We saw Complexions contemorary Ballet last night - pushes human body and spirit beyond what I thought possible. I learned classical forms and know the work and discipline htat took - but this incredibly athletic fusion dance is just beyond. KK has her first highschool romance in bloom - very sweet. I'm reading an odd book about a longitudinal study of gifted kids born a few years before my daughters - fascinating and disturbing mix of life stories.

Beautiful first nip of fall. Last night before the front came through we had dinner in the sukkoh - delicious and good to be together as a family - all the Austin bunch. But after dinner I felt anxious and distressed - maybe that what we have is too sweet and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and something awful to happen. I don't want that, don't want to think like that. Last night I cried and cried in bed and sweet Bob just held on, which is all anyone could do. Today he brought me a beautiful pink butterfly balloon at work. I love being loved like that, when I am at my most vulnerable and unappealing. I still feel a sense of forboding and tremendous tenderness for everyone I love. Today was better than yesterday. I felt competent and strong at work and caught up a little with emails, which feels good. Tomorrow night will be a treat - a showing of the Complections dance company with $10.00 tickets complements of KK's dance program.

Yom Kippur is behind us. Fasting was hard for me this year and I feel a little uncertain about the directions of my turning closer to bringing oneness to my life and the world. It was wonderful though being in service with the Jewish contingent of my family - especially seeing Chris carry the troah in procession and Liam follow behind dancing. I am coming clearer and clearer that I will never be able to be all that I want to be to everyone I love, and that this will becopme even less possible as my capacity decreasing with age. I feel it decreasing - still plenty left but I am not as strong, not as enduring, even with efforts to remain so. There seems to be a lesson of acceptance in my autumn, of resting in being enough as I am. It is a hard lesson.

Change is in the air in so many ways. Mornings are actually cool and afternoons mild. KK's flying in the air show has run its glorious course and her first six weeks in high school is behind us, good transition. Last night, trying on adorable handed down outfits from Ruth's friend, she talked about her school she said "I need Mac Callum and I need Ballet Austin." Her determination to follow her dance dream solidifies, a change of intensity in a familiar direction. Liam has reached a whole new level of play, negotiating with dragons, slaying if necessary. Ruth is teaching him to use force only if the opponent won't negotiate. Bob has been working hard at the school volunteering and I wish it were easier on him physically. His veinous insufficiency causes his legs to get horribly red when he stands or even sits with dangling legs for long, as he did Friday. He is very tired when that redness comes. It worries me. The financial difficulties Joanna and her kids have worry me. I know worry is pointless. I am excited about getting new glasses, two pair, one for distance, one for close, and will hope I can see and function better with them. We are preparing emotionally and spiritually for Yom Kippur, looking for the best way to be in an uncertain world.

Time to beging again, to reassess, another Rosh Hoshannah tomorrow. I think about those in my life who were alive when this year began and are no longer. I especially think of Diane. She had the courage to face all her tomorrows (no umbrellas) I want to take that quality with me into my new cycle of days.

Ruth cut my hair tonight. It's wonderful to have someone in the famiy who can do that so I like it. It's wonderful to be able to eat dinner with the family on the deck and feel a touch of fall in the air. I'm relieved KK is enjoying the beginning of high school, thriving and dancing up a storm, learning that literature is more interesting than she ever expected. Liam is a breath of fresh air, runs into my room to tell me dinner is ready with the joy of innocent childhood and pure love. I feel so appreciative of being loved. Bob took me at lunch today to a program at Ballet Austin, a preview of Stephen Mills new ballet The Mozart Pruject, shich impresses me immensely. I felt so blessed to have a husband who not only shares my interest in the arts but has the organizational skills to figure out what is showing where and get us to various events. I am in a place of counting blessings, especially those that involve feeling loved and cared for.

Hard day at work - so much sorrow and just mental complexity keeping up with people's needs, feelings, plugging in the best systems and thoughts I can to be helpful. Some days are just tougher than others. This evening was great though at home. Bob fixed pasta, Ruth added chicken, and Sir Liam Alot ran around in his knight costume requesting we play "dragon". KK is on the center harness now for the upcoming Blue Lapis Light show, nervous but excited. I spent a couple of hours out in her little house knitting Paula's gorgeous yarn (completely spoiled me now for cheap acryllics!) while KK answered questions for English about a disturbing story by Joyce Carrol Oates - in which a teen age girl has a (hopefully dream) coinfrontation with the devil. I'm impressed that KK has gotten excited by the academic side of school and is enjoying things like learning her figures of speech. She is excited to teach me things I don't know, like that "the lord of the flies" is a name for the devil. Learning to read was so hard for this kid. I think I gave up on ever having conversations like the one tonight with her, accepted that loss, and now it isn't a loss at all. The conversations are happening.

