September 12, 2010, journal entry, Twenty-One

Seven miles.

It is chilly chilly albeit sunny chilly this morning, and I am S.U.R.P.R.I.S.E.D as I hear the unmistakable trilling of the red-winged blackbird in Hazel’s Creek as I haven’t seen or heard them for several weeks now. Magically enchanted, I decide in the moment that I must look for them. I careen this way and that, stand on my tippy toes, crouch down, peer below and above and around tall cattails in an effort to spot the two volleying their calls but I never see them. Nonetheless, I am seriously, seriously wickedly wicked happy at their sound.

~

I am wickedly surprised at softness of the shredding cattails I find on my path in the marsh, their stems broken. I love it that cattails are known as “corndog grass” and I suddenly want to become a Seamstress Extraordinaire, to learn how to sew a pillow so that I can fill it with the white soft of cattails. No wonder birds line their nests with this stuff ‘cause I seriously want to fill the fray of my great-grandmother’s complex cathedral-patterned quilt with the cattails’ white cotton-ness. I gather broken-stemmed blooms in my plastic Ziploc bag and later put them in glasses to place alongside my crystal vase centerpieces filled with feathers and acorns on my table.

~

I wickedly marvel as I watch Ella and Page Eaglet fly over harvested golden-amber wheat fields. What a moment by moment by moment adventure it has been this Summer watching Jack and AnnaBell Eagle prepare their nest and nurture nature. I finish my lunch and place my soup spoon in the center console of my purple car and shut its cover, its sound like the lid of an aircraft’s overhead compartment bin closing. I remember that contents will shift during flight and make a mental note to be careful when I later open it.

~

As I enter the marsh, I find two silvery dimes, twenty cents. At its exit, I find a precious copper penny. A total of twenty-one cents.

~
Things that Make Me Wickedly Happy

The 21 cents I find today, a cent for the 21 exercises of each of the five Tibetan Rites that keep my back and hamstring loosened. My running getting better and better each day.

Watching AnnaBell, Jack, Ella, and Page, as the four of them fly above the gold of harvested wheat fields. And how it has felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…

The more-than-128 swallows at a nearby lake, a cyclonic swirl so thick they resemble bats emerging from caves at dusk. I must slow my purple car so I don’t run over them.

The farmers’ market of Fall with its multi-colored melons and pumpkins.

The New Moon and the Full Moon…and the Waning and Waxing Moon in between…

Bugs. The huge bugs of Summer. And spiders. And grey grasshoppers camouflaged in stone and sticks and big grasshoppers that bite and little red and yellow grasshoppers that don’t bite (at least not yet) and sound like the purple jacket’s zipper I will soon be zipping up on my crisp-chilly-fall-morning runs.

Red-winged blackbirds that trilled and nipped at ospreys in marshes during summer, gone this fall…but I can surprisingly hear today…B.L.I.S.S.

The seven nests of ospreys and their chick-lets I have been watching and their piercing calls.

Cattails…corndog grass.

Oliver flying over me on a morning run.

Cold, fast wind that suddenly and unexpectedly draws tears from my green eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks.

Though I missed today’s 10 mile Sundae Sunday run, the fact that I am running again, and although I am not as speedy as I have been, I am still fast and R.U.N.N.I.N.G again.

Flying in airplanes. Once I convince security of the validity of the magic of my silver kaleidoscope and get past the SPECIAL security at the airport (apparently my long black skirt was cause for consternation that required a patdown), I ADORE the lift, the view from window above…okay, so maybe I am imagining myself an eagle…and the landing…looking through my BlackBerry viewfinder.

The orange underwing moth and her tattered wings I adore. Perhaps she shall be my second tattoo?

The Wheel of Season’s slant of light and shadow…the anticipation of the upcoming Autumn Equinox and Her Full Moon.











































GL, 9/12/2010. Prevail.