Sunday Shamblings

This morning, it was sunny and bright, and I wore a pastel dress.  By the time we got home from church, it was cloudy, gray, and cold, and I am now wearing jewel tones.  (Jeans, long-sleeve tee, and one of my paisley shawls.)

I made of cup of hot tea and had some soup for lunch.  All of the sudden it went from a golden Autumn day to a dreary one.  That's Oklahoma in the transitional seasons.  Changeable weather, often turning on a dime to the great dismay of anyone trying to plan for comfortable clothing for the day. Autumn here is much tamer and more beautiful than Spring.  Nearly everyone plants mums, and so there are as many blooms in appropriate colors in Fall as there are in Spring.  We do get severe weather, but traditionally not as deadly as that in the Spring.  And the trees.  Oh, the beautiful trees, where the tornadoes of Spring have left them for us, that is.  The tree in the neighbor's yard across the street has turned golden already, and is shedding gold upon the ground.  Our oak is beginning to redden in places, other trees around town are turning orange and gold and red as well.
Perhaps this impresses me more than it would some of you who hail from places back East where the seasons change dramatically from one to another, but living in Central Germany was my first experience of it.  I grew up in Los Angeles County, CA.  There ARE seasons there, they just aren't dramatically different from one another.  It gets hot in Summer, but never all THAT cold in Winter.  Autumn and Spring can pass you by unnoticed unless you pay attention.  Out here, in the Great Plains, where the land has barely been occupied a hundred years, Mother Nature slaps us in the face on a regular basis.  We CAN'T ignore the changing seasons, because it can be dangerous to do so.  It also makes me more mindful of the passing of time, of other changes going on in life, and I enjoy it.

The changing seasons help me remember that life is not standing still, that I am not standing still, however much I might like to sometimes.  Things are moving on, and so must I.  I then reflect for a moment and see all the things I have done, and to my sorrow, the things I have not done, and feel I should.  There is a reason, I think, that one line in one of Confessions Of Sin in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer says: "...by what we have done, and by what we have left undone." Sometimes we KNOW something we could have done would have made something better or easier for someone else.  This prayer lets us acknowledge that we are lax, and that we are sorry for it.  The trick, then, is to pick ourselves up and try to be better about doing what we ought in the future.  Not easy.  Sometimes, in my own case, I am just too wrapped up in my own problems, my own needs, to see the needs of another, or even the little things that maybe aren't needs, but would make another person's life easier.  My challenge is to get out of my own head and pay more attention to others. REALLY not easy for someone who was basically an only child, and had few playmates as a youngster.  Took me a LONG time to learn to tolerate and cooperate with others in school.  (I like to think I learned to do so pretty well, but there are days...) Because I had so much adult attention at home, I learned to read and write long before most of my peers, had a better grasp of more esoteric things than my peers at a young age, and grew impatient easily with those who hadn't gotten there yet.  I really didn't know other kids just couldn't automatically decipher the written word.  I thought it was something that just came naturally.  I don't ever remember not being able to read. Before the end of first grade, though, I realized that some people couldn't do everything I could do, just like I realized I couldn't run, jump, catch a ball, or grasp the finer points of any sport as well as most of my peers.  No physical impairment, just that I always preferred to exercise my mind rather than my body.  (I have paid for that over the years, and now must exercise at least twice daily to keep myself at a reasonable level of health and fitness.) So, my peers and I learned how to respect our differing talents, and to learn from each other.  This was the best thing about school.  I learned things everywhere, not just in the classroom.  I also got my first taste of teaching, in a very informal way.

Here lately a few of the "things I have left undone" are projects related to my job that aren't really required, but would go a long way toward keeping me sharp and more useful as an employee.  I don't have time to do these things at work, as I am supposed to, so I try to do them at home.  I don't always succeed, as home has many distractions for my wandering mind to grab onto.  Going to try to remedy that this week. 

Another sign of time passing for me lately has been the weight I have lost since Matt and I changed our diet and started exercising more.  Matt made some more pictures of me today.  This keeps me motivated to stay on the program.

That's about all the rambles I have for this Sunday.