Fairy Lights

We keep two strings of fairy lights up year-round now, in the kitchen. It's a soft and magical light, all that's needed in the evening if we drift in and out of the kitchen for water or ice cream. And exactly what we need on a dark day, to cheer us up and light the way.

We needed this rain. I've begun my small poems again, one a day on the kids' battered chalkboard (easel for painting on the other side), previously stored in the basement, leaning on a fireproof file cabinet. I haven't done this in October before. So far, it's going fine. It's fun, and it makes people happy. 

I stand the chalkboard up in the dirt beside the front stoop under the eaves. I take a little stool out to sit on and write. Then I take a picture. This morning I had to figure out how to turn off the automatic flash...so it would still be dark around the edges. (I didn't know how yet on October 1st.) It was easy. Why am I so technology illiterate? I am so competent at many other things.

My parents are visiting my sister in Nebraska, to see her production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Opening night was a great success. On Saturday, there was no show because it was a game day. Football takes precedence over theatre in Nebraska.

The plan was to walk in the local Women's March on October 2, but it was postponed till next weekend, due to storms predicted by radar, that never came. (Came modified in late afternoon, and gently overnight.) A thousand people showed up in Chicago, where the weather was still fine. Some showed up, chatted, and walked here, as the word had not got out, but most of us will try again next weekend. In the absence of what I had planned, life happened. And it was good.