I’ve always loved the fall. The variety and veracity of color, a vibrant landscape of warm, rich colors, sending a message of pensive brilliance against clear sky.

The air cools, and the days shorten. I don’t like the additional darkness, waking in blackness and finishing the dinner dishes to a backdrop of black sky. But I chop vegetables and garlic for soups to warm the soul and bake breads so the house smells enveloping.

As I drove the kids to school this morning, I noticed that leaves are crisping and colors fading to similarity. Soon, I told them, the leaves will cover the ground and the trees will be bare crooked arms aching toward the sky.

And it occurred to me then that fall is fleeting, this beauty, this moment, a stamp of artistic brilliance so brief. Oh the metaphor.

I wanted a fall wedding, silky white dress diamond-like against a backdrop of autumnal color. But family obligations on both sides forced me to marry in the dog days of summer, relegating our outdoor pictures to the blacktop of the hotel’s curving driveway, the only color coming from hand-planted gardens of ordinary flowers.

With that marriage ended, I say now that if I ever marry again, it will be small and quiet, on an island beach, with a woman facilitating a simple ceremony. I am tired of dreaming.

When I was married, I had fairly frequent dreams of my college love. They were always passionate and I woke, fraught with trepidation for what it meant.

I don’t dream anymore. Or if I do, it’s something benign and hilarious. I certainly don’t spend any time analyzing the meaning behind it - especially since a therapist once told me all characters in a dream represent different facets of the dreamer herself.

It’s been nearly two years since I last visited Israel. Now, when I think of my children spending consecutive days with their father, I plot my next adventure. I’ve never hiked in the Banyas. I’ve never visited my favorite place alone. I’ve never woken to Shakshuka and Leben without a baby to feed, someone else’s minutes to count.

“Mommy, can your sweet tooth fall out?” Asher asked me yesterday.

On the way to school, he asked why the penguins don’t fall off Antarctica if it’s on the bottom of the world. After gravity and the magnetic pull, the conversation found its way into space travel and astronauts and aliens, which Asher insisted aren’t real.

 “Well, we don’t really know that for sure,” I said.

 So he and Eliana then put forth for the rest of the drive to school about the life and trials of space aliens.

 “If you were an astronaut, they could come into your spaceship and kill you,” Eliana said, eyes wide.

 “That can’t happen,” Asher said. “Because they only stay in their own spaceships.”

 His sister nodded at his gospel.

 “If they touch you, you get a rash,” she said definitively.

 At school, I hugged them out of the car and placed them squarely on the sidewalk. As I drove away, the sky was charcoal gray but in its eastern corner, a painting of yellow, orange and white clouds carved a half-moon of brightness in the morning. 

I’m writing an article for AARP: The Magazine about the Simms Elementary School sixth-grade class of 1968 reunion and what I keep hearing from alumni is that reconnecting with childhood friends freed them to be themselves.

When I was a student at Forest Elementary School in Farmington Hills, I walked up a slow hill from my house to get to school. Fifth-graders, the kings of the school, wore bright-orange sashes and lifted their arms to a T when cars passed. Safety squad.

Only one tomboy joined the boys outside - most girls joined the service squad inside the building, ensuring kids walked instead of ran down the halls.

I don’t remember elementary school as a safe haven. What stands out for me is the torment of fifth-grade, when my frizzy hair and rolled-up jeans (not Gloria Vanderbilt or Jordache) were the subject of peer taunting. I’d walk down the hall to Mrs. Von Soosten’s third-grade and ask to speak to my sister.

When Jody emerged from the classroom, Idissolved into tears and my little sister with the cute pigtails and silly grin hugged me. What I come back to all these years later is not the two girls, Alicia Love and Erica Feuer, who stood by me during my loser-year, but my sister, who comforted me, and my brother, who carried my flute case home from school.

