Goodbye Summer

blueberry picking
rock climbing
driving alongside the Clearwater River
hiking Hyalite Peak
walking to Dora's for burritos
watching the sunset
lightning storms over wheat fields
chickpea harvest dust
Pike's Peak runs
iced coffee from the Patisserie
night hiking, my denim romper
picking up Kia from the airport in Pasco
suntime on the beloved Maasai blanket
driving cross-country with K
the Wind River Canyon
the Bighorns & Tetons & Black Hills
swimming in the St Croix River
cooking up a storm for my man
Friday night dinners (may they continue) and fasting
my new deck!
Eagle Cap backpack weekend
walking everywhere
time in W2 to rest & find rhythm again
being neighbors with C
salsa night at Castillo
going to Life together on Sundays
time with friends in Montana & up north
J visiting
hiking Cutthroat Pass to the PCT
kayaking
raspberry picking
huckleberry picking
trail maintence on Lick Creek Trail
hiking Umatilla Rim
reading so much
the Tiger Tri
celebrating the Solstice with C, D, & T
Farmers Market...

One Thousand Gifts / Ann Voskamp

''Daily discipline is the door to full freedom, and the discipline to count to one thousand gave way to the freedom of wonder and I can't imagine not staying awake to God in the moment, the joy in the now. But awakening to joy awakens to pain.

Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living. Pages of the gratitude journal fill endlessly. Yet I know it in the vein and the visceral: life is loss. Every day, the gnawing...

What will I lose? Health? Comfort? Hope? Eventually, I am guaranteed to lose every earthly thing I have ever possessed.

When will I lose? Today? In a few weeks? How much time have I got before the next loss?

Who will I lose? And that's definite. I will lose every single person I have ever loved. Either abruptly or eventually. All human relationships end in loss. Am I prepared for that?

Every step I take forward in my life is a loss of something in my life and I live the waiting: How and of what will I be emptied today?''

Happy Equinox!

We've come to Mabon again, the first day of fall, with about 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Do something to mourn the passing of summer and celebrate the new season, re-balancing, and harvest. I've been baking morning glory muffins and running in the last warm September rays.

So I took her by the arm, we settled down upon a farm,
and raised our children up as gently as you please

indian summer

We hiked as the sun went down:
the twilight was simple, pines silhouetting against dusk
the darkness came quietly, unobtrusively.

On the way down to the cave, the trail,
or rather, the overgrown bush and branches we crept through,
grew quite steep, and we slid,
our footsteps releasing small avalanches of rock and earth.

The mouth of the cave wasn't large;
planks connecting the outside with the deepness,
water lay beneathe.
(Much less in September than in July, David said.
It's been a long summer.)

I felt spaciousness and caverns,
but where light shone there were walls where I expected rooms,
openings where I expected rock.

We climbed one small chute beside a packrat,
rose to a cavern with distant ventilation hole,
found three bats flying.
All the timber-rat nests had me a bit on edge,
and I squatted, smiling, but shaky,
feeling the eerieness of dynamite holes and darkness.

The walk home, in deep night, took longer (we being slightly lost),
but we kept on, found that hillside field,
followed it to cabin-light.

Well now, the first day of autumn has arrived
but it is still 95 glorious degrees Fahrenheit.

The soccer season ended last night,
and I have said my goodbyes [to my team, to that boy]
and even [one very important] hello [oldest sister-friend].

and I will hold out my arms and welcome Fall,
I will gently let Summer go.