Coming around to myself, that is. I almost remember me!

As I’m sure any of you reading this can avow, there are periods in our lives which are especially challenging, (and that is a euphemism for what I’d really like to say, but we’ll leave it at that.) These periods may be short and intense, blowing in and shaking us hard like a sudden squall and just as soon blowing out, leaving us crumpled in their wake. They may be prolonged periods of seemingly endless things to cope with, large and small, which pick at us until we seem a mass of tiny scabs.

This is life. We accept it in all its glory and beauty and also in its times of travail. And when we are in the latter, there inevitably comes a day, only a moment perhaps, when something feels a little different, as if there’s been a barely noticeable turn in the universe somewhere and we know we have paralleled it and turned some corner ourselves. It may be ever so tiny; it may not grow overnight; but it happened.

The weather is now getting cooler, the days getting shorter, and the warming sun flows inside earlier and earlier. I have worked all day, and that western sun was drawing me, drawing me, to it and I succumbed. I brought my just-delivered copy of the SCBWI Bulletin, enamored of the cover illustration by Eliza Wheeler, to the back porch. I sat in a chair, my feet up on another, and indulged myself in some reading with the sun full on my face. The cats next door came to be petted and then sprawled on the porch, taking advantage of both the sun and the company. I read till my cheeks burned hot, loving every second of it.

There are times when we put everyone and everything else ahead of ourselves. Sometimes by necessity, sometimes by natural inclination. And there are times that we are called to come around to ourselves. It may be but a whisper, but listening is always exactly what we need.