My Summer

I did a lot of new things this summer.

Two days a week, I left the house before 5:00am to walk to the bus stop for a 5:40 bus, to take a class down in Rocklin. At first, the sky was light, with only a few stars left, and the birds started singing by 5:10. By the last few weeks of class, it was full dark, with all the stars out, when I left the house, and still dark with no birds when the bus left. Before class started, once I realised what the bus schedule had to be, I was saying "I'm not really going to do this am I? No, I'm not going to do it." But as soon as I did it, I loved the early morning walks.

I started walking on other mornings too, though not quite so early. The trail along the irrigation ditch down the hill is a lovely place to walk, shady & partly through woods, or if I go early enough, (as late as 9:00 on Sundays), I can explore back streets and sleeping neighborhoods, and see almost no one (a little white dog, a woman in her garden wearing her nightgown).

I worked at the college library all four days, until closing time at 7:00. And the days I worked in the evening after leaving the house before 5:00, and getting back in town at 3:00, and then finally climbing the hill from the bus stop at 7:30, were long days. And I did it. I survived and enjoyed it.

I went for walks in the woods on Saturdays with a friend I met in the library; the first time in all the years I've lived here that I've had the chance to enjoy being so close to the mountains. And we went to lots of lovely trails and lakes.

The class I took was a sewing class, in the fashion design department. It's been nice to start sewing again, after years when I did mostly dyeing instead. And to start working on some patterns to use up the many beautiful batik and hand-dyed fabrics I've collected during those years.

And oh yes, falling in love. With the guy I've been going for walks in the woods with. For the first time in decades.