Darkest Just Before Dawn

Do you ever sit outside before the sun comes up? You know, between, say, 4 am and 6:30 am? Well, where I live, this is prime time. Especially at this time of year--autumn. The world is peaceful. Not quiet, not still, certainly. But alive and at peace. This morning, the sky was clear, allowing me to see layers and layers of stars, accompanied by the quarter moon. Slowly, as an hour passed, the moon stayed bright, but the stars faded from view. The sky went from a solid shade of DARK to varying layers of gray, steel blue, and, eventually pink. The sounds of the world waking up got livelier, the feel of peace started to fade. But each phase of this process brings its own beauty.

And I'm grateful I'm here to enjoy it.

Shout out to the techno-geeks

If you know me, you know I THINK I'm good at technology, but I'm really not. I love to play with it, but between my poor memory and my fumble fingers, I make a lot of mistakes. It takes me a REALLY long time to get things right.

But I almost always enjoy the trials and errors. I feel like I'm firing up portions of my brain that I never knew I had, or that had been dormant for…ages. So I vow to keep at it. I'm even taking another class in it. Believe it or not, I'm ahead of the game in the class----stop laughing.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn, for the wired world we live in, and for the fact that I have patient, VERY patient, daughters who will help me release my inner geek.

Can't resist

The purpose of this blog is to remind myself to be grateful (don't mean to go all Oprah on ya). It's so darn easy when I get to wake up to this:

And this:

Prescription: Music

It's dangerous to have too much time alone, at least it is for me. When I'm completely alone, I think, and then I over-think. This was the case last week. Several of my classes were away on extended field trips, and that left me with long blocks of thinking time. At first, it was bliss. I organized (weird, I know, but I get off on organizing!), I cleaned (I don't do it often, but when I do, it's soothing), I caught up on email.

But then…SSCCRREEEEECCHHH…my brain kicked in. I had time to dwell on my faults. I had time to ponder my regrets. I slowly began to sink into an abyss that I visit all too often. Remarkably, though, I had the strength to pull off a Cher moment. I logged in to Pandora, brought up my "Jill Sobule/Alanis Morissette Fuck You" station," and I kicked that abyss to the curb!

How could I forget the power music holds over me? In recent years, I have become a talk radio aficionado, particularly NPR. I learn from it, I enjoy it, but it does not reach into my soul. Music does. It's in me. It is me. It's the cure for what ails me. I'm grateful for that mystical connection, and I'll remind myself to reconnect with my soulmate more often.