Angled Mettle

Sigh. What a great birthday I had. :) I'm a proponent of celebrating birthday week. Why limit yourself to a mere day? Birthday week brings with it veto power on television programming, dinner selections and numerous moments of fun "instead of productive" activities. I recommend it.

For those of you who hear from me sporadically...I'm good! Working too much, taking care of myself, reading too little and writing only in smidges...but I am well. Also - Cameron-the-Counselor is forgiven. Put away your tiny voodoo dolls, and your spell-casting gear, and your novena cards and candles. He misspoke, or I overreacted, or somewhere in the middle. Group hug.

This year my birthday week officially started on Wednesday, THE day. I had singing wishes, cards, email, e-cards, poems...the gamut of good wishes. I loved it. We spent the evening at the outdoor Shakespeare theater here watching this season's production of Macbeth. It was....lovely. We brought a potluck picnic that had perfect components - two lovely salads, grilled prawns, amazing cheese and bread, much great wine. And then cake. Yay. The performance was memorable, too. This is the theater: http://www.idahoshakespeare.org/theater_info/experience.html - though this picture is taken in the daytime, and as dusk falls it is more lovely and intimate. All in all....lovely.

I love fall. Some people feel their pulse and "get organized" impulses on January 1, some feel them when spring's warmth begins to seep into the gray chill of late winter. But for me - it's the new school year feeling, the one where anything is possible, and summer's long days make life feel limitless. Also, frankly, I live in a desert climate but I am genetically predisposed to misty cool moors, and green spaces - so the brown, sharp, HOT summers of southwestern Idaho are sometimes a joy to leave behind. My bike goes faster in the cooling days of late summer and fall, and my feet are easier to hurry on my walks. I love it. Time for cookouts and friends on the deck, now that the heat is easing.

This is a quick picture I took last night while on an evening bike ride. It was taken from the bikepath's converted railroad bridge over the Boise River near downtown. It is the place where a spur on the bike path crosses the river and heads into the city, out of downtown. What you can't see in the picture is that there were divers in the river last night, practicing, and I saw an eagle while riding. Had I taken the picture looking downstream, you'd have seen the overpass just a few hundred feet away, arcing over the river. All these interesting intersections of....everything. Angled metal meeting concrete bridge decking, water meeting shorelines, sky meeting mountain ridges, nature meeting city.

In January I posted about my annoyance at the naysayers who were raining on the big dreams (also known as resolutions) we make. Fall has always been my New Year. I've always loved the return to classes and the cooling, shortening days. I'm making lists and setting goals and buying a daily calendar to write things in. I'm cleaning and organizing email, cleaning cabinets and tossing clothes that are too big into bins to donate. I'm trying to decide whether I want to try backpacking or kayaking this year. And while I do all that, I have been thinking about dreams, how difficult it is to hold them when we know how much it will cost, in effort and sacrifice and sometimes conflict with those we love, to chase them. And still. And still it is impossible for me to say 'ease up, and let go.' I can't, or I won't, and the difference in those two words doesn't much matter. Hang on, and make them a priority, and remember that you'll probably regret those decisions and choices you make in service to fear, and not those you make chasing joy.


~patti