Taking a Breather

This morning was a morning for taking a breather. I stood on the porch at seven o'clock and noticed that I could see my breath in the coolness. At first I thought that it was the coffee but then I noticed that a cool mist was condensing into cool droplets from the sky. Fall is here, in all of its many forms, and it has been long awaited.
I should have anticipated the breath as last night I got up and put a blanket on the bed about 3 A.M.. It was so nice to finally be sleeping under a blanket again, feeling the warmth and comfort it gives to bones that have traveled too many miles. Soon a blanket will be on the bed and one will be on top of that one. I will slide between the blankets, surrounded by their restoring warmth, and feel the coolness of the room on my face.
After putting the blanket on the bed, I lay awake for a while just enjoying the feeling. Thoughts started slowly ambling into my mind. This happens often, they are not really thoughts they are more like dreams that occur while I am awake. They all seemed centered around when I was nine years old. They are not really dreams but more like dusty rememberances. They are full of the same things that have occurred all through my life. There is a parade of triumphs and failures and things that might have been. The times of a boy, busting out with energy, looking for a peer to discuss them with and finding none. Busting out with the energy to begin life's journey but not knowing which way to go, not being capable of or wanting to set out as he knew his only peer was at home.
Home, there is a concept for this season of chilly days. Home, where you come in from the cold and there is a warm meal and a warm Mother who is cheered to see you, cheered to provide that warm meal, and loves you for what you are, not what you could be. Home is where you go where they have to take you in. They take you in because of the heartstrings that reach from them to you.
The blanket is a poor substitute for the warmth of a family but it will have to do. Flannel sheets are like the slice of warm apple pie, prepared by loving hands, that finished the meal. It has been a life lived not wisely but with great optimism and still is. I would give up a lot to have one more slice of that pie