I’m sitting in the car line at my kids’ school. Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” (the 10-minute version, of course) is playing in my headphones, which feels perfect, because I just saw a yellow leaf fall across my windshield.

“Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place

and I can picture it after all these days.”

It’s an exciting sight, since we’re still in the blazing end of summer and all eager for autumn.

I am feeling privileged, to be able go to work and then come pick up my children at their school…

🍁

(end of moment for writing)

(next day)

❌

Well, today [my youngest] refused to go to preschool. ☹️ She’s upstairs at my office now. We’ll see what happens…

Introducing a new, experimental section for brief snapshots in words of fleeting moments

It’s a little after eight in the morning. The kids are still sleeping, and I’m letting them, for now. Outside it’s raining and rumbling, thunder moving away to the west.

I’m on the couch with a dog between my outstretched legs, a mug of coffee, and a piece of peanut butter toast—with a sprinkling of chocolate chips, which I add sometimes for fun.

In this rare moment of quiet, I reach for writing. I want to try something new: describing the details of my here-and-now experience, as if they matter…because I have begun to believe they do.

Now it’s less quiet: over in the dining room area, one of our cats is performing some kind of antics I can’t see but I sure can hear. I’m thinking it will wake up my four-year-old, who decided to sleep in her inflatable Cocomelon “bouncy castle” last night. … Nope, she’s still sleeping.

The thunder is moving back now and the rain has gotten heavier again. There’s a flood watch, and I wonder if I ought to stay home from work today.

Now I’m thinking of the books I’m reading and the other writing projects I’m working on. It seems this moment of quiet has awakened my mind’s hunger. So, off I go to seize what further mind-food I can get, before the day lets loose, like the rain.