never be anything but loud
And It’s November
It’s November, y’all! Y’ALL! I cannot believe I just typed that. It’s November 2011 and that means there’s less than three weeks until Thanksgiving and something like seven weeks until Christmas and then it will be 2012 and WHAT THE HELL WHY IS TIME GOING SO FAST?!
October did blow by pretty quickly in this house, more than usual. Seriously, ever since we turned thirty, both Steve and I constantly remark how fast the days, months, and years go by – it’s like the weight of time is bearing down upon us and before we know it we’re OLD.
But October was a crazy month here – I was sick for a week, then spent the next week doing all the prep for vacation that I should have been doing when I was sick, then vacation, then Steve was sick for a week and my dad has been having some heart issues which we still don’t know how they’re going to resolve. Then Halloween, of which we had a party to prepare for and also went over to my parents on Halloween-proper to help with their haunted house.
October Poem
Fall
Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s
Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.
Autumn To-Do List
Even though the first day of Autumn was last Friday, it’s still been rather hot and muggy here in the Lowcountry. It actually rained all last weekend which was nice because I really could have used a gloomy rainy and chilly couple of days but while it was definitely the first two, it was no where the last since it was gross and sticky and just not like fall weather at all.
I keep hoping that if I wish hard enough, I’ll get the Autumn weather that I want. So, in order to work a bit of wish magic as well as prepare myself for our upcoming trip to Gatlinburg (where I will definitely get the fall weather for at least a week), I made a to-do list for the season, which is basically all of the things I want to do to really enjoy the weather and the feeling of this special time of year.
One Day
To further elaborate on what I was talking about yesterday – how fascinated I am with the other people’s jobs and other people’s offices, I figured it might be fun to do something like Annie did at turning pages and post a day in my life. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve seen this on the Internet and probably won’t be the last but it looked fun and interesting nonetheless.
Ten for Tuesday
This is actually an older Ten for Tuesday that I saw awhile back on Echo’s site and had put aside in my blog ideas notebook for later use.
I have been kind of thoughtful lately about jobs and work and how other people’s days function. Sometimes I think it’s because I get so content at my job that when I talk to others or visit other offices, it all seems much cooler or nicer or better – as in, if you have a different color of Post-It’s or nicer office furniture or newer computers, I’m probably envious of you, how cool it would be work to there instead of where I’m at. Not to say I don’t love my job but I guess it’s more of a switch up of a routine.
Though I am and will always be envious of you if you get to actually wear jeans to work because I have been trying to find a gig like that for years and thought I had it with a hospital job (hello, scrubs & sneakers!) but since I am not clinical, I am stuck in a “business semi-professional” that I try my damnedest to skirt the line closer towards “business casual” than I probably should.
Without further ado, here’s the Ten for Tuesday about work:
