The Fog of All Saints

I feel a bit tired in a frazzled way, and not because I had too much fun with Halloween festivities.  No, I was attending my synchronous online class, which was a good one.  So let me collect my fragmented attention by making shorter observations here:

--Today is the Feast Day of All Saints.  If you were hoping for a more spiritual/theological piece of writing, head to my theology blog for this post.

--I can't decide whether or not to walk this morning.  I have a full day ahead and could use some down time this morning.  But part of me wants to walk, knowing that it's one last chance to see the Halloween decorations, the scorched jack-o-lanterns.

--But the fog has settled in (and oddly, in a similar way as a week ago--completely clear at 5 a.m., fogged in a few hours later).  I will wait until afternoon to walk.  Tuesday is my long day of classes, so I give myself more of an exercise break on Tuesdays.

--The morning after Halloween, my Facebook feed is full of people who had loads of trick-or-treaters.  We have never had many trick-or-treaters at all, and I always assume it's because people don't do that much anymore--and then I see my Facebook feed.  Is it something about the neighborhoods we've lived in?

--This year, it is about our neighborhoods.  My seminary apartment is behind two locked doors, and my North Carolina house has no lights to guide people around the back to the only doors the house has.  Most people don't even realize our house is there in the daylight.  Trick-or-treaters certainly aren't going to walk down the dark driveway.

--I am grateful for my two locked building doors before people get to my locked apartment door.  We got an e-mail yesterday with a letter from American University to let us know that the dorm on the other side of the fence had an unauthorized entry which led to sexual assault.  I'm not terribly worried about my own safety, because I have 3 locked doors between me and an intruder.  Even though my walks take me through neighborhoods with houses that cost millions of dollars, I try to stay alert, although I will admit to having been distracted by leaves.  I'm more in danger from cars or from slipping and falling than I am in danger of assault.  But I try to always stay aware of who is where around me.

--When I first moved here, I thought I would go to museums one day a week.  But now I spend my non-class days working long hours on papers that are due.

--For that reason, I will not be trying to write a novel during the month of November.  Linda Holmes had great thoughts on that tradition that she put in a Twitter thread.  Here are my favorite bits:

      --  "If you jump into it, my advice is to make your goal this: write more than you think you can, and give it your attention almost every day for a month. See how it makes you feel. See where you are at the end. Give yourself permission to *want* to write very very much." (Linda Holmes' tweet)

     --  "Treat yourself, for that month, like someone who wants to write a lot and looks for chances to make it a priority. Don’t think too much about whether you’re going to hit a final count. Think about *spending that month* prioritizing your writing."  (Linda Holmes' tweet)

     -- "I think the best things it can do for you have to do with your relationship with yourself as a writer. It’s as good a time as any to say, 'Here’s an invitation I can say yes to.'" (Linda Holmes' tweet)

--Let me also record this piece of good advice that I found in this article about healthy eating to support the biome of your gut:  "Once you start increasing the variety of plant foods you eat every day, set a goal of trying to eat around 30 different plant foods a week, says Spector [a health science company]. That might sound like a lot, but you’re probably already eating a lot of these foods already."  The list includes fresh herbs, seeds, onions, garlic, and other foods I might neglect if I'm focused on getting 5 servings of fruits and veggies each day.

--I have been arranging leaves on the floor of my seminary apartment.  They will be part of an arts project for Thursday's Creative Process, Spiritual Practice class, but for now I'm enjoying seeing them spread out like this.  I don't need the inspiration exactly since I already know what I'm going to do.  But I know that at a future point, if I share a living space with someone else, I won't feel free to do this, and so I'm grabbing the opportunity now.