Tomorrow I will have been home for two weeks and the trip is beginning to feel like a distant memory although still very much front and center in my plans and projects. Still, my regular life has resumed and it too has demands and dreams and of course dogs to hold my attention and dominate at least a good part of my time.
I'm back to a morning walk with the two red dogs, watching the subtle change of seasons. Here is a shot of the fall mesquite--dull and olive instead of the bright spring green now. And the evening scatter of clouds no longer heavy and rain-bearing. I'm back to aerobic classes Monday and Wednesday. And I'm working with a writer friend who started her own small publishing firm months ago and really wants to see if she can make it a success on it's own scale so we're exploring promotional venues and economical ways to get it and her name "out there" where the public can discover both.In time I will probably have some books there myself and am now an editor and will be part of the editorial board that will select and ultimately review and fine tune any books that go out with the AZKatz imprint. (Preliminary website is at http://www.AZKatz.net ) For now it is limited to two thriller/romance novels Brenda has written under a pen name, a non-fiction book she and a friend did about their cosmetic surgeries (a bit of an expose!) and a book or two by another author she knew and has worked with in the day job in high tech military stuff. Brenda did a two year tour in Iraq with a civilian contractor and I am "after" her to do a memoir about that. She had some experiences I know few civilian women and only some military women have had.
Yet another Celtic knot here: she and I met in Arizona through a local writers' group when we both lived in the Sierra Vista area. I had recently retired from Fort Huachuca as a civilian employee of the army and she worked for a contractor. Well, she and her husband bought a lot north of Alamogordo and her earnings from the Iraq job helped them self-contract to build a home there. They sold the old Sierra Vista home and relocated for a variety of reasons. Significant? Well, yeah!
When I was beginning to look for the retirement home for myself and my brother, she encouraged me to consider this area. I'd visited Alamogordo briefly while I lived over near Silver City and tended to write it off, but she connected me with the real estate agent who had sold them their property and I came down to look at places three years ago this month. The agent in turn put me with a local mortgage officer at a small local bank who did some magic and got me approved. My brother had credit issues due to a divorce situation. We made one offer on a place but withdrew it when the owner proved to be difficult and shifted the offer to this place. Voila, after a bit of trials, tribulations and major nail-biting, I signed the papers the first week of October in 2011 and here we are. All because of Brenda's intervention!!
Anyway, I can tell that there is about an hour less daylight now than at high summer the latter part of June. The quality of the sunlight has changed to a lower angle and more golden tint. Even the wind has a new character although we just had several 'summer rainy' type days and are slated for more the latter part of the coming week. Summer goes out in spurts and jerks, often lingering even into November. It is slow and gradual as the shift to autumn occurs and always has been my favorite season. Still is.
I looked at my weather.com page and saw Fairbanks was 49 today and Wasilla in the low 50s at mid morning. Autumn does not delay there but comes rolling right in. Even before the equinox, the daylight is shortening by several minutes a day. So in some ways it is good to be home. Yet something still draws me north, having been there. I will go back; the only question is when. That will be resolved as its own particular Celtic knot unwinds. It will of course be charted on my http://gwynnmorganalaska.blogspot.com blog as will progress on the women mushers book.
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