The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Starting now (BING!), this is my favorite time of year. There's my birthday this month, and fall, which is my favorite season. I love it when the leaves turn. And this weekend we went to the Minnesota State Fair, my favorite Minnesota event of the year. Our toddler is old enough now to enjoy it and she had a great time petting animals and going on rides and all sorts of stuff. It was fun to focus on making it a good time for her.

OOh, and there's Halloween and Day of the Dead and--oh wait, before that there's my vacation to go see my family and then in early October I'm going to Valley Ridge Art Studio to take a class from Michelle Ward. The supply list is as long as my arm and it's a bit spendy, but I'm sort of glad we were pressed into making a decision about making it a vacation weekend when I forgot to cancel it. We need more vacation. We're going to stay at this place called Life O' Riley, an old farmhouse and we'll stay in what used to be a schoolhouse.

And then there's Christmas, and I've already been stockpiling gifts for my tot. It's too fun to buy toys, I tell you. And now Woot has Kids Woot! I've already bought about five things from them, including a train set, which I can hardly wait to play with. She loves trains. And cars. That's my girl, no Barbies.

Ah, it's good. And my new meds for migraines seem to actually be helping. I didn't have to take pain pills this weekend, the first weekend in months I haven't had to do that. And I got to go to church with J. and L., which I've missed so much this summer--mass is my calming happy place, at least at our church. And they even sang one of my favorite hymns, There Is A Balm In Gilead , which always reminds me of this wonderful movie we saw eons ago at the Sundance Film Festival, with Ashley Judd in it. I can't find it now in any movie database, but I remember it had something about "at the xx cafe" in the title. And when I say she sings, it's not like it's a musical. It's just this scene where she's outside walking and thinking and not even facing the camera, and she just starts humming and singing this hymn. She doesn't even know all the words. It's very realistic, and sweet. And I guess it reminds me of myself, because I love to sing, and I don't know all the words.

The first film I ever saw Ashley Judd in was Ruby in Paradise (1993), which inspired me to start writing a zine and really get out there as a writer. Ruby won a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival (we saw it there) and this other film was the second film I saw her in and I think it also won some audience prize. I'm not making this up. Anyway, her characters in the two films are very similar, extremely vulnerable and trying so hard to pick up the pieces of her life and start over. At the time I saw them I was doing the same thing, trying to start a new life, and it was hard. I was trying to get a divorce from a crazy person who I was also trying to hide from, I was alienated from my family, and I'd just moved out of state away from everyone I knew to follow a sweet man I'd unexpectedly fallen in love with. That was almost 20 years ago. And I think of that singing so often now.

I married the sweet man and now we have a sweet baby and a good life. Some balm has made the wounded whole. I feel brave again. Today I applied to be in two art shows. They're unjuried, so I know Im in, but it still feels like a big accomplishment that I got it done, all the paperwork and photos and fees. Okay, then! Something to talk about tomorrow, the art fairs I'll be in this fall. Now I gotta go to bed.

Oh, and look at Mr. Rogers! He might just make it, the last I checked, he was 81% funded! Hooray for Mr. Rogers' good neighbors, way to go, people!