I was terrible at playing flute. And I was bossy. (Two things that haven’t changed!) But the rest is a swirling mirage of memories - sex ed in the form of a Disney movie where women had points for feet and were warned not to take too-hot showers and field day where we collected dandelions and made a salad of the greens.

My parents considered sending me to Detroit Country Day School - I was smart, and I welcomed the notion of escape to a new school, where I could start fresh. Instead, I enrolled at Warner Middle School and joined the sixth-grade, where I found friends and acceptance.

We played ghost in the graveyard with neighborhood kids and jumped on the Castlemans’ trampoline after school. My childhood was less free than the Simms kids who are 15 years my senior, but more free than today. I let my kids play in the backyard because I fool myself into thinking the fence protects them from predators. I punch the numbers of my house alarm before I go to sleep, thinking it protects me from my fears.

Is life that much scarier today than it was in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s? Or are we more fearful?

I’ve always believed that when a person, a name, a place, a sign, an idea comes before me again and again and again, that’s the universe trying to tell me something.

Years ago, my best friend Katie bought me a book about Jewish meditation - but I have yet to crack open the cover. A few weeks ago, another friend told me in-depth about her meditation practice and channeling - which inspired me enough to visit this site.

Then last night, at V’s Red Tent, I was handed a piece of paper imploring me to “live consciously, live deeply,” which said the following:

You are about to embark on a journey
a soulful journey
a sisterhood of connection
a safe haven
…our angels and universal guidance assist us
The journey is within - I need intention, community, a place to begin…

This paper was given to women at the last meeting, where they meditated to beckon the spirits of women past and present to join them on their journey.

In the past six months, two women named Lynn and one named Carolyn have walked into my life (each spelling her name differently). I am in touch with at least three Jims these days. And my youngest child’s middle name, Matan, is the most common word in my house. The kids use it as everyone’s second name - Mommy Matan!

Lynne (Lynn, Lyn) means near a lake - a body of water is symbolic of the circle of life, the womb, nurturing, women.

Jim, short for James, means supplanter in Hebrew.

Matan is Hebrew for gift.

I’m not yet sure what everything means, but I believe very much in signs. Years ago, as I approached college graduation and planned to move to New York, my father gave me the phone number of a friend’s daughter on the Upper West Side. She was looking for a fourth roommate, so I called - but when she told me she kept kosher and observed Shabbat, I said it wouldn’t work. I was as far from religious as could be.

That happened several times, until one day I was hiking in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming with a Gentile lover, and spent the entire eight-hour hike extolling the virtues of observing the Jewish Sabbath.

Back then, I ignored every mention of or introduction to religious Judaism. But the idea kept cycling back before my eyes. I eventually spent 10 years committed to living that way because I found it compelling and inspirational.

Although I’m not strictly religious anymore, I am deeply spiritual and somewhat observant. The signs kept coming until I was ready to hear the message fully.

So now, with my ever-active sixth sense, I wonder what the conflagration of signs are trying to tell me. If I meditate, whose voice will I hear?

My little boy is in a bed now, the crib unbolted and packed away in the basement. Just now, I checked on him in the night-dark, his arms flung up and out, his head tilted to one side on the pillow, his room bathed in the orange light of his Cars lamp.

Change creeps up on you. One day, he just didn’t want to sleep in the crib anymore. It was distressing to be put there, and so he slept the night in the pitch-black of my room, beside me in the king-size bed, until at 3 a.m., he thundered to the carpet. It was time, his time to move to the next square.

I am learning to use what I have to make something flavorful. Tonight, I broiled the softest lamb chops, a gift from the packing plant I visited yesterday with the Hiller’s meat director. Dotted with cracked black pepper and Lawry’s salt and drizzled with soy sauce, they sizzled to a golden brown, the fat glistening and bubbly.

I boiled quinoa in water and diced celery, shallots, garlic, dates, slivered almonds to saute in olive oil. Mixed it all together, and it was sublime.

Slivered a sweet potato into strips, sliced carrots length-wise, cut an onion into half-moons, everything roasted at 410 degrees with balsamic vinegar. Autumnal sweetness.

