place

The East Wind is blowing here in NE Portland today -- a bracing reminder that winter is coming.  I helped organize pick-up of our 4th grade's pie sale orders this afternoon.  I ended up with a sticky hand and jogged into the girls' locker room next door to wash up -- hadn't been in that room since 1992, when I was in the 8th grade at what is now my daughter's school.  I am a person of place and tradition.  Many people find energy in the new and the different.  I draw my sense of well-being from feeling grounded.  This is a complex season in my life.  I delight in this return to "my" place, but I struggle in the absence of a settled vocation that would ground my sense of who I am and where I am going.  Feeling the wind reminds me of what is good in my present.  I can draw hope for the future from these blessings.