Just a few days ago, the world began to feel consumed by gold.  The golden late afternoon sun slanting through the goldenrod, the yellow shimmer of leaves on the birches in the front yard. It feels ecstatic, this shower of gold.  My late afternoon walks with my golden greyhound, Jules, feel like a good soak in color – a warming way to take it all in.

On the other hand, both girls are gone, and in the midst of these showers of gold, I feel poor and sad, missing them both.  I don’t like this part of their growing up – the separations feel harsh and pitiless.  I have also felt emptied out of words – blogless and un-inspired- for the past few days.   Today, while driving,  I listened to an old lecture called “Word by Word” by Annie Lamott.  I was reminded about chunking things down – breaking the task, the book, the dance, the day into little digestible pieces.

One word, one step, one day, one breath at a time.