An Extraordinary Fall Day - and a Pumpkin

I spent the morning walking with a good friend, talking about our lives and our "grown" children (just about the same thing) and solving some of the world's major problems.  In between all of this important conversation and therapy we provided to each other, we exclaimed with genuine awe at least a dozen times over the course of a couple hours and four and a half miles,

"It's such a beautiful day!"

It has been, indeed, a beautiful day.  The sky was Carolina blue, a few white clouds dotted the sky, a light breeze blew off the ocean, and the sun warmed our skin like a hug as we walked in our t-shirts and shorts. We ended our walk with a visit to the Trolley Stop for a hot dog and a Diet Pepsi.  I think heaven must be something like this.

In the afternoon, I planted some tender lettuce seedlings in my raised bed garden and watered them, naively believing that I'll enjoy fresh lettuce all winter long from this brief one hour of gardening.

It has truly been a beautiful day and I am thankful...for friendship, for honesty, for autumn, for cool breezes, for fresh dirt under my fingernails.  I'm thankful for my friend's love of decorating for the fall season and my being okay with myself for not enjoying or being skilled at that, and the fact that my house pretty much looks the same year-round. I will go to her house one of these days soon and enjoy her fine touches, the variety of pumpkins, squash and gourds that she has carefully selected and arranged, and I will wish I had the same eye for decorating that she does.  I will walk through her front door and it will smell like pumpkin or apple or falling leaves or ginger, and I will be transported by her thoughtful decor to a calm, comforting happy place where I will dwell for an hour or two and it will be marvelous.

Then I'll head home, stopping on my way at the grocery store to pick up an ordinary round orange pumpkin on sale to place on our front stoop.  And I will call it good.