Subtle Changes

There is a point in everyone’s life when it happens – that realization that enough is enough… Something has to give and it is not going to be me!

I have been slowly reaching that point.  Okay, reaching that point took a lot longer than I expected, but reach it I did.  

I have started making subtle changes.  

Minor changes that might not make a ripple in the grand scheme of things but that are making differences in my life.  

I moved a CD player into the bathroom.  No longer do I listen to myself attempt to figure out why people behave as they do and make the choices that they do; instead, I spend my shower listening to concertos and symphonies.  The sounds of the flutes and the oboes greet me as I step out of the shower ready to start a new day.  

I started taking breathing exercises more seriously.  

Noting the thought process that I gravitate to out of habit, I now nip them in the bud – choosing to think other thoughts and engage in more fun thinking.  

Last night I spent a few minutes digging out books by SARK.  If there is a writer that can inspire it is SARK – and one need not do more than open the pages and see the colors and pictures to feel the creative juices start to flow.  

This morning I found myself dancing to the classical music streaming from the bathroom, sending my daughter into fits of laughter.  “Is that ballet?”  For a student of classical Russian ballet, my 2 years of American ballet for fun training are quite amusing to watch.  I didn’t dance for her though, I did it for me.  There is something about the classical that asks me to move… and just wait until I pull out the New Orleans and Swing Jazz!!

The words asking to pour through my fingers are more fiction than not and more poetic than essay – Subtle changes, but changes all the same.  

I have taken on more volunteer work; while I am also spending more time considering my professional ambitions.

And I am more apt to challenge my creativity and mind than I have been in years.  

Subtle changes – the changes that occur as September closes and October begins.  

The changes that are illustrated with the golden streaks that begin to appear on the leaves and in the trees – the cooling of the nights while the days remain warm – the absence of humidity in the DC area – and the shift of the wind from the south to the north.

The subtle, the sublime, the shifting of the seasons; the changes within a life.