I felt so great yesterday. I actually felt 100%. Not 95%. 100%. By 2:00 pm, I wasn’t wanting or needing a nap. I haven’t felt like that since January 2008.

Today, too, I have energy. I’m up beat, happy, with only a few normal twinges of age. Fantastic.

Picked up the walnuts that dropped overnight with the wind and early morning showers. A
favorite fall activity. Nothing like squirreling away a stash of nuts for winter. I have to hurry before the magpies steal the nuts. This morning I beat them.

And a lovely morning. Warm, with a breeze. We’re supposed to have rain later tonight and tomorrow. I’m ready for a bit of weather, I think.

I’m in the second week of my poetry workshop. It’s proving to be a challenge. I think not only am I up to it, I think I need it. My mind is finally stretching past what I’m doing. I’m thinking of future writing more and more. The desire to write articles, short stories and work on my novels again whispers through my mind. It’s been so long since I even hoped I might be able to do those things again.

My writing has improved in many areas. The three workshops I’ve worked on this last year has improved my writing so much and produced some of the best work I’ve ever done.

The illness, finding a diagnosis, treatment, slowly getting better, returning to my writing (I grieved that loss). It feels as if that was a long time coming, but maybe, it just took the time it took. It’s funny; when I look back at my calendar, I can hardly believe it will only be two years come January. It seemed…such a big desert I crossed.

Maybe, this whole journey is the very thing that will push my writing to the level it needs to be. Things that happen in our lives temper us. A writer uses that to make her writing uniquely hers, hers alone. On this day, this bright autumn day I’ll grab that, add it to my stash, too.