September 22, 2022
Autumn’s Eve? Oh my, have I just referenced a female deodorant hygiene product?
Close, but no. As refreshing though is the turn of seasons from eighty degrees to near freezing nights. Days fade. I perform the first mental check of preparedness.
“Do I have a sweater handy?”
Just as trees, daylight and birds announce the coming fall, writing ideas bounced in my head while my soul lived life. Much needed family vacation time inserted into a hefty workload. And my health became a healthy portion of my concentration.
I returned to work after vacation with a determination to practice a healthier balance of work, home, self and all activities creative. I had always bought calendars, then devised daily routines. But I never truly followed them for more than two weeks (if that, in all honesty…but the planners looked pretty!).
A few routines began to stick. A huge difference was my dietary intake. I began to follow a restricted caloric diet with direct results of losing weight which led to better sleep and a phenomenal leap in my ease of mobility. I had not even realized I had issues!
More so, I gave myself something I had desired. I gave myself attention. I cared for my well-being. Step three -after time and attention – in the whole progression was the increase in my confidence. Confidence?
Hmm, let’s dive in.
I was unprepared to recross some bridges, to retrace my tried and true habits. But the path led to them.
Such a strange process I had found. Once again I watched the people in my life and my spot with them. I wondered about my life. Again I wondered at what I really wanted.
Again? Really?
As I recrossed bridges, I puzzled at these behavioral pentagrams. What bedeviled mind game was I playing within myself?
Hm. I realized I did not care. My Wise Mum and I discussed the freeing power of such a statement even in the conversations one has within. There are life moments at which one states, “I do not care.” Between she and I, we had decades of caring for people and events which did not warrant the effort.
“And my feet reached the end of the point. It was a waxy red line, marred by dirt; a tentacled, geometric arm worn into my skin like a devil’s chiseled forgiveness.”
I turned at the point, returning, but not exactly, at a thirty degree angle to the next point. Heading back, I could see my prior path but I wasn’t returning the same way I had come. Nor could I. Fate tantalized me with the ability to see that path as I veered in a slightly different direction.
And so the pattern continued.
I have had a total attention to my health. Maybe not ‘total total,’ but my daily mindset has been that no matter what, I keep driving to not only improve my health but to maintain those gains. It’s a new practice for me that also seems to crossover into other areas of my life. And I have found a wonderful support in my dear Wise Mum.
(She is, of course, like a Queen to me).
I set boundaries. Even with my own behavior, I sometimes tell myself ‘no’ if only because that particular choice is not healthy. Or unsuitable. Or maybe I just do not want to do it.
And I find myself walking the pentagram, retracing my own devilish footsteps. Well worn habits I can stomp through. I can longer ignore those steps I see now. I cannot erase them.
As I walk my crisscross path, my foot sinks into a step’s impression, the casting of a prior path of mine. Never quite the same and sometimes my foot feels the molded hole of a step in the opposite direction. But I know it’s my own.
On such an occasion, I pause in my crisscross walk, bending to feel my step. The memories bore into the impression. I allow them to charge in and out, through fingertips tracing the outline of heel and toes.
In and out. Just once. Breathe in, breathe out. Remember and feel, then think and let it be.
Memories have been a theme of mine for quite a while. Maybe this summer marked a time to deal with myself, to mark my direction. Just as I returned to a Great Lake, I return to a path I have walked before. Even in the geometry of angles and sides, the paths repeat.
A step or two delightfully have filled with rain water. I view them as the reminders of adequate rain. They are both windows to see what I was and mirrors to remember who I am.
“Keep moving,” I urge myself.
For the first time I realize I am looking for the end of the pentagram. I am searching for the time upon swiveling at the furthest point when my toes will stretch for that worn path. And my eyes will seek out those familiar yet forgotten castings.
On that particular instance, ahead will exist only sand in the darkness. There will be only light from above. I will not be afraid. I will breathe in my first path forward.
Sand in the darkness…
How dire? And to think I was going to write about my music preferences this time of year. Autumn comes. Days shorten.
And I want to blast country music…
Go figure….
Lots of love,
Me. SS.
Quick, couple tips: (1) start with yourself – be the change, (2) get stocked up on skincare (moisturize that organ, people!) wait, what?
Stephanie Springborn 