Falling and Springing

From Rev Gals! It's a Fitting Fall Friday Five for me! Why?

Because it is my favorite season and I leave at 11:45 tonight for nine months in Chile where it is rising Spring. I'll still have access to the Internet and will be chronicling the experience in one way or another. The nine months will be followed by two months back here and then off to Rome for five months with other Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus who have been on their international experience. We will make our final vows in January of 2011.

For now, Fall!

1. Share a Fall memory.

Augh, so many. Walks in the woods when I was a child, the SMELL of the leaves, the cool, the soil. Coming back in to a house that smelled good because something was in the oven or on the stove, the clarity of sound as the air cools...


2. Your favorite Fall clothes--(past or present)?

Hands down--kneesocks, jeans, turtleneck, sweatshirt. But, for work--khakis and a corduroy shirt. Soft, snug, just the right temperature.

3. Share a campfire story, song, experience...etc.

Um, not really a campfire story, but I remember lying on my back in a Wyoming fall and looking up to the cosmos with a (detached, naturally) rifle scope of my father's. At that moment, I understood for the first time why it is called the Milky Way. SO stunning, inspiring, freeing, and humbling to look at it all!

4. What is your favorite thing about this time of year?
The feeling of being snug but cool outside and coming in to warm. It's a season for walking and crunching around, a season for beauty! The leaves! Augh!

5. What changes are you anticipating in your life, your church, family...whatever...as the season changes and winter approaches?

Well--my ministry, my community, my continent, my primary language of use, pretty much everything! But, it is rather fitting, actually, that I am headed into Spring for the journey feels much like that--new discovery, new becoming, possibility, revelation...

The Bonus: Fall Food

Three things immediately come to mind-- Chili, homemade vegetable soup (with saltines crushed up on top just before eating), and apple cobbler. Funny how these things are specific in my mind-- not just any old, but those versions specifically created from the recipes used by the women in my family.