the blue muse

Up before the sun this morning, which isn’t that hard to do these days as autumn moves through the landscape. November is a month that will go by in a blur, and my goal for this month is just to get through each day.

That may sound dramatic, but I know that if I don’t take that approach, the overwhelm will make me cower. So I wake up each morning and I think only about the day that I am in, and how far I can get along the path mapped out before me.

My head is down these days, as it must be, nose to the grindstone, producing, accomplishing, preparing. Still, I am trying to remind myself to look up, to take something in each day that is memorable, beautiful, wonder-filled. I know I won’t always make it to that place, but every so often would be nice.

For the next week at least I will be working around the clock, working except for when I’m sleeping or eating. I know this week, I have been here before, and I am trying not to let it loom over me like a mountain that cannot be conquered. Instead, I am trying to focus on the path around me. Trying to notice the pretty leaf that has fallen at my toes, the pattern of sunlight through the trees, the sound of hungry birds singing.

I am trying to remember to breathe.

I’ll be up before the sun each day, up long after it sets each night.

But, indeed, the sun always rises again,

even over the tallest of mountains.