Such a pretty day, bright blue sky, blinding bright sunshine. Cool, brisk fall breezes pinging the wind chime pipes, their tintinnabulations composing a fall symphony. I’m sitting in the sunshine out in the yard ensconced in my purple chair.

It’s too cool to ponder in the shade in the porch swing. I can hear the birds singing around the neighborhood but there are no birds on the feeders. Had a few finches and one cardinal earlier. I’m missing all the pairs of cardinals. Only saw one pair while I was sitting outside. The fighting finches came over for a while and fought over their favorite feeder. Saw three female grosbeaks drinking from the bird bath, their muted brown feathers colored like a fall fawn. They’ve begun their migration and their red breasted mates should be here soon.

The museum of cedar waxwings arrived in the neighborhood today. I love the flock being called a museum. The cedar waxwings come every fall to feast on the red berries of the holly trees, swarming the trees across the street like a cyclone. When they finish with the hollies they will gobble the red berries on the magnolia trees’ seed cones.

Such exquisite birds, dressed in cinnamon feathered frocks, light yellowish vests, grayish wings tipped in red, bright yellow bars on their tail feathers, wearing a robber’s black mask, outlined in white. A messy feather crest hanging down the back of their heads makes me think of the Albert helmets of the British calvary. The flock performs a ballet in flight, flying with a sinuous wavelike motion, stretched and billowed like a beautiful sail on an ocean yacht. You can almost feel the undulating of the ocean waves when you watch them in flight. They always thrill me!

Walked down the street to watch the sun kiss the day goodnight and Mother Nature had painted the sunset with her glorious watercolors, layered in the shades of a luscious ripe Georgia peach. The sun was rolling slowly down the horizon like a peach rolling off a grandmother’s oak table. All the colors of the peach skin were glistening in the gleaming of twilight. Small cotton-like clouds bathed in pink hues floated on the horizon down my street. So pretty but so fleeting. I watched them till they melted away.

Father Sky pinned me some stars on his dark purple sky canopy tonight but no moon, again. The man in the moon should be caught up on his sleep now. He needs to kick those cloud covers out of the way and get up. I’ve missed seeing him.

When I watched the sun set, I had an immediate memory of an old yellow mixing bowl filled with ripe peaches resting on my grandmother McMurray’s kitchen table. One peach was resting near the bowl where it had tumbled out. A simple still life scene but so beautiful in its simplicity.

Every day for the last few days I have read or heard this saying, “The best way to keep going forward sometimes is to change your course.” The phrase popped up in a novel I was reading and in a movie I watched last night. I even heard Miss Kitty tell Matt Dillon that phrase on Gunsmoke this morning. So that phrase got me thinking.

We all have the power to change the course of our lives. No matter how tough our circumstances are, we can choose to keep moving forward. We might get bogged down or caught up in the traffic of life but we can make those difficult choices that steer us down the correct path. Sometime those choices aren’t that difficult, we just have to muster up the courage to boldly step forward and accept the challenges.

Our lives don’t get better by chance, they get better by change. Failure is a part of everyone’s life. Don’t dwell on the past, let it go. We learn from our experiences. We all stumble but that just means we’re going forward. When something doesn’t feel right, change your direction. Our time on earth is limited so live each day like it’s your last. We never know what tomorrow will bring. Count your blessings and go to sleep with no regrets.

“Sometimes we stumble and fall, it doesn’t mean we are failures, it simply means we are moving forward,” ― Gift Gugu Mona.