, plant stuff, write, prep for conference ...

 

• I am in a holding pattern for Making Things Happen. I don't want to requery Prodigies until my dev editor has another shot at it (in June), I don't know if I want to requery (this is now a word) Voyageurs at all (don't know if it's viable), can't get re-written Apocalypse to the dev editor till June ... when I send queries out, I get out of my funk because of this concept of possibility. I'm not really looking at any possibilities right now except for one big long shot.

 

• I think I'm going to be rejected by TSA precheck. I don't know why, unless it was those anti-war protests I participated in during the Gulf War or the guy I dated, equally long ago, whose father was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Or the fact that I'm a Quaker, or that I have a metal bar in my left leg that guarantees I'll be patted down like a terrorist.  The website says "Eligibility Determined" but does not give me a code number. 

 

• I'm pretty sure my last query out is going to be rejected. As I said, I shot big with that one.

 

• I'm not feeling good about my writing lately. I hear this happens.

 

• It's just feeling like an unlucky day. My mood needs to be kicked in the butt, I'm sure, but not sure how to do that. The problem with feeling down is that feelings are so vivid that they take on the weight of truth.

Rain, I love you -- now go away.

I love rain -- except for today. Today I don't like it so much.

I have so much left to do in my garden. Richard needs to rototill beds for the Three Sisters experiment (Jerusalem artichoke, squash, bean) and the moon garden (the exotic and toxic corner of my edible landscaping). I have to plant several raised beds with Chinese vegetables, weedy greens, nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, NOT deadly nightshade), and root veggies. 

I can do most of the planting tomorrow afternoon if I need to, except for those new beds. If we can't get to those today, we might be another week in the works.

Yes, I know it's stupid to expect the weather to cooperate. But, like most humans, I do. 

I guess it's time for Plan B. Writing.

More Rain

I am blessed, sitting in a small, knotty pine cabin in front of a fireplace while the thunder booms outside. What a delicious writing retreat. Oh, and there's coffee. 

If I could do this every day, it wouldn't be a retreat, would it? No, this is special time. This is a change of scenery that hopefully will let me see my writing develop. The goal for today is to finish the massive rewrite of the first third of the book. That's no more than 3000 words in my estimation, but it's a thoughtful three k.  

Time for me to quit staring at the fire and start writing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Rain

I sit in my favorite Maryville coffeehouse, the Board Game Cafe, and watch the rain outside. 

I love rain. I love gloomy skies and the hiss of car tires on the pavement. I love gentle rain misting the garden. I love watching gullywashers as the torrent of raindrops sheet across the street. I love the patter of the raindrops on the metal garage roof and the boom of the thunderclaps. I love the feeling of resignation I get when I'm so drenched there's no use in dodging the raindrops anymore and I love the warmth of the indoors.

Rain reminds us that we don't have total control of our lives, and that's a welcome realization to me. We plan, and then we miss something, like what to do when the picnic is rained out, or whether we packed an umbrella in the car. Not only do we not have to be perfect, but we can't be perfect, because we can't predict everything. 

Like, for example, the rain.

 

Writing about the moment.

Good morning, dear friends!

I feel like I'm fresh out of ideas today. I just got another rejection email, it's freezing rain out there and I still have to go to work, and I'm wearing one of those technological reminders of mortality around my neck -- a Holter monitor. (Don't worry about that last point -- we've already found the problem with the little pitty-pat-cha-cha of my heartbeat, and it's easily fixable with a med tweak. They're just making sure that's all there is.)

It's a good day to be down. Not depressed, just down. The desire to wrap myself in the coccoon of my blankets (rather than throw my clothes on over the monitor, put on makeup, and trudge down and up a flight of stairs with my computer backpack) is almost overwhelming. Almost. After all, life is out there, not under my blankets, and the adult thing to do is make the best of it.

Girly-Girl is sitting on the arm of the couch next to me, purring. She's my editor.

My editor is falling asleep on the job.

It's definitely dark (and rainy) out here at 7:30 AM. I've had a Messenger chat with my favorite nature interpreter about aquascape and pond design. The rain hits the window like buckshot. I discuss the sorry state of American politics with Richard.

I check the seedlings downstairs in my grow room -- the only evidence that there will someday be spring. The tomatoes and peppers and eggplant stretch and grow in their bigger fiber pots; the perilla seedlings perk up, the first of the miner's lettuce seems to be sprouting.

Someday there will be spring. Someday I will find an agent, someday I will feel healthy enough to work out, someday I will accept aging gracefully.

But for now, I sit in a warm room lit by the glow of candles, next to my cat. I can live with that.

Rain.

Rain reminds us that we don't have perfect control of life.

We make our plans -- baseball games, picnics, outdoor weddings -- and then it rains, forcing us to scramble and come up with a Plan B. The lawn doesn't get mowed, we walk to other buildings hefting umbrellas and wearing raincoats or even garbage bag ponchos. We curse life's uncertainties.

I feel most alive during uncertainties. Uncertainties bring change -- sometimes good, sometimes bad. Uncertainties call out my best self. They call for my bravery, my need to connect with my friends for support, my ingenuity, my speaking truth to power. 

I have always faced uncertainty head-on. I call myself a child of the storm, because I take my righteous anger, my ethics and morals, my frustration, and fashion them into an arrow to shoot into the eye of the storm. This is part of the reason I write -- my stories are arrows to shoot with the hope that they will hit their targets -- the banal evils of our world.

Rain, gentle rain, is a reminder that the storm doesn't always come with its thunder and lightning and high winds, or as an assurance that the maelstrom has passed. 

Rain reminds us that we don't have perfect control of life.

*************

On Monday, I had a suspicious mole removed from my arm. This isn't unusual -- as I have more than fifty moles on my body, I am at higher risk for melanoma than most people. This is the fourth mole, however, and the other three were benign, so chances are this one is also. But it is uncertainty right now. Don't worry; I handle uncertainty well. I am, after all, a child of the storm.