sitting on the dock of the bay

In my childhood, though we took many, many road trips, the staple highlight of the summer was a trip to the Chesapeake Bay to my uncle's cabin in a little resort called Red Point. Though it was only about 1 1/2 hour drive, it seemed an enormous journey to me.

Red Point had a large sandy beach, well, there was sand but also many pebbles, seaweed, scraps of driftwood, shells and general debris. The cabin was small, hot and in the beginning days there was no running water and an outdoor privy . In other words, it was heaven!

And there's the rub. We had a much nicer home in Lancaster County, but Red Point provided us with an entirely different lifestyle. The bay held endless beauty. To our small-town eyes that normally viewed rolling farm land, watching the sunshine dance across the water from all angles of the day, boating, swimming, parading around in the scantiest of clothes, no chores, all family play - it was nirvana indeed. It was not until years later when I went as an adult that I realized the severely narrow outlines of the place, how small, how poor, how lowly the surroundings were!

70 years has passed and I have seen glorious oceans, lakes, rivers in many countries yet my child's heart still leaps with joy at the first glint of vast blue of my beloved Chesapeake when I return each summer with my sister.

Because always our hearts see deeper than our eyes.

Soft o'er the fountain

Recently my sisters and I were discussing the momentum of our oldest brother's going to college and coming back home to our small town with new things, concepts, ideas. In the late 50"s on his first trip home as a freshman, he brought back a record album called "With Love From a Chorus," by the Robert Shaw Chorale. It's cover had a lady in a suggestive pose - which shocked my mother who later remedied the potential moral damage by pasting a country landscape over it! But the record was pure golden entertainment - lovely old romantic songs from the Civil War and much earlier times like - "Juanita," "Seeing Nellie Home," "Wait for the Wagon," "Aura Lee." Another cut, "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" goes way back to Ben Jonson in 1616! My husband pulled up the album on Spotify tonight and played it through an amplified speaker during dinner. Wow. In an instant I was back home in the kitchen and Mother was mashing the potatoes and putting the finishing touches on a roast pork dinner. And there was singing. And noise. And laughter. And family. Such a nuanced wave of memories washed over me to my fingertips.

I heard somewhere recently, music wounds us. Certainly it peels us wide  open to wonder, delight, sorrow, awe. As I listened, sixty wide years of memories funneled down to a point at the center of my being.

And my tears were of gratitude.

aloft

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T.S.Eliot

I have loved this quote for such a long time.

Once, when I was finished with the book, Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, I closed the cover and immediately wrote to the author, and unbelievably he wrote back - in longhand! Mind you it was in the 1980's somewhere, but even then typewriters were invented! I told him in the note how much I loved the book and  that I thought the above quote nut-shelled his book. He agreed and said that the quote was in the book until about the fourth editing and he was glad I found it on my own.

I feel with Mr. Eliot that our search for happiness, success, peace, fulfillment - all take us far afield, until we return to that backyard of the heart where the swing touched the clouds and we soared.

the carrot seed

I am so proud of all the women, girls, boys, men who marched to send a message of strength to the new administration. This is really not about politics, it's about decency. I could not possibly be more ashamed of the adolescent we just elected president, and I am grateful to every voice of protest.

But I hope the marches will translate into policy. There's the rub. But still, a very large seed has been planted. And...

We'll water it
We'll pull the weeds,
Carrots grow from carrot seeds.

My queen

I have begun watching the Netflix series called The Crown. I always have an aversion to fictional shows or novels about real people, but I heard so much about this one that I wanted to give it a chance. I will return to Episode 2 - a leap for me, as increasingly I have become impatient with books, movies, etc., that don't catch my interest immediately!

But rather than the show itself, I was swept back through the years to my mother and her relationship with the Queen. She was fascinated. And the more I think about it, even though her formal education took place largely in a one-roomed schoolhouse with oiled floors, wood stove, outdoor privies, and scant resources of any kind, her mind bloomed and her imagination bore her aloft. For years after she vicariously traveled to worlds beyond her idyllic country home beside a creek, a mill and her cow Daisy. On the morning of Elizabeth's coronation in 1952, Mother got up in the wee hours to listen on the radio to the ceremony. On the radio, no less! And she faithfully followed her footsteps throughout her life.

Two queens. One who reigns within me forever.

big sleep

I am doing The Big Sleep with my book club this month. I'm not sure I read it before, but what a delight to go back to Chandler, the acknowledged standard of the hard-boiled novel. His use of metaphors describing the steamy streets of 1930's Los Angeles is amazing. There are guns, naked women, mobsters, pornography, gambling- the whole shadowy population all awash with corruption.

