Fall

 “Let us be grateful

to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardners

who make our souls blossom”

  -Marcel Proust

It’s that time of year.  Fall.  The time when children go back to school, the orderliness of schedules comes back into our lives after the looseness of summer. 

Fall catalogues arrive bursting with the latest fashions.  One such catalogue arrived in my mailbox and I almost went out of my mind.  The J.Crew fall catalogue had me salivating.  It was the colors.  As an artist, that is what I am attracted to and the colors were jumping off the page and I was ready to buy everything, vivid, brilliant and pink and bright blue and it was a sensory overload.  I even talked to my son’s about it and they don’t care about fashion or clothes.

I couldn’t help myself.  I felt like someone finally had my sense of color and style.  I can’t, really don’t have that kind of budget, but it will influence my color scheme.  I don’t fit into J.Crew pants anyway. But the colors had me going for a while.

Fall.  Football.  College ball, pro ball, high school ball.  I love football. Even if I forget how the game is played until someone reminds me again.  But I pick my teams based on the color of their uniforms(I am girly like that) and if it is Stanford, UCLA, USC I have to represent, also Longhorns and Michigan, or Ohio, or Florida unless they are playing one of my aforementioned teams.

Fall.  The air is cooler, the air begins to get a little cooler everyday. Crisp, fresh with infinite possibilities.

Children go back to their classrooms ready to resume their learning processes.  They are a little bigger, relaxed from the summer of hanging out.  Or they are children beginning their first school experience.

For the latter learning to be a part of a community, to sit together, eat together, play, laugh and learn together. Huge. Wonderful.

Teachers also go back to their classrooms, rested from their summers, ready to pick up with children they are continuing with or getting to know new children.  Hope, Faith,

Patience. Just like children, teachers learn at different paces.  And hopefully are just as excited to begin the process.

watercolor abstract
watercolor on watercolor paper
8/2011

That is how I feel.  Ready to begin the process of getting to know new children, new parents, new teachers.  To begin new curriculum, engage in joyful and meaningful interactions with children beginning the process of school learning.

Watch some football, college ball, pull out my long sleeved t-shirts, watch the trees change colors, watch the day gets a little shorter, watch the little children growing, watch the grownups growing. 

Fall.  We are beginning a new journey.  Fall promises new beginnings, revisiting experiences past.  I can’t exactly watch myself grow but I hope I am as well.

Inspiration from Marianne Williamson

Urban Venus on the Half Shell
watercolor pencils on watercolor paper
8/2011

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful

Beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

Gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won’t feel

Insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people

Permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson

I recently found these words written by Marianne Williamson in a drawer where I put them a few years ago.  Finding them was like finding a secret stash of inspiration.  These words remind me to not get stuck in the muck of communication gone awry. 

We are all here on this planet to have an experience.  As humans, we have a capacity for deeper, more meaningful connections and interactions.  They begin with our family and branch out into the world, friends, coworkers, people we see in our daily interactions.

We all have beauty, we are all magnificent and glorious.  But we don’t always remember this especially if someone is yelling at us and messing with the flow of karma.

Recently my son’s father left me mean messages on my answering machine, instead of calmly explaining what his problem is.  In another time, I would of shrunk and let this bother me all day.  But today, I decided that it isn’t worth letting go of my joy for.