I am waiting for a delivery man to pull up outside my house to deliver my new guitar. I won it, plus some studio recording time among other things, in a songwriting contest a few weeks back. There's a good chance it is Pepto Bismol pink, in which case, I'll probably sell it and get the guitar I've been pining for, a Washburn classical with a pickup.

There are still a few roses blooming around here. Barely. On the street behind us, the enormous Maples are starting to turn color noticeably. Upon close inspection, the leaves look the color of lemon-lime pop with rusted edges, but from a distance, especially when the light shines against them, they look like bright, raging flames.

I find myself trying to piece myself together a lot, trying to figure out who I am and what it is I do. Am I this? Am I that? One moment I am one thing, and the next I am another. One moment I am cutting up apple and cheese in the kitchen while Yankee Doodle plays in the background, the next I am flying above the trees.

Oh, to be in one piece again, to be just me, to be still and quiet, but mostly, to be okay with all the pieces of myself, to see it from a distance and see it as a whole picture, like the Maples out the window.

I was thinking of this today, and then tonight I read a line that Walt Whitman wrote: "Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes."

Glorious runs the past few weeks. I have been pushing myself again. I get into these spaces where I just go, I don't think, and I forget to push myself, forget to insert moments of speed. I have a neighbor who runs enormous 32 hour marathons, where she has to run all night and sleep in the ditch when she gets tired.

I want to do something I think I can't do. Somthing brave. Something that requires effort. So I'm pushing myself in running, trying to go further and harder. I say: Run hard to that tree. When I get to the tree, I slow back down, then I say: Run hard to the docks.

Always there are seagulls cirling above me and waves hitting the beach and beautiful light on the water. Sometimes I'm afraid there are too many beautiful things, I can't take them all in. I'm afraid of missing something. When I run hard, I feel everything passing through me. Fear, despair, ambition, wonder, worries. They pass right through me. They can't stay, I am running too fast.

It's getting cooler, and I find myself "nesting" for the winter, trying to gather my resources in preparation for the cold and the early darkness, and the cloud cover we get around here from December until February.

I found a new delicious tea, called "Black Forest Cake". I thought you should know. It's a Rooibos tea, and, I'm not exaggerating when I say that it tastes exactly like Black Forest Cake. It has some cherry in it and actual pieces of chocolate, which melt in the cup. It is so ultra delicious that I just had to tell everyone about it.

On further research, I discovered that there are zillions of different chocolate teas in the world, and I plan to make trying every single one of them my goal for this winter.