The moment I enter the Antique Emporium I am transported back to my childhood - whether if be the metal lunch boxes, the tabletop radios, rolling pins, irons, depression glassware, glasses with flowers painted on them that were once filled with peanut butter, washboards, wooden high chairs, posters of 40's movies/songs/fashions - a whole world of nostalgia descends softly on my shoulders and I wander for hours, lost in the past.
Wednesday was no different. But when my eyes lit on a small square red box with the huge, bold letters in black," PIT", I stopped in my tracks! That was a game that hadn't even crossed my mind in 60 years! I opened it carefully and there on the first card that had "Flax" up in one corner, my eyes went to the middle of the card where men of the 30's, 40's (?) dressed in three-piece suits and hats were mobbed on the floor of Wall Street! I never knew what on earth we were trading as we yelled "two for two" or "four for four" at noisy games with the cousins on Sunday afternoons! Commodities and Hinkletown had very little in common!!
I was reminded again how time, though it gradually weakens the physical eyes, it sharpens the lens of understanding.
As I continued on I saw a Flinch box as well, which I hadn't revisited for years either - had I seen a Touring box, I'd have hit the long-lost Triumvirate!
That old time religion....games, games, games, in the "flesh" not on a flickering monitor. How they sweetened our hours.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Monday, October 17, 2016
all is well
This morning when I was walking around the lake, early, I looked up and saw the faint, full, outline of the moon.
Last night when I looked out the bedroom window I caught my breath! The moon was huge, lemony against the inky sky, riding high above the trees.
And now the sun was beginning to gild the day. I saw an overhead V flock of geese reflected in the lake. One flaming tree also deep in the lake as well.
The sun by day, the moon by night. Lovely symmetry. Safeguards from the world beyond.
Last night when I looked out the bedroom window I caught my breath! The moon was huge, lemony against the inky sky, riding high above the trees.
And now the sun was beginning to gild the day. I saw an overhead V flock of geese reflected in the lake. One flaming tree also deep in the lake as well.
The sun by day, the moon by night. Lovely symmetry. Safeguards from the world beyond.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
straight from the heat
I heard the author Mary Carr say early this morning that nature means nothing to her.
Wow, that woke me up!
Nature means everything to me.
I know she grew up in a very harsh environment with alcoholic parents and the core of her existence was chaotic. On the other hand, I grew up in a loving wave of comfort and safety - and the wonders of the natural world were highlighted daily. Mother constantly pointed out the nuances of beauty each day, so the absorption of nature around us became as natural as breathing.
I understand how privileged I have been, nature-wise, all my life. I have fed off the beauty of the farmland and creek beds of Lancaster County, the forests of the Adirondacks, the rolling splendor of the Shenandoah Valley, the high wide skies of Kansas, the rocky crash of Newfoundland and now the last thirty years of Reston's architectural and natural exquisite construction. My soul is sated with beauty.
If I go to a city of concrete, steel, rushing people and traffic, lights, buildings, noise - cacophonies of the senses, I love it. For a day or two.
Beyond that I grow lean with longing for the sass of a jay, the disappearing twitch of a squirrel's tail, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the hard high blue skies, the lake diamonded in the rising sun, the scent of decaying wood - organic life coming at me straight from the source.
I'm a country girl, through and through.
Wow, that woke me up!
Nature means everything to me.
I know she grew up in a very harsh environment with alcoholic parents and the core of her existence was chaotic. On the other hand, I grew up in a loving wave of comfort and safety - and the wonders of the natural world were highlighted daily. Mother constantly pointed out the nuances of beauty each day, so the absorption of nature around us became as natural as breathing.
I understand how privileged I have been, nature-wise, all my life. I have fed off the beauty of the farmland and creek beds of Lancaster County, the forests of the Adirondacks, the rolling splendor of the Shenandoah Valley, the high wide skies of Kansas, the rocky crash of Newfoundland and now the last thirty years of Reston's architectural and natural exquisite construction. My soul is sated with beauty.
If I go to a city of concrete, steel, rushing people and traffic, lights, buildings, noise - cacophonies of the senses, I love it. For a day or two.
Beyond that I grow lean with longing for the sass of a jay, the disappearing twitch of a squirrel's tail, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the hard high blue skies, the lake diamonded in the rising sun, the scent of decaying wood - organic life coming at me straight from the source.
I'm a country girl, through and through.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
This little light of mine
This morning I heard a quote from a Martin Luther King speech in 1968 - had to be just before he died - that contained the thought that Lincoln enacted the Emancipation Proclamation but there were no accompanying tools to go with it. He said it was like telling a prisoner who had spent years and years in prison for some crime he never committed in the first place - "you're free to go" but then never even giving him bus fare to get to town. You need to build infrastructures to freedom and justice.
How true.
And how quickly society judges failure as proof the experiment never should have been tried.
From our individual corners we can't solve all the social problems of the world, but we can be kind each day. Kindness. The world cries out for it.
And who knows, those random actions may morph into bus fare.
How true.
And how quickly society judges failure as proof the experiment never should have been tried.
From our individual corners we can't solve all the social problems of the world, but we can be kind each day. Kindness. The world cries out for it.
And who knows, those random actions may morph into bus fare.
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