White Hatted Mountain (Just Write)

There are a hundred things I've been meaning to write, and a hundred ways I've been thinking I'd say them. But I've run a hundred miles in these twenty days. And the miles steal my words, quiet my heart. They take away my urge to speak, replace it with an urge to listen (and to eat).

Today I ran a new road. I hugged the curve, pad padded on the gravel shoulder, lifted my head, and bam, I ran right into Autumn.

Fall here isn't so much the turning leaves as it is the mountains putting back on their white hats. The tallest ones go first. They wear them well after Labor Day in the most scandalous unfashionable magnificent way.

From here on out, I'm going to take my cues from the tall, gutsy white-hatted mountain who lives around the corner from me. Today she told me to stop slouching and stretch tall into a quiet rhythm. To stop caring whether it might keep raining, to start seeing the faces in the clouds. To give up hoping to be heard, to bundle up and to lean hard into listening.