Autumn Is In the Air

It's Coming. I can feel it. September is ending soon and once it does...

The air is getting cooler. The days are getting shorter. I love Autumn. I love just about everything about it - except that it always ends too soon. Autumn makes me happy. Do you want to see a list? 

 I love the minor key that Autumn's music seems to be in.

I love that my kitchen gets warm with pie baking and cozy foods like Turkey, mushroom & wild rice stew and apples.

I love apple season.

I love that my dear friend & her husband come up and we go to the Pumpkin patch with the twins and then Apple Picking.

I love the cooler weather.

I love raking up the leaves (I really do!).

I love watching the leaves change color. My neighbors have this tree that glows throughout November before it finally gives up its leaves to the constant battery of the wind and finally shivers them off, blanketing the ground in bright orange, yellow and red. Fabulous!

I love autumn clothes - I love long sleeves and jeans and SOCKS.

I love to nestle in with my sweet husband in the evenings and play cards or Scrabble and drink tea.

I love that October means Halloween and I love Halloween.

I love November 1st. I think it's the best day of the whole year that isn't a holiday or my birthday.

I love that November is the best month of the whole year. It's my favorite. 

I love that the whole season comes to a head on Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. 

I love our Autumnal trip to see my big brother and his wife (and now son!) in North Carolina.

I love grey days.

I love the breeze. 

I love that it's cooler with warm breezes - not like Spring that's warming up with cold breezes. 

I love the golden glow in the evenings. 

I love that Autumn seems to loom. It seems like starting in July I know it's coming. The shadows get longer, the days get shorter and you can FEEL it in the air. I love that.

I love that I can wear my snuggly pants in the evening and not get sweaty.

I love the cookies.

I love the colors.

I love the idea of Autumn. 

It's really nice.

On Being Seen

There are a few things about which I am completely convinced. One of those is that we have many physical needs and a few psychological needs. One of those Needs is to be Seen. To be Noticed. To be IMPORTANT to someone, even for Just A Minute.

People are Egocentric. It's just a truth. Even if you declare that you live for someone else - to satisfy someone else's needs and whims - you really ultimately (it seems to me) are living to be Important to that person. It fulfills you to see that person filled and to be acknowledged for filling that person.

While we live, we write, we talk, we share, we post, we color, we sing, we express, we hope, we BE and we hope that someone will NOTICE that. How many times have you posted something on Facebook or on your own blog in the hopes that someone will notice and respond to that posting? How many times have you gotten a response and thrilled at the idea that someone read it, someone liked it, someone noticed? We want to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to be acknowledged. It makes us want to keep doing it! We feel Real.

What happens when no one notices our posts? What happens when no one sends us a one-line email reminding us that We are Important to Them? We worry. We sit in shadows. We fear invisibility. We shout, "SEE ME!"

And then Someone comes along and does. And it's good. It's very very good.

Dendrites & Butterflies

Cogito Ergo Sum.

Not merely Sum, but Cogito while Sum.

I am Jesuit educated. It's a fact about which I am tremendously proud. My father is also Jesuit educated and being a Daddy's Girl, I suppose that's part of why I maintain a tight grip on my pride in that education. I believe that being Jesuit educated set me up for a life of thinking inside, outside and all around the proverbial box. Being a graduate of a Jesuit school, I had to take many classes in world religions (not just Catholicism) and philosophy (including logic and ethics). In spite of some of my grades in these classes, I enjoyed them tremendously. I learned to Think. I learned that Being Without Thinking is not Being at all, but instead is merely existing.

A friend of mine (The Music Man) said that I should write more. He's right. The Music Man reminded me that I am more than the sum of my parts. Without Thinking, and expressing those thoughts here, I merely exist. Sum, but not Cogito. Because I Think, I Exist.

Therefore, welcome to Dendrites & Butterflies. This is where I think.

Why Dendrites & Butterflies? The easy answer is that I think it's funny. Dendrites are also the branched extensions of nerve cells. They're the synapses along which impulses are transmitted to the cell body. Butterflies are some of the most remarkable creatures on earth. They are beautiful, hardy, delicate, huge, tiny, dangerous and gentle. I don't pretend to think of myself as a butterfly, that's too simplistic. But Thought is like a butterfly. Also, it's my blog, so I get to pick the title. So there.

That's all.