October 2007

I was pulled away from my website design and the news of the California wildfires, to take our dogs out to the fields before bedtime. Usually it is my husband’s task, but as he was working late, it was me who went to the droughty, dusty field and the large, starry sky. I was feeling a bit grumpy at first, to have to leave my work, put my boots on….but was soon just overwhelmed with thankfulness to be out in the dry, yes, but not-on-fire fields….looking back at the lights of home. And everything fell into place, as sometimes happily happens.

Difficulties forgotten, with the moon and the sweet night air for company, I had the answer to the question I had been pondering of what the central idea of my 2008 calendar should be. The calendar I make is one of my favorite creations, and I always want the words and images to be especially satisfying….as I and all the other women who buy one will be seeing and using it every day. I hadn’t been able to decide if the theme should be nature or the work of women or books or….what? But under the stars, I knew it should be about Home….in a domestic sense, as the vessel for many of our dreams, our creativity, our comforts….and in the larger sense of the Earth as our abode-with all its beauties and gifts.

And now the rain we have been waiting for months to arrive has come, as I hope relief will come to those who need it in California. And I am inspired to get back to making my new website lovely and begin gathering illustrations for A Calendar of Ones Own…and even cheerfully (don’t laugh-beloved man-when you read this…I am trying!) taking the dogs out yet again.

*the leaf photograph was taken last Autumn, when the fields were green*

The November issue of Romantic Homes finally arrived in Virginia! I was rewarded with finding it at the bookstore, after finishing up all the tax work with my accountant on Thursday. When I brought the four copies I found on the shelf to the cashier, she was curious that I was buying four copies and I joyfully told her that my work was featured inside. I really believe she jumped up and down-she definitely squealed-and asked me to show her. I regretfully told her that I was saving the “first look” to share with my husband whom I was about to meet because he had a short break from work.

We had a sweet, exciting time taking a first peek at the beautiful photos in the Thanksgiving spread and reading the captions and “where to find” information. And I shared the same little bits with my sons when we had the family together around the table for the first time in awhile for a yummy-blueberry pancake-and-veggie sausage-brunch Friday morning.

This week since I have been home from the amazing Green Festival has been a blur of putting away after a show, tidying the house, preparing our taxes, working on my new website (lots of glitches there, so it will be a bit longer before I can unveil), searching for enough warm clothes and covers to get us through the newly cool weather, getting myself and the kids to the places we needed to be, etc……I have been grateful for the occasional quiet and cosy moments we have enjoyed….around this table, around the first fire of the Autumn.

And I am looking forward to a few solitary, quiet moments when I am at my mother’s house for a day alone to work on the website, before I pick her up from the airport. I expect to read Romantic Homes cover-to-cover then, and begin to relax into the allure of Autumn. It has all been rush, rush, rush up to now….and I need to remember how to pace myself again. There will always be too much to do, but if I can find the balance of doing enough of what needs to be done (the prosaic tasks) to make our little world peaceful and cheerful enough to allow the Poetry of life to enter, then all will be well.

Tho’ this photo is a bit blurry, I really like it for its sense of tranquillity. We managed to gather and enjoy the good food, each other’s company, the oh-so-temporary beauty and order….

and this photo, with its remnants of that accomplishment, makes me look forward to managing it again….soon.