Dropping Leaves

I'm sitting at one of my favorite coffee shops. It's where I come when I want to meet a friend or to be with other people so I have the illusion of company without actually interacting with those around me. It's a perfect setting to get some work done- I feel accountable to them somehow.  Being an extrovert with a lot of introverted tasks, I find this is a good solution. How do people manage without coffee shops?  I am at a loss to know.

The man sitting two chairs down from me is reading a book, fiction it seems. I like having him there-a fellow book reader. With these new-fangled electronic book reader thingies, those of us who love the printed page must band together, perhaps form some kind of support group. We can meet at Powell's.  This of course, coming from a woman who keeps a blog online.

It's been an intense fall, getting all the books reprinted and Christine's published for the first time. It was worth it but I did pay a price, time and energy. I am still recovering both. I feel like the trees outside. They look bare. They've dropped all their leaves.  Are they dead? No, the trees have just taken their energy into their depths, away from their extremities. The trees are getting ready to grow again.

I've stepped back from many things this fall.  I am no longer the photographer for the Pentacle Theatre-I needed time for writing and publishing. I am not taking tap dancing classes (except for stepping in on occasion). And as of January, I won't be recording clerk at church. I did join the dragon boat racing team and I have loved paddling up and down the Willamette River. But it's been a time of letting things go, tying up loose ends, dropping my leaves, and figuring out where to go next.