an abundance

Look! Every leaf from every tree all of a sudden between today and yesterday! Whoosh!
That's how it's been with me and job possibilities. They are raining upon me. It is an abundance and makes me want to dance about -- though the ground is slippery and I have to watch that I don't take a tumble. My original post-layoff plans are still simmering as well, and I'm still taking that bird-by-bird approach.
There is one job that I especially would like to do -- it promises to be engaging and challenging and employ many of the things that I love to do, as well as allowing me to learn new things. And lest you think it's all about me, I feel I can do good things for both the company and its consumers. The job is kin to this :


an autumn rose blooming amid the tumbling leaves. And I'm ready to plunge right into it..



or maybe this metaphor is better:


(and, yes, I took all but the rose picture today -- crazy nature. I took the rose picture Wednesday, but it's still blooming ...)

autumn

The changing of the leaves has brought me to ponder this turning of the season in my own life (what? you think I should take up Hallmark-card writing?) But really, how can one avoid thinking about it? We are upon a brand new political season, one that promises hope after a long, hard winter -- though there will necessarily be some turning of leaves there as well. It will be a while before spring arrives.
A friend sent an essay on Autumn from "Let Your Life Speak" by Parker Palmer, who writes: "In retrospect, I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time -- how the job I lost helped me find work I needed to do, how the 'road closed' sign turned me toward terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meanings I needed to know. On the surface it seemed that life was lessening, but silently and lavishly the seeds of new life were always being sown."
Yes, all that -- and the aching beauty of dying in the dye of the leaves leaving.