Hello, Earth.  Do you read me?  I use Dragon voice activation to type, and I just tried to eat a spoonful of oatmeal, forgetting that there’s this little headset mic in front of my mouth.  So now there’s oatmeal embedded in the foam mouthpiece.  If this doesn’t read like the script of a walrus French-kissing a carp, then everything is copasetic.  (Note to self: do not swear under your breath while using Dragon voice activation.  Especially do not do this while writing e-mails to spiritual leaders or the IRS.)

Have been working steadily on H.E.R.S. & H.I.M.S, a crazy novel on the state of modern marriage.  Between writing sessions I’ve been staining decks and replacing Al Gore flush toilets (the ones that save water but have to be flushed three times).  You’re not surprised that I’m into toilets, right?  Anyone interested in a couple of white porcelain planters with tandem watering tanks and built in frost-protection lids?

Late summer was abuzz with warm mists and intoxicating vapors, but the early fall air is like a crystal magnifying glass through which colors become vivid and objects leap out at you larger-than-life.  Whether walking shadowed lanes or out among people, one feels like Alice/Alex in Wonderland.  The senses are extraordinarily alive and everything is exquisitely stimulating.  The scale keeps shifting with mesmerizing detail or breathtaking distance.  One moment you feel like a giant, the next a midget.  Not a bad way to be, really.  Resizing yourself every day is a good way to keep perspective.  Try it!  Just open your eyes and think like a kid.  Lick a leaf.  Throw a rock at a cloud.  If you miss, throw another.

Above all, measure yourself not by what you get but by what you give.  When someone says I’m the swiftest, I’m filled with myself, my mind is cluttered with my own image.  But if someone says I’m the most healing person they know, then I know I did something outside myself and I feel humbled and grateful.  True reward comes from knowing you have worth outside yourself.

Noerenberg Gardens (see photos below) are wearing purple these days and in my own backyard the Monarch butterflies have swarmed for some reason.  Ruby-throated hummingbirds visit my decks in the dewy dawns.  Why am I privy to such miracles?  Is it nature laughing at me because I don’t get to share it?  I’m like Elwood P. Dowd walking with a six-foot tall rabbit that no one else can see.  Ah, the ongoing tragedy of my life is the thousands of miles of trails traveled alone, the unshared beauty, the untold adventures, and the unspoken poetry and meaning bursting in my soul. 

See the eagle, miss the ant; see the ant, miss the eagle.  That’s what I say to myself as I walk at Elm Creek.  There’s so much to see that I have to choose between using my eyes for telescopes or microscopes.  But the choice will be clear on September 30 at Target Center.  That’s when the 100% bona fide Eagles hit St. Paul!  This month’s column over on StorytellersUnplugged.com is the promised part 2 of the Crosslake concert and creativity connection:  [http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/thomas-sullivan-the-mystique-the-mistake-at-crosslake-or-glenn-frey-sully-on-creativity-part-2].  I’m amazed at the amount of response to Part 1, thank you very much.  And while I’m in the mailbag, the Olympics brought a few welcome e-mails about my long-ago tale The Mickey Mouse Olympics, for which I am grateful as well.  Also, the answer to ABCquilt and others who asked whether the water polo photo in the last newsletter [http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/newsletters/08162008.htm ] was doctored is that it is not.  The water really is deep and I have my Jesus shoes on.  Apparently the comment about Dr. Foto not doctoring the signpost picture misled readers into thinking the polo shot was.

In addition to the two purple majesty photos below, there is another of Noerenberg Gardens taken from its pavilion overlooking Lake Minnetonka.  The other pics are Mark Manrique’s latest send-alongs.  I’ll return Spitz’s medals, but I want my own body back, Mark.  Dr. Foto simply has too much time on his hands.

Wishing you a month of insights and magic.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/