Just a thought… You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. [Jim Rohn]

As usual, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Welcome in – so it’s the first FULL day of fall and I asked yesterday on Facebook and Instagram for people’s one word favourite thing about this season. There were a lot of answers but most came down to C’s: colours, change, crispness and cozy (as in hoodies, sweaters and such).

We’re all for the cozy here on the island – Vancouver Island, but not Vancouver, if you’re new here – where fall and winter mean rain, although we have gone halfers with a neighbour on a machine so we can blow out those big wet snows (and our other 90-year-old neighbours’ driveway) when the white stuff comes. Hey – maybe it’s an insurance policy: if we buy the snowblower, we won’t get any accumulation…? We will park the convertible, use the fireplace and be grateful.

Speaking of cozy, I have a confession to make here: we did not change out our flannel sheets all year. Of course we washed them; we’re not in college for heaven’s sake (okay, that’s a confession too) but we never did give up the light flannel sheets we bought from Land’s End when we were in the States. Yes, even when my busy laptop is running furiously like a heating pad, my weighted blanket and robe are all on top of me, the flannel sheets stay. And yes, half of the hot flashes – or power surges as I prefer to call them – are self-induced. I get that.

So I mentioned Facebook. In the past few weeks I’ve had a few people say they just won’t go there to watch my journals because they despise the platform. I get that. It’s been a horrible source of misinformation and downright lies, and I’ve actually muted some folks whose political posts make my temperature rise more than any flannel sheets ever could.

But here’s the thing: for most of us, it’s the best way of staying in contact, as in the case of this journal. If you choose not to use Facebook, you’ve got other options, as you know from clicking the YouTube link above to watch the video journal, if that’s what you like. I’m trying to find people – you – where you are.

In the meantime, now that this election is over – one, as political journalist Chantal Hebert put it, “that nobody wanted, and nobody got what they wanted” – I hope we can move on to a gentler discourse again and get back to fighting Covid as one. Getting vaccinated. Believing the science. Protesting abuse of the vulnerable, and inaction on climate change, instead of nurses and doctors trying to save people’s lives, for heaven’s sake.

Things are messy right now, but we have to see a season of change as a time to make things better. Me? I’ll keep my head down, continue to mute where necessary and just write away, giving people stories to go to sleep with at night on Drift – flannel sheets or not.

Have a gentle weekend and I’ll be back with you Monday, my friend.