But his word-mating stops you in your tracks.

"I was forced to make a left turn and a lot of enemies."

"She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house."

"She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother for her."

"Under the thinning fog, the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness."

But despite all slap of chatter, Philip Marlowe aims for the knighthood of decency - "as honest as you can expect a man to be in a world where its going out of style."

Hey, Marlowe, you're still needed.

when in Rome

There are no "bad" words..... as far as I'm concerned. How could one mixing of letters have a moral content - like dam, but add an n and pow!- quarter in the swear word jar!

But I do believe that words can injure by context. If I am with a person who thinks saying "heck" is heading down perdition's way, I think I need to consider not saying heck. I would be honoring the person's sensitivities, not the moral heft of the word itself.

But then, so many behaviors should be contextual! Example, a patron comes striding down the library walk, talking enthusiastically on his cellphone, enters the swinging doors and continues the private conversation at the same volume and spirit level, never mind that he has entered a silent room full of readers. Why would this not be a glaring misbehavior? Whenever I approach people and say quietly, "Can you take your conversation to the lobby, people here are trying to study", invariably they look surprised/stunned/chagrined at my words.

And I think it's because a large number of people no longer operate on context. They say - by action implication - here I am, accept me in whatever form. They don't say - oh, wait, this is a library, a church, an office, a business I should adapt to. No, they say, this is me, my language/behavior/dress/manners are who I am - take it or leave it.

Not all, thankfully, but far too many.

Context, people! Think about it!!

calm before

I guess the end of the Obama years is another example of you don't really value what you have until it's gone.

I would be quick to acknowledge that I didn't always agree with all that we did during his terms, but oh the feast of civility, humor and intelligence that we enjoyed daily! Every exit speech, interview, interaction of the first family is breaking my heart with its poignancy. We have had front-row seats to the first Afro-American family in the White House and what a diorama of dignity and grace, The contrast of values with the incoming occupants couldn't be starker.

I have friends, colleagues, patrons who are almost beside themselves with anxiety. Somehow we have to find quiet spaces to weather the storms ahead. God, and I truly mean God, help us all!

wish it wasn't so

I'm at the age where I have to concede, that unless I concentrate mightily, I can only keep track of a few things at a time. When I was twenty, I could be pondering an idea that would save humanity, and still be totally aware of brushing my teeth, sorting the mail, putting away laundry, etc., etc.,. Now if one thought is central, while I'm still doing all of these incidental things, when the big thought is done, I have no idea what I was doing during its reign! This has annoying consequences! I'm trying to shore up the trivia, but it ain't easy!

Thus another iteration of ...."as we age"......

When I was a child

The crossword puzzle clue was "children's game involving insect construction" and suddenly I was back home in Hinkletown, on the cracked linoleum of our front room, choosing a curved leg to insert into a black body! That Cootie memory had sat on the shelf for about 65 years, just gathering dust, waiting patiently to be hauled out and rejoiced over!

What followed was a email conversation with my sibs about the games we played as children. As usual we remembered different ones - probably due to age and interest. But as we delighted, argued, pouted, shouted over Parcheesi, Monopoly, Clue, Rook, Blockhead, Scrabble, etc., etc., look how we were learning about life! Its simply not a God-given attribute to be gracious about winning or losing. It has to be learned and practiced

And what day has passed in those 65 years since that Cootie exchange that we didn't draw on that sibling exchange?

Did Trump play games as a child? (!)

Somewhere

A bluebird flew on to our feeder.

The morning light lit up his soft hues.

Why is seeing that color in nature so thrilling?

Yes, there is blue sky. And blueberries. And delphiniums.

What am I missing? :)

Clearly, tons of blue things, but grant me, that blue is among the rarer nature shades.

And because the bluebird is associated with happiness and good fortune, I'm claiming this one as a harbinger of 2017.

And after all, birds fly over the rainbow.... why, then oh why, can't I?

Done.

Out of the fray

Wow.

I just read my last post. I think I knew that night that Trump would win and yet, two months later I am not resigned. I simply cannot believe that this nation will actually install in the presidency a man of this caliber, lacking any consistent moral core. I am still incredulous. I am still numb. I am still horrified. There have been other presidents with whom I disagreed, but none who I thought were dishonorable. Trump dishonors himself and the country approximately every 15 minutes! I have determined that my sanity will be best achieved by tuning out of the political clamor and finding diversions of sanctuary. I am so glad that I am as old as I am because I think the changes he will bring throw a very wide, long, dark shadow on anyone who believes in social justice for years to come.

I hope there are fighters out there, because I am in retreat.