Thursday, February 21, 2013

Clouds

 Like everyone else in the world, I've been looking at clouds my whole life.  Puffy and wispy or dark and threatening.  Finding pictures and shapes.  The shifting nature and the shape altering.  Clouds.  Beautiful. Predicting and changing the weather.

I'm trying to memorize a poem and within this poem is a beautiful line, "The sun glinting off the turrets of clouds".  Ah, exactly!

The other day I had an epiphany about clouds.  For as long as I've been watching clouds I never thought  about how this works.  Oblivious.  Taking clouds for granted; not even considering the mechanism.

One morning in early January, feeling especially grumpy for some now forgotten reason, I was driving to Stauffers grumping along to myself, muttering about some minuscule something.  Driving over the crest of the hill on Woods Dr, the sky before me was suddenly aflame in bright pink light, extraordinarily scrumptious.  From the fields below to the top of the sky, my whole field of vision was glowing in neon pink.  It was breath-taking!  With this much grandeur before me I was stunned into gratitude, jolted out of my glum attitude, my eyes tearing up as I wondered how I could let some petty nothing transfix my day with funk when the world could be so beautiful.

On my way home I had expected the clouds to hold some of their same magnificence, but they had turned dark, a little threatening even.  What had been glory only 30 minutes before had turned to gloom.  But oh!  How could I have missed this for so many years?  Now the sun was above the clouds and the bottoms were in shadow, whereas before the sun had been beneath them shining it's light up into the floor of them coloring them with sunrise.  Ha, these were the same clouds, just in a different position in relation to the sun.

I must admit to feeling a little sheepish about this realization.  Did everyone else already know this?  How is it that I'd never thought of this in all the years that I'd been watching clouds?  Ah well, now I know.  

A couple more.....

**** The click-clattering of the ice-beaded branches of the bushes as I brush past them in the early morning taking Rosie out to her yard.

****Rosie lies waiting outside our door for me to get up in the morning. She used to sleep in our room with us but her restlessness makes the chance of a good night sleep impossible.  When I get up in the morning and open the door, her wagging tail always goes "thump, thump, thump" on the hardwood floor.  At the same time Fig is rustling about and his bell and name tag are jangling.  It's like a welcoming party every morning, the sound of our animals greeting me when I open the door.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Relief Etched in Snow

I find the pattern of these curved lines quite beautiful....an abstract image of intersecting arches.  But in this instance there's much more.....


"He's 50 years old....you'd think we could quit worrying about him now!"  So goes the punchline of one of my favorite parenting stories.  I've told it hundreds of times.  It's so true.  When I first heard this as the naive mother of a one year old, I had no idea how the worry and care for our children goes on and on and on.

The other night, a snowy, icy, slippery night, Ariel was driving the 2nd twelve hour leg of her journey home from Denver, CO.  She was driving alone, long hours across the cold winter country.  Far.  (Stop if you feel tired!  Chew Gum!  Break the drive into 3 pieces!).  The solitary distance was worry enough, until the snow and ice developed.  Most of the storm was to the north, but there was enough snow on the roads to be slick.  Scary.  I deployed the Shield of Worry; it was heavy.

Tapping at our bedroom door at 1:30 in the morning, Ariel woke us to let us know she'd arrived.  Certainly, I was awash with relief that she'd made it.

The next morning, knowing that she was upstairs sleeping, home safe, I noticed the tire tracks in the snow; the story of her car pulling into the driveway, backing up and then parking at the curb in front of our house.  Safe.  Again I was overtaken with gratitude, my relief etched in cathedral arcs of tire tracks on the surface of the snow.

                                                  ******************************


A few days later the tracks were still there in the icy street, the glow of streetlights reflected in the grooves.


A couple of others:

****Standing in the Brown's hallway, listening to the happy sounds from the Soup Party in the next room....the burble of excited conversation and laughter flowing from the wellspring of friendship.

****Lying in my warm bed listening to the wind howl and swoosh through the trees outside.  I know I have to go out there soon, but right NOW, in this MOMENT, I'm cozy in a warm bed sandwich.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Deflated Pumpkin and the Orange is Gone Gone Gone

Being mindful has become a most excellent activity!  Because I'm writing these observations down, I find I'm always on the lookout for wondrous things......beautiful, interesting funny, ironic.  I list many many a day. Way more than I'd imagined.  WAY more.

I try to choose the best three for the week; it's hard to pick.

I've been contemplating the color "Orange" this past week.  Orange is a really quirky color.  Solid and substantial.  Nothing delicate about Orange.  A spunky color.  People rarely wear orange, though.  It's too weird, too offbeat in it's brighter shades. 

You really only see orange in autumn, unless maybe a few zinnias in the summer.  But Orange IS the color of fall....leaves, chrysanthemums and of course, pumpkins.  Wonderfully, solidly Orange.  Rounded and full, pumpkins are Orange in it's inflated and expanded form.

I put 6 little pumpkins....one for each member of our family..... on the window sill every autumn while decorating.  I love seeing them there, a cheerful greeting as I'm struggling to bring groceries in through the back door.

Lately, though, they've been out of place....a color in the wrong time.  This cold season is the color of evergreens and brown and white.  Muted and stark.  Orange is too lively for this time of year.

After the recent brutal cold spell and then later thawing, the little pumpkins have gone soft.  Time for the compost bin.  Gone, Orange is gone, gone, gone til next fall.  Winter is here.  




I stopped by a friend's house the other day and saw this deflated pumpkin.  It was as if this pumpkin were a friend of the Wicked Witch of the West!  The insides had completely melted away into the ground below leaving only the outside skin folded into a slump.  I wondered if this pumpkin was real.  Had to touch it.  It was definitely real!  And rather ridiculous, really.  Insides dissolved, fullness vanished, only the rumpled skin was left behind.  Orange on it's way out.   

Other observations:

****The vibrations of the trains below pulsing through the wooden benches at the 30th Street Station in Philly.  Massive, heavy, rumbling sensations traveling from the tracks up through the benches into my body.  Power transferred.

****The smoothness of a little hill of ice outside the gate of Rosie's yard.  Ice can be so treacherous, but honestly, the feel of this mound of packed snow under the ball of my foot is positively sensuous!  Slick, smooth, massaging the underside of my foot.  Ooh la la, who would've ever thought!  (Is this crazy?)