Scapegoats

First, I will blame the Internet connection in this apartment. And then laziness. And then indecisiveness. And then I will go ahead and post after a bit of a hiatus.

Everything has been moving along as it should as October comes to a close. It's been a good, razor-less month.There were leaves that turned from green to many other colors. The introduction of cold weather, and the introduction of my spiffy Recuperative Care Program winter jacket. Patients coming and going. New flooring. A filing rack. More rhyming words of wisdom from the man who sits in his wheelchair outside of our building. The intentional purchasing of bike supplies. A long wait for a bus that never came, followed by a whiney phone call to Morris house, requesting a ride home. Several examples of how wonderful it is to be brought out of crankiness, and how that can happen in so many ways.

I tried to post this on Sunday, and I failed, so I will post it now:

I woke up this morning wanting a pumpkin. Not just a pumpkin, but the experience of getting a pumpkin--the mud, the farm, the hot chocolate, my inability to wear socks that are warm enough. It's fall, and the leaves are beginning to fall in heaps on the sidewalk. I love this time of the year, the peak of the season, the last hurrah of beauty and color before the bare (or maybe this time rainy) winter rolls in. And as the leaves fall I've felt more and more pressure to take action--to hike around, take a hay ride, claim a pumpkin. And as the weeks go on, I find myself accomplishing none of these tasks. No hiking. No camping. No cider. No large cow standing behind the barb wired fence, or the tour guide that isn't at all disgusted with the smell of manure. Just me, and my hopes, and my inability to make them happen.

Today, I had it. The determination, the bus route, an enthusiastic housemate to accompany me on the quest. We took off around 1:30 without having to wait very long for trimet. And when we made it downtown I knew exactly how to get to the connecting stop. The bus came, the driver opened the door, and when I asked if the bus would take us to Sauvie Island, he said no, no bus would be going there today. He shut the door. We let go of our smiles as the reality sunk in. No pumpkins.

So instead went to the only other place that we know exactly how to get to by bus: Mt. Tabor. We arrived, to a lot of stairs, that we'd conveniently forgot existed. We climbed. It was damp out by then, but a pleasant dampness, and a thin steak of clouds and a sliver of yellow light above the city. I realized, once again, how much I love the sky here. How colorful it is, even at 2:30 in the afternoon. For the first time all weekend, I felt present to the place I was in, the conversation, the people walking their dogs near by.

(And that's all. Going to sleep. Happy Halloween.)