At the table, I blessed my children as I do every Friday night. The candlelight danced against the red wall like light gleaming off a disco ball, a sparkle in a smiling eye. The room was alight with energy and breath.

The recipes, impromptu, thrown together by virtue of what was left in the refrigerator. I made a sensuous, delightful meal from what was already there. Nothing gone to waste, no forgotten flavor shoved to the back of the cold shelf.

I don’t always do this - but now, I can’t imagine why not. Use what I have to create meaning and flavor. Use what I have - it is enough.

Although I sent Asher to bed early as a punishment, he crept downstairs before 9, while the candlelight was flickering low against the shiny candleholder cups. Maybe I’m a softie or maybe it was ok to let the punishment leave its mark and move on.

I beckoned to him in the low light. In his red and blue cowboy pajamas, my eldest son climbed over my legs and nestled against the inside corner of the couch. Outside, three people passed in the dark rain. House lights emanated reflections of droplets yet to evaporate.

All was quiet. A few minutes later, he climbed off the couch, headed for the bathroom.

“Sheesh,” my son exclaimed. “It’s really dark. Walk me upstairs?”

I slid my hand into his and ascended the soft steps. When he was done, I thought he’d return to his room. But soon, he was beside me again, his breathing turning even and rhythmic.

My parents often say I shouldn’t let my children sleep beside me. Why not? We are connected like this for such a short time.

In the shadows of the gloaming, I put my hand on my son’s warm leg, and was reassured by the thump-thump of a heartbeat coursing its way along. Invigorated by his presence.

No moment a mistake, and they all are so fleeting.

Kids in too-big Detroit Pistons T-shirts peeked through the metal criss-cross of the fence as the pro basketball team bus pulled up. A police car blocked off the street at the traffic light. Passers-by peered past the people in blue shirts and pants with “crowd control” buttons.

When I said hello to Willie Johnson, he grabbed me in a hug. “Hey! Lynne!”

He ushered me inside, where a mob of people including two of his sons waited for the mayor, six professional ball players, members of the media and others to inaugurate his new court.

I wrote about Johnson for AARP: The Magazine, an article soon to be released. The basketball court outside his northwest Detroit house has drawn neighborhood kids every day for nearly 30 years. Better than any patrol car, this fenced-in court and Johnson’s oversight keep the neighborhood safe, clean and drug-free.

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything,” was Johnson’s quote on the back of the kids’ shirts. He’s just an average guy with a big heart who has kept countless kids on the straight and narrow.

In the corner of the court, I met a Detroit police officer, Joseph Weekley, whose effort to create SWAT for Tots brings toys to homeless and abused children every holiday season. He kicked his shoe against the new asphalt as his partner proclaimed his innovative big heart.

In my email inbox this afternoon, a blast from Eat Local Food, promoting soothing farmer market art.

Keeping it local…

Women start careers in business with the same level of intelligence, education, and commitment as men. Yet comparatively few reach the top echelons. — The McKinsey Quarterly, September 2008

This report (which you can find by subscribing here) describes five dimensions of a supreme leadership model:

* meaning: using your core strengths in an inspiring direction

* managing energy: identifying the source of your energy and how you can harness it

* positive framing: adopting a more constructive way to view your world

* connecting: relationships, belonging, true mentorship

* engaging: finding your voice and becoming self-reliant

Simply put, how we treat people - and how we treat ourselves! - is crucial to success. It sounds so common-sense. But unfortunately, in the realm of getting busy, doing work, and running between tasks, we forget the basics. And that is our downfall.

I became religious ten years ago because I thought it was a path toward meaning and good living. It can be. It wasn’t for me - because I was looking outside myself for answers.

We all hold the answers. We just need to quiet the noise to listen to our inner voices.