I'm knitting with the real deal the last few days, yarn hand spun and dyed by a friend I respect immensely for her intelligence, resillience, and individualistic yet connected life. The yarn was a gift at the memorial service of another equally authentic and compassionate friend, and I'm knitting it into a throw for yet another woman of honor, valor, honesty and hilarious delight. The dyes are berries and the colors rich in greens and violets, wines. The growing blanket wraps me in joy. I love that I can be part of a web of connection through needlework. When I was little my grandmother was still participating in sewing circles, quilting bees and being part of such a creative circle was a fantasy of mine. Check that one off the list. Hooray!

I should carry a notepad. Now that I'm trying to blog here again I find myself hiking or riding in the car with an "I should blog that thought" in my mind, but they are not sticking as well as I'd like. One image that did stick is the old joni Mitchell song in which the paved paridise and put up a parking lot. KK and I heard it in a restaurant today, different singer, don't know who. It resonates because I'm still sick over the beautiful little stone house next to my office which was knocked down and is being replaced by an ugly concrete box building which will hold a Mattres Firm store. Even more though, the song says, "You never know what you've got until it's gone." No way! I refuse to live like that. I know what I've got and I know it's precious and II know it or any part of it could be gone any second. I refuse to depend on disasters and crisies to strengthen my desire to savor and cherish life as it is right now.

Today was a very good day - exciting morning participating in a work day at the dance department at KK's arts high school, so much fun sorting and cataloging tons of costume items and getting to know teachers, students, families. I have so many happy memories related to theaters, onstage and backstage, and today fit right in. It is wonderful to see KK thriving at school and in dance (she's doing arial work now, flying upside down in the harness with a troupe called Blue Lapis Light). She added an idea which was accepted into the choreography today. When the orchestra on stage plays "CanCan", the three girls in the harnesses will launch into the dance, upside down! This will bew something to see. Also, it rained just a little today, not enough to ease the drought but soothingly to all and enough to make us remember rain exists. Liam and I took a walk at the very end of dusk, silvery clouds light against the deep dark sky. Liam circled my index finger with his sweet strong grip. "I like the dark, Grandma." he said. I like it too, but it is better to walk in the dark with someone who loves you.

Begin Again
Time to begin again,
to write each day,
to focus on kindness,
to focus, to center,
to write each day.
Time to begin again

Definitely time to beging writing here again. I've been composing in my head, but not typing, overtwhelmed and bogged down, but not by anything bad. KK's school start has been great. i think I was more invested in Mac going well for her than I expected. I need to release the attachment, let the successes and the frustrations be hers and just offer support and cdnnection

Good day, I actually wrote for real though I didn't finish my chapter. Also I went to the guild meeting for the dancers and their parents at KK's high school - neat women of all generations and exciting opportunities for her. It was wierd to be asked her high school graduation year. Life is in fast forward. She's supposed to be in maybe third grade and they are talking about college visits! EEK! I am nervous about this school year and happy too. I remember her mother starting high school at the same school, but it wasn't an arts academy then. i remember starting high school, how nervous I was about my first day clothing choice. It's funny at this point I remember that I wore a blue reversable wrap around skirt I had made and was proud to have made. But I don't remember what I wore above the waist. I wonder what KK will wear. A week from tonight will be the night before her first day of high school. Again EEK!

I had an odd good day, not the productive writing day I'd planned. Maybe I should feel guilty but I don't think I do. I talked at real length with Joanna on the phone today, about everything and nothing, about writing, about kids. It was so much fun! Then Ruth and Chris and Liam came home from setting up Chris' classroom and made dinner. I discovered Gardens of Time on Facebook, which could be dangerous to productivity but is just fun at the moment. I read the chapter Bob wrote, talked with him through various media - funny how "talked" doesn't mean what it used to. Mostly I approve of all the different technologies that keep us in contact even if I do struggle with the lingo.

The degree of contrast in the world is just heart breaking and mind streching. I read about starvation in Africa, terrible right now, hear about race riots in London and black on white violence at the Wisconsin State Fair, cry over the stubbornness in Congress, and suffer with clients and friends who are ill or depressed or both. When I let myself, I get scared that my friends and I are all getting older and that losses and suffering abong us will only increase. I look at the sweet, eager faces of the younger generations and know they are vulnerable to all kinds of harm. I have to shake my head to shake out the tendency to speculate on what harm will befall each one. At the same time, living in my house is fun. I've spent the last two hours with Ruth giggling and making warm fuzzies (think pom poms) out of scrap yarn for Chris to use as tokens in a reward system in his new classes. They are pretty in all their bright colors. Bob called in, happy but exhausted after a couple of hikes on Mt. Ranier with family. Chris has keys to his new classroom, upbeat change into a hopeful new life phase.

