Arrivals and Departures

Arrivals and Departures:  The train moves in two directions; both forecast change.  I have been startled by my reflection in the car window.  I think she is my self who knows where she is going.  I'm along for the ride.
It's always such a long ride from here to there and back again; and back again, it seems impossible that October has begun. The semester is settling in. My month old grading pen has run out of ink!  All those glossy words just slipped out of this pen!  I really like this pen and can't remember where I bought it (?).  I guess the best practice is to buy two pens and always have a back-up plan. 

Maelstrom, what a great word!  It comes with symphonic background music; something by Elmer Bernstein.
I've been acutely aware of  how storms unravel in their own irony. I've been thinking about Red Jacket and Corn Planter, two remarkable Seneca leaders, who advised to sit in the center of the Long House, with all the doors open.  This way you can see the approach of the enemy from any direction and find the surest way to safety. I think this is a sound strategy.

In the past week, foxes have crossed my path 5 times.  They walk, one footstep inside the other. They run,
all feet off the ground, fleeting, a streak of red, disappearing into thickets overgrown with goldenrod and asters.  I've been thinking of Margaret Wise Brown's  Fox Eyes, a book written a year before her untimely death. The lesson to be aware of who or what is watching without fear.  Without fear, you can change the world.  You can dismiss the chronic pains-- the ones who are slowly being swallowed up by their own devices.  You see, I'm watching too. I know what's going on.