A Hazy Shade of Summer

I didn’t write a post in August because I spent the first week of the month in Dublin, Ireland for the International Alexander Technique Congress. I anticipated that I would have plenty to write about for this month, as the week would certainly be educational and inspiring and I would have all kinds of new and exciting ideas to put into practice. Instead, I came home with a mild case of Covid-19 (my first!) and then my husband had a worse case (also his first!), and most of August was spent napping and recovering and trying not to infect anyone else. 

When you ask the universe what you should do next, and this is the answer you get.

I should know by now that the tropes of finding oneself through travel, and vacation bringing brilliant insights as to what one should do next, are just that, tropes. A conference wouldn’t answer all my questions about how to go about building a successful teaching practice (or, really, any teaching practice at all). Not that the trip was a waste of time - I have some good ideas percolating along in the background! But I’m feeling frustrated and unsure about what the next step should be. 

Smoky sunset

Enter late summer in the Pacific Northwest. We are very close to Puget Sound/Rosario Strait and most mornings for the past week have been  foggy enough to make driving difficult. Then there was a shift in the wind in midafternoon a few days ago and we got a layer of smoke from fires in the North Cascades. The light is misty and somewhat orange tinted, we can’t always see the trees or the islands that are the normal background scenery, and the sunsets and moonrises have been eerie and spectacular. It seems that the path is very beautiful when it’s slightly obscured.

Also, foggy days are great for hiking.

Yes, it’s a bit of a heavy-handed metaphor, but I’m taking it to heart at the moment.