If It's Important, Write it Down So You Don't Forget It

The windows are open, outside is in, and inside is out.

A soft warm breeze wanders from the east, meanders through the room leaving a trail of cricket songs and then out the other side, gently jostling the cedar berries.

On the creek bank, the holly berries punctuate the landscape, becoming the focal point now that the autumn leaves are falling, drifting, floating away down the creek.

Leaves golden and scarlet, rusty orange and dusty brown carpet the ground, the porch, the bridge; muffling footsteps, paws, chicken feet, hooves.

Grasses of many kinds and many shapes and many heights bob and wave, tassles and pods beckon cardinals and sparrows, mice and rabbits- finless denizons of a waterless ocean.

The coyotes are silent tonight, and the dogs are suspicious. Warning barks drift back and forth from opposite corners of the meadow, deep and authoritarian. They're out there, somewhere.

Most nights the coyotes pull the sun down, luring it closer to earth softly crooning, their calls rising to a fevered pitch as it falls below the horizon and into their midst.

Yipping, snarling, howling and chortling the north pack and the south pack echo each other and fall quiet, over and over again as if by design. Are they challenging or informing? Friend or foe? Or just making noise?

From a distance the ear strains to hear them, longs to hear them. From across the creek and in the woods every individual voice is distinct, conversational. Traveling the creek bed half a stone's throw from the house, sound bounces off the steep banks, the trees, the walls and windows and the heart beats a little faster, eyes shifting hither and yon, expecting them to be circling the sofa.

The hummingbird feeder hangs empty outside the window, and I miss the little guys. They'll be back in the spring, tiny jeweled fighter planes swooping, hovering and chasing each other- sometimes colliding in anger, the 'poof' of feathered assault blending with the menacing buzzing of their wings.

The moon rises, lighting the clouds one by one, streetlights in the forest.

The trees dance in the moonlight and the wind picks up, rustling the leaves stubbornly refusing to fall.

A lone car passes on the unseen road, tires hissing on the pavement, then across the bridges ka-thump ka-thump, ka-thump ka-thump and it's gone, the night closing in behind it seamlessly.

Family is all where they are supposed to be, safe and sound.

The list of things to do tomorrow drifts in and out of my head- Christmas decorations to be put up, house to be cleaned, writing to be done, cooking and baking to do, animals to be tended, the list goes on and on and on and never ends.

Before it all I will head to my favorite spot to renew, recharge, relax, listen, see, breathe, feel. To center myself and re-adjust how I fit just right into this Universe, a tiny and worn microscopic cog in a perfect machine. To remind myself that being human is allowed...even for me.

But right now I'm thinking cocoa and bed, little dogs of uncertain heritage pressed firmly against me, sweet old dog on her bed snoring quietly, husband next to me, always next to me, we are where we want to be, where we need to be.

The windows are open, outside is in, and inside is out.