Last night I drove to the city I grew up in. I was comforted by the wave of familiar trees and flow of familiar roads; roads traveled down on the way to school in the bus, to the library and park with my family, to friends' houses. And I even passed some roads yet to be traveled on.

And it felt like Fall.

I drove further north to Cross Plains to visit with friends while they were playing volleyball. I sat on a blanket in the grass with a lady who lived next door to my family for several years. We talked about my brothers' lives, my new (well, not so new now) job, Luke's wedding, my niece and nephew. We talked about her children's lives since we lived next to each other. It was nice. It was the smile of recognition I've been needing lately. A bit of existence-confirmation.
Her youngest two girls (one was a baby and the other wasn't even thought of when they moved across town), who are now 12 and 9, came and lay on the blanket with me. They were asking me all kinds of questions and being super silly. I loved it. And it went on for a good hour and a half.

I love silly-ness. I love laughter.

Afterwards, while I was talking with Josh and Travis, I saw a shooting star. I wasn't even looking for one, but there it was blazing downward in the blue-black sky.
It was a surprise, the kind that makes your heart jump and makes you smile until your face hurts because it is so sudden and so REAL that you feel all the life within you stirred to action;
like breathing deep the crystalline air of a snowy day
like collapsing in the cool grass after a long run
like love
like sunshine spilling into a quiet room
like the shivering dusks of the first few weeks of Autumn.
I followed the full-ish moon, with it's knowing smile, all the way home. It sees everything below, and casts a clear, magical light on it - making all things at once enchanted and startling. It isn't a false light, but rather a truer picture of the reality of those things - the thing fused with its spirit. More silver.

Life is mingled hurt and bliss, bittersweet.
But this night was all decadent sweetness.