Fall

 

 

This morning I wrote in my journal  "A foggy Tuesday morning, post-swimming.  Fall is in the air.  It's crisp-coolish, air heavier with moisture, leaves browning and dropping.  Wearing socks with my slippers.  J. puts on his puffy [down vest] now and then."

At the pool, some sad news.  A former classmate lost her battle with breast cancer (and it was a battle); another classmate has had heart symptoms and is now afraid to drive to class because she's taking a med that makes her drowsy; yet another hasn't come to the pool for awhile, overwhelmed by things she has to do to move from her home.

Hell.

I just finished reading "I Remember Nothing," Nora Ephron's last book, which is especially poignant because she died in June at the relatively young (to me) age of 71.  She says of the train bearing down on all of us:

"I try to figure out what I really want to do every day, I try to say to myself, 'If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?  I aim low.  My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the Park. (Followed by a Lactaid.)"

I'm with you, Nora.  Thinking you have to make the most of every moment is pretty daunting, and I'll end up going to See's for California brittle if I think about it too long.

Aiming low, here are some of my projects for fall:

Friends and blog readers have sent numerous recipes for me to try, simple ones that they find dependable. I've tried two and am about to go to Berkeley Bowl to get ingredients for more.  It's fun to cook in cold weather, when the kitchen windows fog up, and you listen to NPR, or have a friend on speaker phone while you chop onions.

I've got a quilt in the planning stages.  This is a traditional pattern called "Sawtooth Star." In 15 years of quilting, I've never made a star, so might as well try it.

 

 

The finished product will look different but it will be stars.

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And I've got a stack of books waiting.

A doctor I saw recently asked what I'd found enjoyable in the past week.   I said, "Getting into the pool and moving through the water, and driving my car down a street with leaves turning color." Doesn't take much.