Fall Meanderings

It is a typical fall day. I walked from home to coffee shop office this morning and the brisk nip was in the air. Crunchy leaves dotted the path and I zig zagged to crunch them underfoot. (My friend Jenn and I go out of our way to step on particularly crunchy leaves, you see. It is our understood pact.)

I prepared for a "pizza theology" teaching most of the morning as I sipped my latte and enjoyed the small town buzz of people coming and going. A lot was on my mind in the midst of the task at hand. Creativity and finding the time to dream, community: getting real and plunging deep, challenge and the desire in me to grow beyond and learn more, to think intellectually and the difficulty I am finding in fulfilling those desires.

I am surrounded by books and feel like I'm centimetering my way through them (much slower than "inching"). But I feel like the books might just be the first bite of starting to eat this elephant. I'm sure these longings will ebb and flow but not really go away through the course of my lifetime. And though I want to live a very "present" life, enjoying the simplest moments of the day-to-day, the lingering desire for just a little bit more challenge, a little broader knowledge, and a bigger dream is something I am thankful for.

Colored Pants Fall

I realize that I am a huge nerd. Seriously, I have come to terms with the fact. About 3 years ago, in doing some fall cleaning, de-cluttering, and sinking into the cooler autumn days, I found many "old" pairs of pants. Some I had bought for student teaching (patterned and khaki), one pair was a wild hair I got during an Old Navy sale (the pink ones), another was just a good thrift store find (blue cords). As I was cleaning and trying on the plethora of pants I was finding, not jeans, but colored or patterned slacks, I was inspired to be thankful for the clothes I had and use them. Often, as I've heard quoted of most people, I wear 20% of my clothes 80% of the time (and rarely wear the other 80%). I was inspired to wear them or simplify...really, to do both. Thus was born "colored pants fall." So I started to rotate the pants I kept through my weekly wardrobe cycle...warm brown slacks one day, hot pink the next. Each time I would find myself in colored pants, I would announce to my friends, "It's colored pants fall!" (If Johanna is reading this, she's either rolling her eyes or laughing.)

Each fall since then, in transitioning from summer to autumn, I pull out the old trusty colored pants and find a reason to be silly and celebrate this made up holiday of sorts. This year it became official with a facebook event to mark its arrival. Won't you join me and the many other colored pantsers? ;)

Do you have any seasonal rituals, real or made up?