Cold this morning, especially earlier in bedroom.   Too lazy to get the comforter out or another blanket– there was no blanket– laundry backup.   In the dark I rummaged in the linen closet for something—  a duvet cover and threw it over the sheet and blanket.

Cold this morning but I went out anyway at 6:30 a.m. in robe with coffee, disheveled hair, bleary eyed and half asleep.  My garden is ablaze with color.  But the fire is purple, citrine, auburn, bright sunny yellow, gold, black/purple/blue and hazy lavender grey … also shocking pinks and reds (zinnias) and rosy pinks (Japanese Anemones).

And then …  these morning glories.  Most of them are now fading, but I planted so many throughout the garden that while walking around I find at least one leafy vine setting out new purple flowers, and I see them in the early morning or evening, and they greet me with their bells, almost blaring out a tune….. big fat gum balls from those childhood glass casinos, delirious grapey wines,  martian jelly babies,  flower comets, weird night birds, …someone’s  dangling forgotten necklace trailing down the paths and grasses, up and down all the flowers…. this one image to have and to hold in winter’s tired eyes, sad at seeing the summer gone…. the glories seem to say in their big beautiful brash and almost deathly way, they’ll be back…nothing ends it all starts and ends and starts and ends all over again….

I never understood why some gardeners hate morning glories…. so many people do… they can be invasive, get crazy tangled up in all your other plants and choke things if you are not careful, but they are deeply beautiful, riveting when you first spot them in the morning.  Is anything so purple?  The king’s robe is not so velvety so soft and yet so  piercing fresh, almost triumphant in its stare, as though to say ” I too survived the night”…… especially now on these cold and drizzly autumn mornings….

Somehow I managed to get dressed.  Cold enough to wear a big brown heavy sweater, brown pants and long brownish/gold neck scarf thrown about in a semi fashionable way.  I looked like a deep fried Crispy Creme doughnut……

Walking through the park I noticed the Bald Cypress’ are very green and look very happy, like Pinehurst Carolina in the 80’s– that trip I took alone, and promptly fell in love with that tennis player…….the walk I took in the forest with millions of dry dying summer pine needles covering the forest floors… the damp piney soft smell, the southern air, sweet and slightly bitter– those pretty little egg shell china cups and saucers I bought for my mother in that old antique shop, the palest lavender, the palest celery and pink, colors that were just a whisper like the  ghosts of all the lips that drank the teas on sunny porches or cluttered sitting rooms in some small town there years ago………

Walking toward the bus stop it started to rain.. A light soft misty drizzle and then the sun came out.  It was raining in the sun, always a bizarre sight, like a cracked mind.

That big red construction truck roared by again… same one as yesterday and spit out a huge black cloud of smoke that went right into my nostrils mouth and lungs….. Curses! The line of cars, traffic, smoke and everyone rushing in their two thousand tons of polluting steel again….

By the time we got to the Plaza the sun was neon yellow, big and bright and nuclear. I got hot and felt silly there on the bus in my big sweater and scarf.  The only smart thing I did was wear sandals.  Feet cold body hot.

The western sky got cloudy suddenly–mountains of grey blue dusky clouds and the east was blazing.

I felt tired suddenly.  I didn’t feel like going to work.  I didn’t feel like talking to people.

I wanted to get off the bus. I just wanted to walk and walk never stopping never coming back.  Just wanted to walk forever in the Raining Sun.