Basic Life
I listened to a friend, yesterday, talking about how much things had changed in her career. She's been providing the same service for people for quite a number of years, but what began as a pretty straightforward process has become intricate, complicated and even convoluted, bordering on the ridiculous. The whole thing is a completely different animal from when she began. It seems that "x + y" no longer equals "z," making it very difficult to keep track of her commissions, and causing her to be hesitant in what she's promising clients, because it could be wrong, or even change within the week. As much as I hate it for her, and certainly understand her frustration, I'm pretty sure...
A Pile of Memories
Yesterday, I spent the entire afternoon sitting on the concrete floor of my hallway, surrounded by mounds of loose photographs. There is a bank of closets there, where a lot of things were quickly shoved as we moved in (over a year ago!), just to get them out of the way. One of them contained about 10 archival photo boxes, that, at one time, had been sorted and labeled by event. Color me organized. However, when I opened the closet to finally straighten it out and remove some of the garbage, I realized that more than a couple had fallen in there and rained down their contents all over the closet. I had to pull everything out, and recover the loose photos, placing them in piles...
Behold
Darkest, black velvet, pierced by millions of pin-prick holes and held to the light. Silence envelops like a winter coat, but does nothing to stop the sweet and welcomed caress of cool air on skin. Suddenly, cotton candy paint is swiped across the velvet, and silence is broken with each stroke, songbirds riding in on their own melodious strains. Fresh and bold, the brush quickly covers the black until only coral and azure remain, the caress joined by a kiss of light and mercy. Behold, with grateful eyes, the flourish of the Artist's signature on the gift of today's painting, unique and new. "God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,his merciful love couldn’t have dried up....
Getting Out
I spied the little guy in the early morning light. Sitting there on the skimmer shelf of the pool, with his little nose struggling to stay above the water line, was a field mouse. He looked exhausted, his coat matted together like he'd been trying to get out of the water all night. Really, the night was probably part of his problem. Things tend to scurry about out here at night. There is no fence or other barrier to stop small animals before they get to the water, and from their vantage point in the darkness, they probably don't see anything at all until they're in it. Typically, it turns out to be their last stop. So, while the discovery of floating wildlife was nothing new, the...
When No One is Watching
We saw him from way across the cemetery. Sitting on 'our' bench, (the one adjacent to his father's grave where Kevin proposed to me thirty-one years ago) we sat in silence, watching preparations for two internment services. One had a piper, dressed in full regalia, along with two servicemen and their trumpets. Soon, the hearse led the long procession of cars as they quietly filed in, the once-empty tent filling with mourners who watched as the pall-bearers moved the casket to its last location above ground. As "Amazing Grace" rang through the air in the lonely strains of the bagpipe, we caught sight of a groundskeeper riding along in his utility cart. The other internment site had...