October is my favorite month. Today is my birthday, I love the splendor of autumn leaves against clear blue skies. I love to pull out sweaters and start to layer again. I love the cooling of the air, the color orange, heirloom pumpkins, anticipating another hour of sleep when daylight savings time arrives. Today I also celebrate a new partner for my consulting business (details to follow). Tonight, dear friends will gather and toast to my life and my husband will prepare my annual lobster dinner. How lucky I am. How grateful and grounded I feel.
Waking to the news of the Las Vegas tragedy, I move through shared grief and feel breathless and slightly raw. My mind jumps to our local IBMA festival that closed last night right down the street from my home and how much deeper this wound would have been if the unthinkable had happened here in Raleigh. Holding onto these feelings of personal joy and collective sorrow is my journey today on this heartbreakingly beautiful crisp fall day. Opening my heart, slowing down, breathing more deeply, paying more attention to all of the gifts in my life.