Change

The oppressive heat broke overnight. Today looks and feels like fall. I'm ready for it. I'm ready for the cozy coolness and all things autumn. When I got up this morning in the dark, Teddy had already left for the day. He had cross country this morning. I didn't even hear him leave. I missed my 15 morning minutes with him.

Instead of packing a salad, I filled a thermos with chili for Lily's lunch, and she was pleased with that. She was also happy to be able to wear fall clothes today. There's no air conditioning in her school, so the 90s are hard to handle. Another bright spot: today is early release. It's so easy to make her smile.

I have the windows and doors open. The cats keep trying to snooze, but then they are stirred by a critter running through the leaves...crunch, crunch, crunch. There are as many leaves on the ground as on the trees. The colors are starting to be showy. My summer flowers are looking lackluster, but they're still alive so I cannot pull them out of the ground. It's against my nature after so many months of nurturing.

I'm listening to Cats. We leave for NYC in a little over a week. Traveling makes me anxious. Just the before. Not the during or the after. I walked for the first time Monday evening. Only a mile and a half. My foot was sore the rest of the night and much of yesterday. That stresses me out as I think we'll be putting on 10 or more miles every day in the Big Apple. I ordered 10 pairs of shoes from Zappos yesterday hoping that I'll find at least one pair of comfortable and cute options for pounding the pavement with my still healing foot. 

I looked at the extended forecast for our trip and it is saying 70s and 80s. Everything I have ready to pack is for the 50s and 60s. Now I'm scrambling to rethink my wardrobe choices. Sometimes we anticipate, plan and prepare and still we have to ad lib at the eleventh hour. It's not my preference, but then no one asked me.

It's farmer's market Wednesday. I plan to stop and stock up on the last of the season's local veggies. The market goes through October, but soon it will be nothing but squash and apples. We have more than enough apples. I've been thinking a lot about abundance lately.

I have a hair appointment today. I'm so tempted to go short, but I'm scared. I went short this time last year and I loved it. Or maybe it was two years ago. Change is hard for me. I'm such a creature of habit. It's exactly this tendency that brought me here today to ramble. I write. I release.

I'm fooling myself today though. I'm prattling on about foliage and fall...about the dailiness of my life...to avoid facing my heavy heart. My mom will be gone 9 years tomorrow, and I just cannot put my finger on the right combination of words to express how I feel about that. It's complicated. It's cheerless. It's chaffing. I guess that's one thing that doesn't change.