Someone just sent me this quote from Margaret Wheatley, an organizational change guru. Very useful, as I am starting to consider the "whole system" of my life and my interconnecting communities, and consider how better to link up the pieces...(using my upcoming new website as a metaphor and a tool):

To create better health in a living system, connect it to more of itself.

I watched out my window the parade of lost souls, one car after another circling and circling and circling in escalating panic as the time of the parade drew closer. Desperate, desperate, to find parking.

It's interesting being an urban working nomad. 

Letting go of the geographical anchor of my office (which was funky and i loved it) was tough but it has shifted my patterns in interesting directions.

I've always liked working in cafes, the right level of ambient distraction, with enough impetus to leave for me to maintain focus. But now I relate to them more intimately, since they are my main daytime space. And there's something umbillical about the wireless connection (and the constant addiction-nourishing stream of cappucinos).

So often I wake up in confusion, the residue of dreams swirling (afterimage of my Uncle Vig swimming in a mall fountain, wearing a suit, his tie billowing over the tossed pennies) and anxieties clenching my belly, so hard to lever myself out of bed.

But then there is the shower...always the shower...or sometimes, the early morning Britannia pool...and owing in part to my amphibian qualities the water immediately heals and clarifies. The rhythm of strokes, or falling drops, and comfort comes. And ideas come.

It's Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year – the year 5769, if you're keeping count.

When my mother died 12 years back I tried to go to the synagogue, but the sight of the hebrew words brought tears splashing down onto my prayerbook. I found myself sobbing uncontrollably in the bathroom, face swollen and head aching. I bolted, feeling like I was becoming a spectacle. I've gone again since, once or twice, and exactly the same thing has happened. It hasn't felt cathartic or productive, just painful and confusing.

I guess it had to happen some day...turned my back for a moment, caught a flash out of the corner of my eye, and...
Gone. Simply gone.
My baby, my ride...sweet little silverblue nishiki roadbike (and i do mean small). with orange leather duct-taped seat, dirtier than she deserved to be, straight bars and a funny brake accelerator, rear rack and green pannier full of my ratty yet needed raingear.

According to the Surrey Public Events calendar, September is: Arthritis Awareness Month; Big Brothers Big Sisters Month; Muscular Dystrophy Month; Ovarian Cancer Month; Breakfast for Learning Month; Healthy Communities Month; and the Kidney Foundation Peanut Campaign.

Also, Sept 8 is International Literacy Day, Sept 9 is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) Day, Sept 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day, Sept 16 is both Ocean Net Day and Take Back the Night, and Sept. 21 is the International Day of Peace AS WELL AS World Alzheimer's Day.

Don't forget.

Andrea topped the polls for the non-incumbents nominated (that is to say, was the star of the newbies)...

This morning I stumbled out for coffee and glanced at the newspaper boxes, which trumpeted the latest collapse of Wall Street. The biggest dive since 9/11, they screamed...ah well...i sat down with my coffee and blueberry cream-filled muffin, and text messaged a bunch of folks at random:

"Pssst...the global economy is collapsing...pass it on.."

My brother texted me back, in a suitably testy sibling fashion: "So you think i/we should pull all of our investments and put them in a mattress?"