I’m glad I skipped my morning workout. The mountains and sky are beautiful in their October colors. Much better than our dark basement.
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Mid-morning run through Heritage Park in Virginia -
As I lay down in bed last night, I knew I didn’t want to exercise first thing in the morning. I’m bored of my workout routine, and also, I didn’t have a blog post queued up for today. I had already laid out my workout clothes, and I went to sleep knowing I’d put them on when I woke up, but that’s about as far as I’d get towards working out. I’d likely have a leisurely morning with an extra 30 minutes to myself before work, not exercising, just hanging out with the cats and writing.
And here I am. It felt even better than I thought it would to roll out of bed, feed the kitties, and then not exercise. Our cat, Tubbles, purrs on my arm as I write this. Her belly is pressed against mine, and her little fuzzy body vibrates against me. A cat purring, and especially a cat purring because of attention I give her, where her purr tells me, “I loooovvee yoou,” is one of my favorite things in life. It soothes me instantly. It’s a satisfying, joy-inducing sound, especially when you then pet the kitty and can feel the purr. Tubbles looks up at me while she purrs, like our kids gazed up from my arms when they were babies, and I’m so glad I’m sitting here with her in my arms rather than sweating downstairs in the basement.
It’s dark out, and I’m waiting for it to get light. I want to see my flowers. The sun doesn’t rise until 7:37am. That’s an hour away. On Wednesdays, I take our daughter to her drylands practice at 6am and sit in a dark parking lot while she works out. In the afternoon I take her to swim practice from 5:45 to 7:30. By the time she emerges from the aquatic center, I’m sitting in a dark parking lot again. I can’t believe we still have two months until the solstice, and the days will get even shorter every day until then.
It’s supposed to be quite nice today once the sun does rise. I didn’t work out in the dark basement this morning. Maybe I’ll go for a run later in the sunlight. I’ve already got my workout clothes on. I just need to mix things up a bit.
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I slept in on Sunday after I woke at 5:15am to feed the dumb cats. When I got out of bed around 7:45, this time by my choice, the light out back was glorious — a dazzling golden light on a crisp October morning. It shone on the bronze blades of ornamental grasses, on the yellow flowers of the rudbeckia, on the oak with its coppery leaves, the magenta coneflowers, burgundy mums, and scarlet pineapple sage.
I refilled the bird feeders Saturday, so in that peaceful morning light, it was like Wild Kingdom in our yard. I opened the sliding glass door to move the screen door over so I could see out the clear glass panel instead of the clouded one. At the sound of the heavy door sliding open, the squirrel on the hanging feeder scurried up into the oak, causing the heavy feeder to swing madly while all the ground doves scattered in a flutter of grey-brown wings.
I ate oatmeal and drank coffee at the kitchen table and watched birds: goldfinches, house finches, blue jays, cardinals. They flew from oak to fence to ground to maple to other oak. They darted to the platform feeder, they shook branches as they fluttered, took off, landed. Doves ran across the mulch, a goldfinch perched on the trellis for the passion vine. A bright red cardinal scavenged seed from the ground near the platform feeder, under the rue and the Mexican feather grass. Blue jays swept across the flower bed with wings spread to land on the feeder, the fence, a tree branch.
I love my garden. Sometimes I have to laugh, though, that I spend my free time watching squirrels and birds. All I need now is a rocking chair.
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The girl saw the pile of sail cloth in the corner of the hut. The cloth’s edges were frayed and the canvas was streaked with dirt. These were scraps, she was pretty sure. Too small and irregular to really do anything with, except maybe patch sails.
She stood from the bench and brushed bread crumbs from her skirt, then walked over to get a closer look. The day was overcast, but not raining, so her father mended his nets on the dock next to their boat. A damp breeze seeped between the slats of the wall, and she smelled salt and fish on the air.
At the pile of scraps, she squatted and began picking through them. She uncrumpled each one to find its shape. She smoothed a triangular piece. It would be good for the cloth animal that was forming in her mind.
She dug around in her dad’s tackle box and found extra needles and thread. He’d taught her how to use them, and he encouraged her to practice.
She gathered the pieces she’d selected, and she took them and a slip of soap outside to wash them in the sea water. She could sew them wet. In fact, maybe that was preferable. Maybe it’d be easier to shape.
