In the spirit of diversion I checked my email early this morning.  Just to see if I was needed by somebody.  Isn't that the point?

Among my emails two caught my attention: Both addressed me as "friend."  That made me feel good.  One email asked, “Are you tired of your job,” and other told me I needed Viagra.  They really must be my friend to have that kind of intuition.

In the end I couldn't choose.  Do I pursue the offer of making more money (guaranteed, they told me), or get the pill that will make me happy (guaranteed, they told me)?

It made my head hurt.  So I watched a group of birds bathe in our stream.  They seemed so content.  Maybe they don't read their email. 

The dispirited card -- you know, "how unfair is this?" -- doesn't help a whole lot.  Sat on plane (a couple years ago), when the woman next to me asked about our recent windstorm.  The storm was a doozy.  Great Doublas Firs, like piles of pick-up sticks.  We lost a dozen on our property.  A dozen 100-year-old trees.  You stand and stare.  And after while pick up your chain saw and make firewood.  I told her about my trees and how it took the wind out of my sails and made me sad.  She listened.  And told me her story.  About how she is still looking for a place to settle, beccause 100% of her belongings were in her house (now former house) in New Orleans during Katrina.

Okay.  Katrina 1.  Pacific Northwest windstorm 0.

But then, that's point.  We always have an odd way of keeping score.  And as long as my mind is on the score my mind is not quite all here.  (If I spend my energy talking to the 75 people who should have been there, I'm not available to the 24 people who showed up.)  Remember when churches used to boast about being the fastest growing in America?  It seems like I saw that sign on one church or another in every city I visited.  Still makes me smile, because I never saw a reader board that boasted we're the 63rd fastest growing, and proud of it.

I've come to realize that you never know.  Sometimes, what I see as my best may be just me propping up my ego.  And sometime, what I see as a failure may be the place where the spirit is alive.  (Just finished A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell, about the extraordinary gifts of solidarity, altrusim and improvisation that grow in places we call disasters.)

So.  Did I show up?

Did I speak and act from my heart?

One employee recognizes a young woman sitting at a table with her coffee.

How are you?  So you still work here?

No.  I’m divorced now.

Wow, a single woman now.

Yep, I’m free.

That’s gotta be good.

Yep, we tried to kill each other.  That didn’t work so well. 

I can imagine.

It’s okay now, we’re friends.

I wish her well.  And it made me think of people in my life where life has turned left.  And of a scene in Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevia says that there is a "brachot" (a prayer thanking God), for everything.

Everything? his friend asks, Even the Czar??

Yes, says Tevia, God bless the Czar, and keep him far away from us!

That's a good prayer.  I can have a lot of friends that way.

After a week away, the changes in my garden are striking, and I spend time walking the pathways savoring the tapestry. When I left, the leaves on our trees still shades of green. Now, six days later, my garden is in full metamorphosis. And I am in third grade, thinking about crayons.

In the third grade, I had a Crayola Box of 12. I did not consider our family poor. But I knew that there were two classmates in my grade from "rich families." One had the Crayola Box of 48. Another showed off her deluxe box of 64, with the built-in sharpener. We stood around her desk and marveled (our equivalent-in 1962-of a new iPhone). Do you remember the box of 64? Mercy. Did it get any better than that?

The picture in my mind is vivid, standing in K-Mart, on our family excursion to buy school supplies, late August, holding that box (knowing it was out of our family budget) and coveting. I never did own a box of 64-with the exotic shades of Mulberry, Goldenrod and Raw Sienna-and I made due with my 12, always making sure to color inside the lines. After all, I wanted to be somebody; and I knew the rules.

Thankfully, my garden has changed me. Today, as I walk the pathways, I have my own box of 64. Our Vine maples look like a jellybean jar, leaves vary from milk chocolate to mustard to Marilyn-Monroe-lipstick. Nearby, the Katsura tree poses with an elegant posture, its leaves like miniature post-it notes and the color of peach-yellow. It stands out against the blood red leaves of Ninebark. And the licorice red leaves on the Sweetgum, and the scarlet Sumac. It's an outrageous palate that calls for giddiness. And just being.

Thankfully, on this warm October afternoon, nature does not worry about coloring outside the lines.

At a recent Relax, Refuel, Refresh Retreat, one woman asked, “What do you do when you work in an organization where there is no support?  It makes me feel there is no meaning to my work.  No real reason to try to make an effort.  It’s so demoralizing.  What do I do?”  There are tears in her eyes.  This is real pain.  I know the pressure of organizations or churches or businesses that put things before people.

In other words, there is always a “Yes, but. . .” person.  Or an emotional buliy.  People who project their anger on to others because of their self-hatred or insecurity.

There are two ways to be pro-active.

Where do you practice self-care?  Self-nurture?  Where do you feed that part of your soul?  Five or ten minutes a day where you find renewal?

Is there anyone in your organization who is advocate for you?  Is there anyone in your organization you can be an advocate for? 

The morning air is different now. There is a density in the coolness. As if the days--or time itself--are settling in, hunkering down. In these early autumn days, the cool will dissipate and the sun will own the day, but its arc does not give the power or passion of summer. The dew is more substantial (or noticeable? or persistent?), and it stays long into the morning. From where I sit in my study chair, I see the sun spotlighting the purple smoke bush (Cottinus coggygria) just outside my window. The leaves are translucent, and the veins in the leaves are the color of a healed scar or incision. The leaves range from rust to cranberry red. Each leaf is perfectly necklaced with dew, exquisite, as if the painstaking work of a meticulous artisan. Some droplets sparkle or glimmer, bejeweled by the sun’s rays. (For pictures of my garden -- loyolapress.com/terry-hershey/)

over life’s uncertainty

as if life is about what we don’t have

or what has been left out.

But sometimes

in the evening

just after the sun has melted,

and the dusk sky

burns a deep tangerine

above the mountain crest.

Or sometimes

in the early morning

before the sun has chased away the cool air of night

and the dew kisses

the rose petals

so gently as if not to wake them.

Or sometimes

when a friend’s easy smile

and healing touch

remind me that grace is a gift

without condition or demand.

Then I know the secret of life

--which so easily eludes--

is the dance of love in the little things

That even in the ordinary moments

we can dance

dance

dance, unafraid.

But here's the deal -- these practices (life-style choices) are less extraneous. In other words, a whole lot of what we do, to stuff our calenders, is smoke and mirrors, so that somebody will say, "Wow! You are important."