I shot a couple of photos today on a brief outing through Shaftsbury to retrieve a particular young ‘un from a day-long outdoor adventure. It is cool in Vermont and there is indiscriminate rain; a short time down the road the rain will be snow. Fall’s vibrant colors abound, although the peak of the season was probably about a week or so ago. Plenty of the vernacular architecture I love so much dotted the landscape I traveled today; I only captured it in my mind’s eye. The contrasts in this vista struck me, and we stopped the car for a bit.

I have also stopped my own proverbial car for a bit this weekend, although there is no rest for the weary, as the saying goes. Or maybe, the early bird gets the worm. I started a new job last week and was feeling a little worse for the wear by the time I drove south to my Handsome Chef Boyfriend on Friday. It will be a while before I completely acclimate to the new world order, which still includes this gig. But I am driven as always and feel a sense of urgency about how I spend the hours when I am not on the clock, so to speak.

I have stepped away from the ballet world for the time being. I need to look over my shoulder and take an inventory of what I left behind before I go back again. There is a certain amount of wistfulness that goes with that, and relief, and disbelief. The intensity of those big epiphanies is only possible, I think, when you can put distance between yourself and the forest where you were completely immersed for most of a lifetime. Ballet will always be there, I am sure. There is no changing that, and no desire to change it. But there will be new rules of my own design before I return.

I am thankful as always for family and friends who seem always to be there with the safety net; I hope I can someday return favors too many to number. I came across a little piece of writing a few months ago that has been helpful in unanticipated ways, although in so many other ways seems to speak to people who are somehow more resourced and gifted than I, and more male. Still, there is wisdom in this piece. It is not profound prose, but more thoughtful than a trifling bit of Internet how-to by a long shot. I printed it last March, stapled its pages, and stuffed it into a pocket in my briefcase. A few weeks ago I pried apart the staple and put the pages on my fridge, where I can read it again and again. It has my undivided attention during another shifting of tectonic plates beneath me. Loss of control is never a happy feeling, at least not in my universe. But reading the pages on the fridge is a great exercise in getting back into the left brain and restores at least a shred of control, or the illusion of it, anyway.

I did my one thing today. Tomorrow comes soon, and starts early, but is a new day full of promise and possibilities.