get out into the world in which I live instead of staying at computer &/or getting in car by default. Interact w/ & appreciate environment. Exchange comfort for joy. Get up. Notice, appreciate, respect, reconnect.

I’m not sure if I have Social Anxiety Disorder or not, but I seem to spend most time spent in public wishing I had a girlfriend to hide behind, literally. Anyhow I enjoyed the bands at the bar, but in between acts I felt completely trapped and desperate – so many people around – they could look at me – don’t look at me! I stare at women, my eyes ask for help, they have boyfriends, I choose another. It’s stupid and I’m too old for this! I don’t know what to say during polite chit-chat. I just want to go outside where it’s safe!

I played connect the dots with your beauty marks
and I ended up with picture perfect sheet music.
I read your musical notes with a composer’s eyes
and heard our song for the first time.
My spine is still tingling.
Mental images of your fine tune as well I’ve been nodding my head too lately and every now and then you can catch me humming your nudity under my breath.
I heavily suggest you resurrect your ancient neglected dust collector
if you distrust the dissness in my seldom plucked heart strings.
Sit stripped before your full length before your reflection, backwards.
Maybe then you’ll understand the rythm in my movement, listen when the news is in.
it’s then when the rules are bent.
I’ll be waiting to take your lead.
I’ll be a victim of your two step.
Make me an apprentice of your body parts.
Teach me the dance to your beauty marks.
I’m stepping on toes here and I don’t care.
It’s hopeless.
It’s hopeless.
It’s hopelessness.
It’s hopenessness holding this openness to blow a kiss
so close your lips but don’t get pissed and through a fist at this vocalist.
I’m emotionless in fact I broke my wrist when I wrote the list of those I miss.
THIS IS MY POKERFACE!

But it’s not. This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

The last time I did this was last year. About this time, too.

I have a fairly fast evolutionary process.

I am headed for another one. I can tell by the things I am attracted to right now and by my attitude.

Every change becomes bigger than the last. You build up your strength to get to one place and rest…Then you climb higher the next time.

I’ve actually got a virtual chess board in my head. There are several changes ahead that will lead to the completion of my grand plan.

If you haven’t done this, at least once, give it your BEST FUCKIN’SHOT!

room got a little smoky, so I opened the door to let some air in.

It was night. And my perception of this day, which had been rather gloomy and grey and overcast and rainy, suddenly shifted. The smell, the smell, the deep iney purity of the air that blew in… ah.

abt six weeks ago but now almost fully recovered, thank god.

Because stony fields are difficult for me, I walked the unpaved road to my neighbors’... their lower pasture has an amaxzing, long, long stretch that is almost all lovely spongy cushiony moss which I knew would be better to walk on. It was delightful… Half-frozen moss has a texture all its own! Still spongy and cushioning but a little … crisp.

Thank you, World, for revealing another piece of yoursweet self to me.

south today… the rainbow on Friday. Leaves still amazing. I drove through Frost’s “yellow wood” today…

The monarch butterfly fanning its regal wings on the wild asters.

Noticing how the wild asters that grew near the compost heap were CONSIDERABLY larger and more vivid than the ones just growing without self-fertilization.

Kicking through the leaves on a short brisk walk through the woods – the scent not so much humusy as gingery, herbal.

from the computer.

Out the door everything was pink and green – the pink streaks in the sky, the light was pink, the pink hydrangeas with their leaves and undernotes of pink and white, the green, green fields and mountains…

Walked out across the big field (very wet and spongy, filled with ferns, some new and bright green from where it was mowed 6 weeks ago, some already turning red) to say hello to the birch trees I am always admiring from my office window… Then turned west towards the sunset, which was already changing from pink to grey pink (is this the color meant by “ashes of roses”?) and then grey. It’s getting darker earlier now. Winter coming, though the air felt more springlike on my skin, soft and ambroisial.

Walked down the hill and a little ways on the road, then back up – 2 1/4 miles altogether. There a brook beside the road… the sound keepos changing. Louder, softer… closer or more distant from the road and sometimes even on both sides; the still deep pools where it quiets down, the rills and small waterfalls.

I feel very lucky to live here. Happy I got out, too.

Quite dark by the time I got back. Little glimmers from the last of the fireflies – not flying now, but living out the last of their moments, flashing weakly from the ground among the pebbles on the road, but still that gorgeous green…

the asters, both the white and pale lavender ones, the solomons seal with its clusters of red berries, the second-growth achilea, everywhere, proud goldenrod and succulent jewelweed with its bright tiny perfect hooked orange flowers. The woods – smelling so humus-y and alive. The stream/ brook – walking up hill alongside it, knowing that it is borm above my pond, flows through it, over dam, and then down the hill… admiring its incredible number of little rills and waterfals and sandy pools…

Grateful grateful to live here.

BF and I talking about the seasons…

Despite being wiped out from a long day, I went OUT OUT OUT into the getting-very-late-dusk-turning-quickly-to-dark world, for a super-brisk 40, 45 minute walk-hike, on an unpaved road through the woods. A little scary (as it got darker and darker… I wouldn’t have used to be scared, but since D and I saw that black bear in July I get a little weeby-jeeby). So… I clapped loudly, in places where it was very dark (supposedly they dpon’t like sudden unfamiliar noises). Doing the rythyms in time with the rapid one-two-three-four of my steps, uphill and down, through the woods I know so well by day, added a new dimension. Took awhile to get warm and sweaty (my fitness goals and nature ones combined here) but I did, which, since it’s 47 degrees out, meant pushing it pretty hard.

The air here smells clean like nowhere else. The summer insects doing their last performances until next year.

I was rewarded by a not-quite half moon rising, quite yellowy-gold, bright enough to light the road and give the trees clear visible shadows.

Ahhhh.

IMAGE: more dense, hilly woods than those pictured, and darker of course – but something of the same mood.