The Blessing of the Animals

Summer 2012

~

As always, click on photo to enlarge.

Late Summer Mantis

Each year there is a visit... this one lasted a LONG time.

I swear he was trying to come inside!

~

As always, click on photo to enlarge.

Farmhouse Flowers

As always, click on photo to enlarge.

9/11

Well, it has been a quiet summer...

... in Lake Wobegone, my hometown." It started off badly, or ended badly, depending on how you look at it. There was the foreshadowing clue of the black SUV that somehow flew and landed ON TOP of a bunch of other cars in the high occupancy vehicle lane facing the wrong direction! THAT was startling enough that I took a snapshot as I went by. Maybe I will manage to find that and add it to this post at a later date. The day before MY car went careening, I said to my husband that I couldn't wait for the school year to end because people were driving crazily. And then it was all suddenly way closer to home. With that awful crunch ringing in my ears, I figuratively  slammed against the other terrible happening and the result was... well, let's just say I haven't had much I have wanted to say out loud (or write about in here) . Something happened right at the end of the school year. Something personal. Something devastating. Something--- for me--- just as slaying as the word 'cancer' that first second I heard it and the two years I spent battling it and the twelve I have spent in its wake.  [ Let me just say that all those quotes about what cancer can't do are a bunch of crap. It takes and keeps on taking even when you survive it. And if you are emotionally slow --- which is something I call myself --- it takes for a long time.]  The new event was just as devastating as the loss of my dearest friend whose death spurned the start of this blog. Anyway, I am not going to write about what happened. The people that I needed to tell were told. They understood the devastation and that helped. That period of  time will be a benchmark in my mind for all years to come. It will be personally thought of as an event when everything, that is to say, how I looked at and thought about everything changed.   Hmmm. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Or "Everything happens for a reason." Or "So let it be written; so let it be done." And "It's all good." All those phrases apply. Enough said.

Whatever. Summer began with me with a rental car to replace the totaled one. It began with my camera giving me trouble, so the prospect of a lots of photo-taking was nil. It began with that new devastating loss I had little interest in talking about. And somehow I was supposed to continue.  And I did. My husband and I let the first half of the summer pass without one early morning beach walk... once we got back in the habit tho' it became a commitment. We rose earlier than I did in past years  by chance at first. Then chance became  routine. It was a good thing as Martha would say. Almost always, we were alone at the edge of the earth... there is always something incredible about that. The very first day I walked about three times as far as I had ever managed before and as a mobility impaired person, that's a big deal. With my husband's company most mornings, the  daily experience is much less introspective. It has become  more focused on the walk rather than the thoughts during the walk or the opportunity to explore an interior dialogue. That change is okay with me, too, because I need to walk and I need to walk better. The one time he did not accompany me I took a hundred photos in spite of my tempermental camera, but the memory card is somehow broken so I have to learn a new way to download the photos. When I do, I will share.

So now I am standing on the edge of a new school year. Yesterday I brought home my very first absolutely new car and she is a beauty. I am no longer a classroom teacher... now a Language Arts & Humanities teacher, which suits me just fine. A good chance of less paperwork and more creativity. All good.

When I look back, how will I think of this summer? The summer I saw an eagle on my way back from the beach. The summer of the twin baby fox sighting at the convent. The summer of the ten point buck with the shedding velvet,  and the summer of Ol' One Horn. The summer of the extremely red-breasted robins. The summer of the butterflies. The summer I walked farther. The summer when things began to settle. The summer I sang  a new song. The summer everything--- that is to say--- my entire perspective--- changed. And the summer when I began the long goodbye and the new hello. Because that's what it is happening. I am setting my sights on new things. I am becoming something very different than what I have been. And  my general feeling is bring it on....It's all good.

~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8rhWYuaD70

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo

The Bad Day

I was singing.

You can tell them that

If they ask.

I was singing an old song.

I remember them---

Old songs.

And like a pile of china from a

High shelf the bad day came

Crashing down.

And then there was a

Stunned aftermath

And deep pain across my chest

And the waking call to my husband

And the two policemen thanking god

No one was hurt

And the pissed off couple sandwiched

Between and the honest man in front

Who I wanted to kiss

Who simply said

“Traffic stopped suddenly

 in front of me.”

And they took my car away.

The car where my friend’s ghost sits.

The car with that dashboard valet ticket I have left since

The rarest day in February.

The car I have no idea how to replace.

The car where a thousand angels

Cushioned the blow of a red light run

On that Halloween;

On another bad day.

I’ll be singing.

You can tell them that. Well,

Maybe not that song.

               ~  C.M. Carroll

Wordless Wednesday

For my father....

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)–
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

- Robert Frost

No body on earth but ours....

Lord Christ,

You have no body on earth but ours,
No hands but ours,
No feet but ours.
...
Ours are the eyes through which your compassion
Must look out on the world.
Ours are the feet by which you may still
Go about doing good.

Ours are the hands with which
You bless people now.

Bless our minds and bodies,
That we may be a blessing to others.

AMEN

~ St. Teresa of Avila

What did YOU do in school today?

Introductions all around....

Took some peonies to work today....

Far too many people had never spent time with one before!

"We hold your oath fulfilled...."