A friend just called to tell me her doctor’s opinion of my last appointment. A distant acquaintance repeatedly asks a family friend about details of my sister’s cancer. My daughter shares conversation fragments about her father’s relatives’ opinions of me.

I can’t help what others think nor that they choose to spend their free time concerned about the details of my life.

I wake before the sun these days. I snuggle my children, make them breakfast, pack their school lunches. I work in the silence of the pre-dawn, doing the best that I can for people who trust me to create something special. Each day, I see, speak to, hug, drive past and encounter so many people, all on their own journeys, with their own concerns, driven by inner fears and worries.

I have learned to silence my negative voices. But when they come from outside of me, I have absolutely no control.

What you send out to the universe is what you will get back.

This past week, religious Jews sat in huts decorated with harvest fruits as a testament of their faith and supplication to God. Sukkahs are beautiful little islands of celebration.

They’re also imperfect hurried constructions adhering to exact measurements and in which debates occur over whether the men are permitted to sit in the “non-kosher” part where the gutters overhang the evergreen branches. Sometimes, the men don’t even smile as they recite blessings that have become all too familiar.

Look down your nose at me if you so please. Speak badly if it makes you feel bigger.

But know that we all start from the same innocent cradle, with the same potential. I embrace my path. I plant pine trees and tulips around its perimeter. When the flowers fade in summer heat, I know they will return the next spring, without any effort.

You who lurk behind this blog to spy on what I’m doing and how I believe. I’m not afraid to share my story or my questions.

My business, Your People LLC, is built on the concept of creating connections between company and client. Authentic relationships.

I don’t pretend to have all the insight and answers nor do I profess to be the marketing guru of the world. I act on instinct and use my voice to lead me on an upward trajectory toward the proverbial oval office. (No, I’m not vying for Sarah Palin’s place.)

Women stumble along the way to the top because they begin to doubt themselves. It’s not hard to do, when everyone else voices opinions of my every move.

I’ll get there, in time - by believing in myself and acting with authenticity.

I felt a cold coming on and knots in my back. The kids were away with their dad for the day, so I called the Nordstrom Spa, an occasional destination for a massage to ease my stress and tension, which lately had been high.

When Anita arrived to start her shift, I’d been waiting 15 minutes. She didn’t smile. Her nose ring glinted off the overhead lights and her dark frizzy hair, pulled back into a bun, was tight as the side of a ship.

She said nothing, just waved me back. “You can change in the restroom,” she said. “Someone’s still on the table.”

I pulled on the soft-soft robe and padded my way to the back of the spa for the routine foot soak. Again, no smile from Anita.

And when I hit the table, the room aglare in bright light, nothing ready, no dimmed ambience to help ease whatever voices I couldn’t banish from my head, she didn’t crack a grin. “I’ll adjust everything when you’re on the table.”

Nestled in, trying to shut out the light, I waited. When she finally returned, turned the lights down and touched her fingers to my bare skin, I cringed. She swiped her hands up and back againagainagain until I thought my skin would break into fire.

I asked three times to please slow down until finally, I sat up on the table and said, “This is not working for me.”

“Do you want to reschedule? You obviously don’t like my technique.”

Technique? Technique? Was not the job of a massage therapist to attend to the individual needs of the customer?

I’m not so old to say I remember better times but I do. I remember my mother pulling into the gas station and a young man with a smile filling her car with gas. I remember the credit card slip passed through an open window for her signature.

And I certainly remember the stock phrase, the customer is always right.

It’s something I try to keep in mind in my client dealings. Whether I’m writing an article for Better Homes and Gardens or AARP, or working on projects for Hiller’s or Yoga Shelter or Frameable Faces or other clients, if the client isn’t happy, they won’t send work my way again.

Is it so hard to crack a smile, swallow a reaction and just say, “I’ll try harder?”

“Why do people have to tell you who they’re voting for, Mommy?” Asher asked as we passed lawn sign after lawn sign proclaiming support for the Obama-Biden ticket.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know.”

I am up to my eyeballs in political proselytizing this fall. Literally.

