and so I learn balance.

"Listen -- are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?"

Mary Oliver

I bought a fall bouquet and a pumpkin for the apartment.

I walked into Trader Joe's and saw them and needed them.

Because just then the table was bare, the last bouquet long since dead.

And the fall equinox needed the beauty to go along with it.

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I made a trip home, and was looking forward to it for days.

Which always confuses me, since I tried so hard and for so long to get away from home.

I spent three days with my sisters and brother and mother and friends. I needed it.

I went home and it was strange coming back to this other "home."

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 I spent a weekend at The Loft, helping with a retreat, and forgot where I was for a time.

I saw new faces and slept in a different bed and didn't have to cook in my kitchen.

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"You need that," she told me. "You get stuck in a daily rhythm so easily, getting out and away and doing something different is what you need."

A break from the routine.
Fresh flowers and a sugar pumpkin.
A weekend back home.
A few days at The Loft.

Because there are only so many days and weeks and months that you can do the same things. Think the same thoughts. See the same sights. Travel the same roads.

Before you begin to feel crazy.


I do need the routine. The groundedness is necessary.

And so is the break.



And so I learn balance.