Live!

This morning : Sunday morning. The house was quiet and  very peaceful when I got up. No one else was up, no TV noise on, no one talking.  I let the dogs out, flicked the switch to turn the coffee on, and cut up the big Cortland apples I had left from a bushel I bought a week ago, and put them on the stove with some sugar, water and cinnamon to cook down for applesauce.  Then whipped together another apple cake, this one for my neighbor who is always baking and doing for us.  I poured myself a cup of hot Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice coffee, and went to check on the dogs. The air was crisp, and chill, and the scent of someones' wood smoke drifted across my back yard. The sun was just coming up through the trees behind the fence on the eastern side of my lawn.  I just stood, with a hot cup of coffee in my hands, and drank it in for a few moments. This is the very essence of Autumn, I realized.  In fact, isn't this the very essence of life? To drink it in, savor it, realize what a gift it is to us EVERY day?  I used to HATE fall, because of the chilly temperatures, the cold rains that dropped the colored leaves and left the world grey and dreary, and because it meant the coming of winter. How I came to love winter, instead of hating and dreading it, is another long story in itself, but I guess the point is, as I get older, I appreciate or TRY to, every day, every season. Sometimes it is easier than others. Today, it is easy to appreciate the colors and scents and tastes of fall. I'm in my glory with cinnamon, pumpkin, and apples and wood smoke. But wood smoke smells even better when it is carried on frosty winter air too, and I need to remember that. And if the world is grey and dreary outside, in November, then I need to remember that I have a warm, cozy house and crocheting projects I started last winter to work on inside, and appreciate the time a dreary world outside gives us to work on inside things. This morning is a reminder of all that is good in my life, and a reminder to live cognizant of all that is good in my life EVERY day, even when it doesn't stand out as clearly, even when the Pumpkin Spice coffee has been replaced by plain old Maxwell House or the right coffee mug for the day is in the dishwasher.
My favorite book right now is called, simply, Life is a Verb. And it is, so get up early, savor the coffee, appreciate the cool air on your face as you look to the sun, and live it today.