One by one, she dipped the cloth pieces in the water, soaped them, and then scrubbed them before rinsing them and laying them smooth on the wood planks of the dock. She could already feel the little animal — a lion, she discovered — coming to life in her hands as she handled the canvas.
In the meadow by the harbor, she collected the down of dandelions to stuff her creature. Then, she sat next to her father as he mended nets, and she stitched her little lion. When she finished, she turned its face to hers, and the lion roared a tremendous, plank-rattling roar. Her eyes connected with her father’s, and they both smiled.
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I used to love to draw. I sketched portraits of my favorite band members when I was in high school: the bassist from U2, Jim Morrison, the members of Depeche Mode, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Morrissey and The Cure’s Robert Smith for my BFF. As I transcribe my old journals, I come across small drawings from time to time. I often drew little thumbnails for scenes I had a hard time describing in words, like the moon over the Caribbean when I travelled to Jamaica for a field course in college, or a rainbow over the mountains. The drawings weren’t any better than the words I couldn’t conjure, but they gave me a sketch of the scene enough that my memory could fill in the rest.
My friend Michelle Weber, a writer and editor, recently published on her blog about taking a drawing course, and how some of the drawing exercises she’s doing could be applied to writing. If she wanted. Reading her post reminded me that visual artists (and writers) must be observant, must really look at a thing closely to understand it (or not understand it!) and then render it.
I admire visual artists. Being able to turn something three dimensional into something two dimensional using your vision, mind, imagination, physical tools, liquid media, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills is really hard. At least it is for me. I have a terrible time translating what I see with my eyes into an image on a page.
My friend Zandy draws and paints in ink, and produces a picture on her Tumblr every day for Inktober. Every day I have a new favorite. Today my favorite is this little cutie:
Okay, so maybe only two of my friends are drawing.
Drawing is another way to be present in the moment and pay attention. The other day when I wanted to run my pen out of ink, I drew, but after drawing some bubbles and teardrops (it was a turquoise ink), I ran out of ideas for things to draw. Nothing in my field of vision was that color, so I was stuck with my imagination, which was not helpful. Still, coloring in the bubbles and teardrops occupied my full attention and was strangely soothing and meditative for longer than I would have expected.
I can’t add anything else to my days right now — not as a regular practice — because I don’t know what I’d subtract. But I do have all these pretty ink colors and a little notepad of high quality, unlined paper… Maybe I’ll just doodle a little, every now and then.
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We watch the weather in October, ready to jump if there’s a day warm enough and with enough breeze to move our little O’Day Day Sailer. The sailing season will end soon, and our every sail may be the last one for the year.
Sails and blue sky The weather Sunday was glorious: crisp skies, high cirrus clouds, high of 60℉, and light wind. And by light wind, I mean barely a breath.
It was a great day to study light air. I wrote about Force 3 wind, the gentle breeze, from my living room. On our sail I observed what Force 1 wind, also known as light air, looks and feels like. The water is glassy, you might feel a cool breath on your cheek, but only if your face is angled exactly right. Force 1 wind is classified as 1-3 mph.
Force 1: light airs; glassy calm, some ripples 
Between Force 1 and Force 2: glassy ripples Force 2 wind, or a light breeze, is 4-6 mph and creates an overall ripple pattern on the water. When you’re sitting in a patch of glassy water, and you see ripples coming toward you, you can expect a puff of light breeze to come up and move you soon.
Mix of Force 1 and Force 2: ripples with a patch of glassy calm
Between Force 1 and Force 2 — glassy ripples
Our boat is small, so it doesn’t take much to push it. If there’s any air movement at all, including 1-3 mph light air, Egretta will sail, but it will take a long time to get anywhere. In this low wind, we moseyed up the lake to the dam in about twice the time is usually takes us.
The lake was quiet except for the honking of geese and the light taps of water against the shiny blue hull.
On the way back, the wind behind us, we turned on some music, Alex the Astronaut, and we let the wind push us home. Again, it took about twice the time it usually does. I didn’t care. The sun was out, and the cirrus clouds were beautiful.
Cirrus clouds 
Our sailboat, Egretta, at the ramp
Butterfly Mind 