November 1, 2005

*A dear friend in Missouri sent the above photo to me. I just sit and stare at it, and I am there. I can almost feel the crisp air on my skin as I go back in my mind to what the cool mornings of autumn felt like in the Ohio River Valley. The oppression of summer humidity has lifted and there is that anticipation of chill touching the edges of a breeze at unexpected moments. Occasionally the rich fragrance of smoke from a chimney somewhere, surprises the senses.

It is all about anticipation. Spring or fall. They are sly, deceptive ladies of the night who lure you into either chill or burn to arrive soon. But for now they beckon seductively.

Out here, we are enjoying our Southern California version of autumn. That means, it is cool and foggy until late morning or early afternoon, when the sun burns its path through the gray sky.

I just saw �Elizabethtown� for the second time. I can�t imagine that it would mean that much as a film, to anyone except those of us from that area.

I have heard it said, that in one�s later years, you want to return to the place of your roots. I fear that my returning will only be done in my imagination. But it is a strange phenomenon. For many years I scarcely gave �Kentucky� a flicker of thought. But in the last few years, increasingly, I may be planted in a California Valley, but moments in time wash over my mind and take me back to that Ohio River Valley.

I always was a very sensual soul. Always. I lived much of my life �on the inside�. Thus, the memories that float in and out of my consciousness are often not of some thing that happened, but of what I felt or sensed in the moment. I was pretty much of a loner who drew inside and lived there. Not in imagination, I am not that creative. But just in my �senses�. I settled down in the ambiance of the moment.

Life went on around me. It still does. So when the memories come, they are not nearly so much of what was actually happening, as what I was feeling, while it was happening.

Two of my favorite authors a few years back, were May Sarton, and Gladys Tabor. If Ms. Sarton had not already used the title, �Journal of a Solitude� for one of her memoirs, I would have adopted it for this journal. We are kindred spirits.

Two actual quotes I read just after Halloween this year.

G.K. Chesterton �When people stop believing in God, they don�t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.�

AP: Nov. 1, 2005. �More people in Britain believe in ghosts than believe in God.�

Hmmm�who knew Chesterton was prophetic�

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