So much to write and I need to sleep. Sometimes I just mark the place here to remind myself to come back. i've been writing in my mind off and onn all evening, while doing routine things like taking out the trash. Being past sixty is so odd. I really do have a twentieth century mind, still surprised dozens of times a day by the way reality is different from what I remember as a girl - so much if it the technologies and the way they affect thinking. And yet, I feel very much alive now and part of now, like every moment is precious and I get more aware how precious every time another friend gets sick or dies. I want to live well now, make a difference now. And the first step right now is a good night's sleep, but hopefully writing tomorrow.

I feel a little lighter today, despite difficulty containing concern about the medical waiting and scary news of dear family members. I jumped on Ruth's trampoline last night. Jump i maybe an overstatement. I bent my knees and bounced (good calf work out) and then did jump just a little, feet of the tramp. it energizing. The crazy fun though came from the game Ruth calls "breaking the egg". I lay in the middle of the tramp with my knees tucked up to my chest and my arms tight around my legs, trying to hold that tucked "egg" position and Ruth and Liam jumped around me, shaking me wildly. The bodily sensations involved were amazing - the FUN of childhood physical play. I am usually so contained emotionally, especially about laughter, and I was just cackling and squealing and hollering like a kid without having to choose to or not to. There is something marvelous for me about being out of control, not having to control, in a safe, fun setting. I've never been OK or felt safe with drinking or drugging to get there - doesn't feel safe. Physical play is my best G rated gate to release, and I sure needed a release last night.

Anyway, time to go home and clean my room and do my laundry after a nice short work day.

This is a hard time for me, and I don't know quite why. Catching the pace at work after the sadness and emotional connection of Diane's celebration of life has been challenging. The intense heat, 110. 112, 108, has me daunted, not so much physically as in terms of global warming, fears about what we have done to our planet, what we will leave our grand children. It depresses me, not like clinical depression but like existential despair. Also many people I know are struggling with medical and emotional crisis, real ones. I hate being only human, so limited in my ability to make a real difference, especially in face of illness.

Rokenbok in the kitchen, an unexpected thank you gift of a vase of beautiful white lilies and purple stock on the dresser, emails from friends make it easier to handle the serious illness of yet another friend. Tough summer healthwise for so many. A former client brought the flowers, utterly unexpectedly, after a couple of years. They are beautiful and also really help me know that my work makes a difference.

On a light note, when Bob and I were at the Harry Ransom Center we saw an original Picasso dong dish, really. He was having lunch with a friend and held out is bowl for the daushaund, Lump, to lick when he was done. He asked the owner if Lump had ever had a dish of his own and the owner admitted he had not. The artist remidied that by whipping out some black paint and quickly painting a portrait of the long doggie on the dish and writing "Por Lump" above it. Odd things turn up in museums.

It's been a great couple of days with the kids. We had a house full of grandchildren last night, all but Andrea. It was a sweet evening watching Liam enjoy his big cousins, who were just coming off a week visit with their daddy. At one point all the kids and Chris were absorbed in a Mario Cart video game on the Wii, all equally happy. It makes me happy to see the connection between Liam and his big cousins, Andrea too. As the house quieted down for sleep, I had an especially sweet conversation with Zachary, nothing special except for the feel of it. I'm especially touched when the boys want to talk with me. I learned that Zachary would like to work as a lifeguard when he is older. He still loves baths as much as I do. I remember he has been a water lover from the time he was quite small.

Today was just one of those special family days that makes my basket of blessings overflow. We drove the big kids back to San Antonio and just hung out with Joanna's family all day. We talked and talked and talked, went out to a Mexican restaurant that was perfect, whole grain low fat for Bob, vegetarian for Jo, very moderate prices, everything yummy, and a huge indoor playscape for the kids (great when it was 104 outside!). Its even open 24 hours, though we didn't take advantage of that aspect. But better than the restaurant was the relaxed time to just hang out and visit for hours with Joanna and Tracy. We talked about so many topics from education to sports to Danny's shirt size and growth spurt. The boys entertained Andrea, except when she entertained us with two fisted banana eating and sweet cuddles. It was just a very sweet day.

And the fun continues at home. There is a children's building system called Rockenbok that Ruth and Chris and Liam love, having received some as present when Liam turned two. Today Ruth found a whole world of Rockenbok at a great price on Craig's List, and as I write she and Chris and Liam are sitting up late on the dining room floor putting it together.

This seems to be theatre weekend. Bob and I went to the Harry Ransom center, a local museum, this afternoon and explored an exhibit about Tennessee Williams and his work. It was inspiring to be around so much information about his writing process, letters that showed how hard he worked. He always seemed like a magical genius to me. I still remember the first time I read the script for The Glass Managerie, especially the stage directions for it as a memory play. It was one of those pieces of art that just took me beyond normal thought to a magic place. I think back then he just produced work of that quality naturally, and to some extent he did, but he also worked very hard and steadily at it, sriting something, play, poetry, short story for three or four hours most every day. As one who writes, I find that encouraging. To write something remarkable, I must first WRITE.