walk in the sun and the wind and the rain

It is gloriously Friday, after a long week of busy days -- good ones, largely, both of the parent-teacher conferences went very well and Halloween was wildly successful for both of my children, with costumes and parties and general merriment, all accompanied by a great deal of candy. Nor are they now bereft of things to anticipate; there is a new video game for my smol son (an early birthday present) and his birthday in a few weeks, then Thanksgiving wiith a trip to see far-away friends, and after that of course all the lead up to the winter holidays. I am often exhausted this time of year but I do enjoy it, anticipation and reality both.

The weather has been back and forth; right now it is chill mornings but overly hot days, so I am constantly changing my clothes and feeling vaguely discontented. Soon, however, it ought to settle into proper (for here) autumn weather, with cold mornings and cooler days, and hopefully the leaves will finally start changing en masse. We may even get rain, although I try not to hope too much for that, so that I am not disappointed if it is another drought year -- but oh, rain would be so nice, everything is so dusty.

When I was in Portland a month ago, drinking cider, I wondered why it is I cannot find so much cider down here; it is not that I have gone on long missions for it, but the stores which I would expect to sell bottled cider do not have much selection and it is much of a muchness no matter where I go. On Wednesday, though, driving home from our first trick-or-treat session -- the one along a retail district where the businesses hand out candy and have people dressed up and such -- I saw a place advertising 20-something taps of cider, as well as bottles and small plates of food. They are only open in the evenings on weekdays or I would have already stopped by, but I am thinking I might check it out this weekend, children permitting, and see if they sell growlers, and if not just what they have available in bottles. I had forgotten how much I like really good cider until I was in Portland drinking them, and it would be nice to be able to do more exploration.

Next week is back to the more usual routine, full days at school for the children, a Girl Scout meeting for me, as well as a meeting for the school astronomy event I have ended up not quite in charge of, science volunteering, and a brunch date with S. who I am meant to be seeing every two weeks but it usually turns out to be 3 or 4 weeks due to our schedules. I am not highly inspired for Girl Scouts but something will come together, and then there is a long break before our December meetings for me to figure out salt paste ornaments and other holiday crafts. The being not very inspired is endemic right now; I don't know if it is because of the constant terrible things happening in the world, or due to lingering effects of trauma anniversaries, or if it is even more fundamentally physical and I need better vitamins or more sleep or something like, but the lack of focused energy is starting to get on my nerves. Enough already, body, there is too much to do!

I will certainly be voting Tuesday, and reminding everyone else I know to do so.

television and then a minor moment of epiphany (the books and music will have to wait until later)

We watched a little of The Voice earlier in the week, and a little of the season of Top Chef that certain teenagers in the system are fond of, and then tried out America's Next Top Model and concluded that it was (for us, no judgement to others meant) junk food -- enjoyable in the moment but afterwards we felt fairly ill. I am not certain why it is we are not consuming any visual fiction when there is so much that everyone wants to see, but it will probably change when the weather gets colder -- and as I type this I realise that I know perfectly well why, nobody wants to have emotions right now and fiction is much more likely to evoke emotions by surprise than reality TV. Could there perhaps be a connection between this steadfast desire to avoid emotions (which is rationalised by 'There isn't any free time to feel anything during') and the lack of energy I was complaining about in my last post? There could!

Really, you would think that after all these years I would know, and yet every year it takes me by surprise, the pattern of time and shutting down and then being shut down and then realising it and altering course to change it so that I am actually living in my life instead of either lying down avoiding it or skating from one thing to the next at high velocity so I do not notice that I am not engaged. Still, I can at least take some pride in the short duration of the cycle this year -- about ten days in total, I think.

I had been going to write about music and reading but I was derailed by self-realisation and now my smol daughter would really like a snack, so perhaps later. But this, this is why I am writing here -- the talking to other people is wonderful, it is a good feeling when people comment, all of that is marvelous, but look, here I am paying attention to myself and seeing more clearly where I wish to be going.