This election has hypnotized my relatives, people previously driven by a who-cares approach to politics. At holiday gatherings and casual get-togethers, they exhibit Obama-Biden lapel pins and wax passionate about what an idiot Sarah Palin is and how similar to W John McCain is.

When I jumped down from my fence seat and announced my support for the McCain-Palin ticket, my mother turned up her nose, narrowed her gaze and spat, “Well, that’s YOUR problem, Lynne.”

I was slicing hard tomatoes in her granite-counter kitchen and sipping Spanish wine. I make salad differently, but I didn’t feel the need to say so.

Look. I don’t care who anyone votes for. It’s every American’s right and responibility to cast a ballot. And it’s none of my business what reasoning drives that choice.

Apparently, I am one of the few Americans who see good and bad on both sides. The people I know with lawn signs and lapel pins declare Obama as THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM. They’re being naive.

A just-out-of-the-starting-gate senator - albeit one who has infinite charisma and great speaking abilities when he knows what he’s talking about - is no more or less poised to lead than a veteran with experience negotiating across party lines. And an in-the-trenches governor who won’t take sass and juggles a family and public office is more equipped to offer insight, direction and answers than a white guy from the tiniest state in the Union.

But I digress.

This economic crisis was a long time in coming and there are many to blame for it - including each one of us. No one person will resolve it overnight.

And if you’re going to talk about change, please be specific. You see, except for Sarah Palin, whom I adore, they’re all dancing around vaguaries and big words. No one’s saying anything of worth.

(The next time someone tells me they don’t want a soccer mom in high office, I just might slap them. Even though I loved Tina Fey’s impressions.)

Vote for your candidate of choice. Be passionate about your beliefs. But please don’t preach to me.

And put your damn lawn signs away.

Katrina, age 11, Brooklyn, N.Y.: “What I couldn’t live without is my sister, because my life would be more empty. My life would be missing a piece, like a puzzle waiting for its final part. I am so spoiled because I have a great relationship with my sister, and without it I know I would not be who I am.” Real Simple Family Magazine, Fall 2008

Pasquale Scaturro: “When you take away the guilt trip of religion and knock down the walls, you have to ask yourself, ‘What are my boundaries?’” Outside Magazine, April 2008

I have always hated fasting. Perhaps it’s the outside determinant - someone else telling me, you shall fast on this day, for this many hours, whether you like it or not. Or maybe it’s just that it’s uncomfortable and I don’t like discomfort. (Who does?)

Tomorrow night begins Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, when most Jews refrain from eating or drinking anything for 25 hours. Every year I reckon with this concept - though thankfully I have no physical problem with fasting. I don’t get sick, I don’t even feel hungry for most of the time, and I certainly don’t end up in bed with a migraine.

I get angry.

Judaism has always seemed to me to be a religion of triumph and joy - not asceticism and depression. But as I became more knowledgeable in the religion, and more observant, I realized being an observant Jew wasn’t all fun and games.

With anything, there is the good and the bad, and we must weather highs and lows. It’s just the way life untangles itself over time.

Like with the economy right now. Markets plunge, 401Ks disappear into air, investments plummet.

I’m no investor so don’t ask my advice on what to do with your money. I just have a hunch that the numbers will eventually be up, given enough time.

I walk through my days driven by a certain measure of common sense (and an earful of advice from people I trust and admire). And what all that tells me is that, like Judaism, economic downturns are cyclical. The numbers will rise again, like the morning sun, just as certainly as the fast will end.

The Jewish calendar has re-established itself every year for millennia. Last week, we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, introducing a new Jewish year. Tomorrow night, we ask forgiveness from friends, family and God. Next week, we sit in huts under the stars for an eight-day party of warm food, good wine and late nights. (Sukkot)

Then we return to the diurnal. School, work, filling the car with gas, purchasing groceries.

Eventually, there will be another holiday.

And another fast day.

And another meal.