Tonight, at 6:20 p.m., I noticed the time and quickly crossed the street to the beach to watch the orange sun sink into the horizon of the Gulf of Mexico. I started the day with a walk after sunrise, and then, indoors, spent a day working, catching up, and more. An entire day of quiet, outdoors, then indoors and going within, mostly, undisturbed, to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, to feel caught up and attentive to my various projects. This morning, I saw in my inbox the latest iteration of the graphic artwork my designer is working on for my Aim for Astonishing workshops. I was a little afraid to look! Afraid I wouldn’t love it. Afraid it would take me forever to decide what I liked, what I didn’t. It’s scary, and also exhilarating and fun to commit to a design I will live with. Then, so quickly and painlessly, my husband looks at the concepts and his feedback is straightforward and enthusiastic. And I agree with him. There, that was easier than I thought. Online, I meet with my How Pictures Heal participants, reading and sharing and crafting poetry and healing. This is an exceptionally satisfying part of the day for me: the writers expressing deep satisfaction with all they are learning, how they are changing, the new possibilities for their writing and lives they are seeing. Both personally, and artistically, their progress and sharing enriches us all. Also, I took a long bike ride by myself to the supermarket just for the fun of it, down the wide sidewalk of Longboat Key by the sea in the hot sunshine, the cool breeze, I pedaled south into a northward wind. When we were first married and living in Clearwater we had so little money and we scraped together enough for two cheap bikes and a seat behind mine for our son. He loved being on the back and we would spend our weekends riding the flat streets of all the neighborhoods in fine weather and he would promptly fall asleep. We rode so many neighborhoods for so long we finally found a house for sale we could afford to buy. And eventually, my daughter was born and she hated the back of the bike and only wanted to escape from any seat she was ever belted into. It was like I was back there, biking for a time today; young mother, my bike, baby in a striped t-shirt, my son, happy in the sun, behind me. Sweet Landon. After the sunset, the moon rose, and it will be full soon. This morning, while walking, I met a horseshoe crab washed up on the shore and learned these delightful details about the use of their eyes for finding mates and moonlight:

“Horseshoe crabs have nine eyes scattered throughout the body and several more light receptors near the tail. The two largest eyes are compound and useful for finding mates. The other eyes and light receptors are useful for determining movement and changes in moonlight.”

~National Wildlife Federation