WALKING MY DOG SAL

CHINESE LANTERNS ADD FALL COLOR IN MY COMPLEX

I sit here in the dark of the morning listening for the crows and ravens to begin their noisy flights between the conifers outside my window. The ravens in particular interest me with their thick beaks and grand stature.

The complex where I now live, called the Meadows, is slowly waking up to this Friday morn. Everyone with their own personal agenda. I have found that this small complex contains an ethnic mix that results in several different languages being spoken. I hear them off in the distance as I begin my walk with my dog Sal on this overcast morning. But as I pass them we seem to have one language in common -- a smile.

I contemplate my day as I walk back to my apartment. I know that if I watch the news on my computer this morning I will again witness the mess in Washington. Here in this little place where I now live, far from Washington, with people of different languages, we all seem to get along with just a smile or two.

Is my thinking simplistic? Probably. But come on -- lets get the show on the road in our government -- you know a few smiles would not hurt anyone and might even get the ball rolling again.

HOLIDAY THOUGHTS AND NATURE

Early this morning I could see the dark clouds in the far distant south. A sign of a rainstorm? As I now do my morning exercises on my small back deck,  I figured I had better wait on breakfast. 

I quickly stepped outside, then just as quickly turned around and came right back inside to grab my camera. Now I was not only putting my breakfast off but my exercises too.

Outside was a beautiful sky that fitted my mood. The night moon still hung in the early morning sky. Back lit colors of pink were moving with dark threatening blues. 

My thoughts had been pensive when I awoke this morning. Perhaps the holidays makes us reflect on family, those that are still with us and those that have passed.

Yet nature can play such a calming role

And as if there was an understanding between myself and the sky a lone large cloud appeared on the horizon bursting with light.  I put my camera down, sat down in a deck chair and watched the almost white cloud move across my western horizon. I needed it this morning as a companion to settle my thoughts.

MORNING BREAKING

Morning breaks soft in the fall. Chilly air contrasts with the white fire of the sun as it floods through my woods. I sit at my old work table in solitude and think about the new day. What will it bring? How can I shape it? I am on a path of simplicity. My world  opens up to me for yet another day. 

Here is a poem by Virginia Woolf that fits my mood today;

How much better is silence; the
coffee cup, the table. How much better to
sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird
that opens its wings on the stake. Let me
sit here forever with bare things, this
coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in
themselves, myself being myself.