getting through and then some

After the week I've had, the mountains of Colorado seem a hundred thousand miles away. This is me leaning against an aspen tree, breathing in cool, clear air, no cell phone or computer. This is me ( ) now--a nearly empty shell, drained out from an intense week of work, problems, my son's first day of highschool, fighting incoming traffic in a college town that just grew by 30,000 people. How to fill myself back up? How to recharge and refresh? Step one was to have lunch with two of my best friends Lee and Marion. These women are my heros--great moms, teachers, writers, advisors, care-givers, life savers. And they are also normal women like me, just trying to get through and sweating the details. It is good to have them in my life.

And then there is the weekend. I'll putter in my garden. We'll go to the farmer's market for corn and tomatoes, local peaches and flowers. We'll linger over coffee and bagels, maybe go for a bike ride or a hike. There will be some time to sit on the back porch swing with the book I'm reading and notice how the color of the sky is shifting, the air is different in the evenings, how summer is giving way to the beautiful fall, my favorite season. Things will look better from all angles.