Wintering

I drove along the river and through the countryside. Early winter, late afternoon light tipped what is left of the foliage on the trees. Dull yellows, oranges, and reds took on momentary radiance before a passing cloud muted the light. The light on the water invited leaping ripples to intensify before they flowed past. 

The parking lot at Washington Crossing State Park was full. I turned left on Aquatong Road and drove along quiet back roads and through forests. A rangale of deer sat in the golden grass watching the passing car. Mine. The roads felt lonely today and I was grateful. 

It's been awhile since I passed this way, and I ended up on an unintended road. Unexpected adventure. An explore, as I named these things for my children when they were little. 

Let's go on an explore . . . 

We'd take a road we'd never traveled before . . . just to discover something new. 

Aways on, I turned left and connected again with my chosen road. I drove by the home of an old friend. She and her husband rented there almost ten years ago. There was an orchard and a big garden, a pond and a smaller, second house on the property. She kept it beautifully. These days it looks a bit rundown. The apple and pear trees look untended, and the small house by the pond has been leveled. A lonely skeleton sits on a chair in the front yard. It looks like whoever lives there now is doing some work and the space is in transition. At least, that's what I hope is happening. It was a magical place, once upon a time.

My winding path back to the river took me through forests and glens I've not visited in years. This is the thin time of the year and my journey a wild hunt to another place, another time, and back again. I'd been rollicking through my work this morning and early afternoon and a detour on a quick stop became a two-hour conversation that threw me off track, drove me to reclaim myself.  That's what the Wild Hunt is, after all, a journey to reclaim and re-member the self. We don't know when it will claim us as its quarry, and often we don't realize we are hunting ourselves until we are deep in the thick of it.

I'm hours behind with my work. That may be an invitation to re-think my plan, to simplify. Get down to the bare trees of the matter and look at the structure. Honor the season.

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life. 

Fall-ing into Winter

The last day of October is the new year in the ancient Celtic calendar, and the threshold to winter. I think about where I was when I started this writing 39 days ago, the threshold between summer and fall. There were still summery-feeling days and evenings. The days were longer, the light still generous. It was the day before the New England road trip with my son and a few weeks before my trip to Chicago to see my daughter. 

I'm thinking about how quickly things change. The flow of one season into another. The deepening darkness that descends as these days move toward the year's end. Thoughts swirl and coalesce like an early snowfall caught up in a breeze. 

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each day brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Gratitude Journal

The day dawned grey and misty. I walked the trash and recycling out to the curb, grateful the air was warm. Another night of sleeping six hours. Gratitude scratched across the pages of my morning journal. Four days of overwork and my mind needed rest. 

I took the rest. And spent the day in a gentle rhythm of work and rest. Mostly rest. I can catch things up on Saturday.

Rain fell in sheets for hours. Another cause for gratitude. The roses and echinacea, the hellebore and herbs drank deeply. I made a dinner of salmon, sweet potatoes and sweet onions in the air fryer. The lamplight in the evening is soft. The rain has moved off and night falls gently.

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.  

Six Hours

I'm feeling decidedly grateful today. And rested. I slept six hours last night and had no night waking. 

Some easing of my work stress and time spent with my son making a rack of lamb, rosemary roasted potatoes, and French green beans, paired with a beautiful Syrah was the best sleeping medicine for the moment. 

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

 

Next on the Docket: Strength Training

Apparently it's a great antidote to cortisol poisoning. Okay. Okay. That might be a somewhat dramatic description, but it's also fair. 

Today was the first day I felt like I was stumbling through a zombie apocalypse. The thought of strength training while sleep deprived does not jazz me. I thought also about heading over to LA Fitness at five to swim if I don't fall back asleep after the night waking. I have images in my mind of sinking into the water like I might in the bathtub. Of course, it's probably hard to sleep while swimming.

Tomorrow I have to interview five candidates for an office administrator position and do the tasks the vacancy has left undone. Fingers crossed I sleep through the night tonight and feel refreshed. Hope springs. 

Fall-ing In Love: Forty Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Maybe We Should Start a Club

It seems there's enough of us waking in the night.

So ended a comment on my recent posts. I've been hearing from so many people that I'm not the only one night waking. We've talked about the possibility that it's seasonal. That it has to do with the disruption, chaos, and uncertainty in the culture. That just about every element in life feels more fraught. 

I've been developing a toolbox. I've got Epsom salts and Lithium baths, essential oils, Lush Dream Cream, a night-time "tea" from Flying Bird Botanicals, an arsenal of Calm App sleep stories, meditations, binaural sounds, and woozy music. I've ordered a Calm Carry device and some magnesium drink powders. Now I'm looking at a weighted panda hug buddy. Apparently, they lower Cortisol. And recently, someone mentioned Ashwaganda. To help lower cortisol.

What I've noticed is the more sleep deprived I get the more anxious I get. The more anxious I get, the more diffiult the night waking becomes. It's a wicked circle, and I'm getting dizzy from it. And headachey. 

Tonight I put a simmer pot on the stove . . . with orange slices, cinnamon sticks, mulling spices, rosemary, and bay leaves. It's a nice idea, but I think simpler would have been better. Maybe orange slices and rosemary. A quarter of a cinnamon stick instead of four of them. Maybe I'll dig out my beeswax candles. I should probably stop watching the Vampire Diaries. 

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each day brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.

Breadcrumbs in the Night Wood

Last night's nocturnal wanderings took me in and out of sleep in the three o'clock hour, the four o'clock hour, the five o'clock hour, and the six o'clock hour. I used the Calm app and played the binaural tracks, recommended for high cortisol that causes waking. I played them until I found them irritating, and then I moved on to box breathing in the six o'clock hour. I think the beats might have worked just a little bit. I woke up, but I think I also fell back to sleep. 

My feed on social media is filled with sleep cures, all trying to convince me to follow their breadcrumbs. 

Sleep, it seems, has become my new quest.

 

 

Fall-ing In Love: 40 Days of Noticing is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.