"It is infinitely well worth the mother’s while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them, the love of investigation."
Charlotte Mason
My street is lined with flags planted by the boy scouts in the early morning hours today honoring those who have served our nation. Some of them hold a special place in my affections. Looking at these snapshots leaves me flooded with emotion. So many bits and pieces.
My grandfather served in the US Army stateside in the second world war. My grandmother joined him for a time in California where they shared a three bedroom apartment with two other military couples.
Think about that.
He told the stories about escorting Desi Arnaz around post for the rest of his life. He is shown with Gram, above, and his mother, a Slovenian immigrant, below.
My father-in-law enlisted in the USAF in the '60s. My husband was born on base in Verdun, France while he served there.
Pictured below is my mother-in-law's wonderful, quiet husband who experienced the trauma that was Vietnam.
A liberal pacifist young girl (me) married this handsome airman
(below) in the 80's. I did not go gently into the military world but rather was rebellious and argumentative much of the way. Much. I came to understand, respect, and revere the men and women he served with and their positions which had little or nothing to do with whomever currently held office, nor certainly for any love of war.
Sometimes he served at home. Sometimes we held down the domestic fort while he served in Korea or Cuba or Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Sometimes he was here to rock babies every night. Sometimes he had to reintroduce himself to his babies and start fresh.
One of those babies grew up to wear his own uniform. He is reaching the end of his current tour in Europe after serving in Korea and California. He will finish his degree with the GI Bill he has earned being far from home for many, many years.
There are stories behind every uniform. Good stories. Heartbreaking stories. I love hearing them no matter where I might run across them. Just days ago we found ourselves standing in an aisle at Walmart chatting with a 91yo gentleman. He asked the children if they liked math. Admittedly there was not an enthusiastic response. He went on to tell them it was like playing piano. The more you practice the better it gets. How nothing is more rewarding than dedication to hard things.
He explained he was an engineer for nearly 60yrs. He had served in Korea and been sent to Singapore. He returned and devoted himself to science and technology. He had a full life which he credited to hard work and perseverance. And he shared his story with us in the Walmart aisle because these things are important.
I am grateful today for that legacy of quiet service.
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. – Ronald Reagan
Thoughts for election day….
"…it's not our politics that will save us, but our humanity and the smaller more beautiful worlds in which we love each other,"
"To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely."
"…such loveliness begins within the simple ordinary customs and small affections,"
more here
Hoping your weekend has drawn you in and surrounded you with peace and beauty.
"I live my days in the in-betweens. In between heart-melting sweetness and meltdowns. In between racing and resting. In between letting them grow and internally pleading them to stop growing. My days take years to pass. My years flit by in what seems like days. In between it all, this life that we are building, is happening….that means the weariness that reaches to my marrow every day means something beautiful. Deep down, I know it does. It means something beautiful. The most beautiful of somethings. Being present to it all, right now, is the best time of our life. Hoping that Mercy will infuse it all, believing that it is infusing it all right now, is the best time of our life.
I know deep inside that there are more moments of exquisite magnificence packed into each day than I am aware of."
Carrie's words here said it better than I could. Do go read the rest and know, deep in your soul, that what you are doing – even if you feel you are doing it poorly – means something beautiful.
October
Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!
When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief
And the year smiles as it draws near its death.
Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay
In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright, late quiet, would that I
Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks
And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.
William Cullen Bryant
Joining Theresa again this week.
My husband packed us up last weekend and we drove down towards the lake to farm country for the day. The further west you go the more the land flattens out and the sky widens overhead. In the middle of that space there is a huge working farm that goes all out every autumn – rides, games, concessions, corn maze.
I admit I am no fun with the actual going through the corn maze. If I was a horse they'd sell me with the disclaimer "spooks easily." So, I sat under a tree and listened to the live music while they navigated. Win, win.
Speaking of horses. Or cowboys. Ok we weren't really but there was roping involved….
Let me just say here how much fun it is to have teens along on these day trips. I love that we can still hang out and have fun together. And who knew he could throw a lasso with such dead on accuracy?
side note: I was pretty excited to capture the wheel in motion. It's the little things, people
Like I said, age does not seem to be a deterrent…..
I was thinking when I saw this corn picture about an article about joy and why it matters which I read this week. The gist is that it isn't reality or circumstances that determine our happiness so much as the lens we view those through. Change your lens and you change your happiness. Different people look at days like this differently. I have looked at them differently at different times and places. You can see that corn in a small person's hair and know you'll be picking it out of pockets and dryer vent for days. (and we did ; )) You can think about overpriced concessions and the heat or wind or the 5000 things you aren't getting done at home or how annoyed you are with a spouse/child/coworker etc. All that impacts how you feel about a day like this.
So we mind the internal filter. We help each other view the world through a happy lens. We document joy and revisit it often.
End of my big thought. Back to pumpkins….
yessss! Day was a success.
“Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly-arranged and well-provisioned breakfast-table.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
I tend to start strong on the weekends. There is a bit of extra time to try something new or go the extra mile. Pans of biscuits and sausage gravy above.
A September poem for Theresa's challenge, even though it is no longer September.
This poem came by way of a text from my sweet friend who had read it and thought I would like it as well. I did. I do. It made me think back on a month that is largely a blur to me, a month I would normally have savored well, had the circumstances been different.
My Army son has been here. "I have been shooting a lot," I told him. (photography) "You aren't writing as much though," he remarked. It's true. Partly it is because there aren't words for all that has happened in my heart these past few months. When they do come they either choke up in my throat or come spilling out, tumbling over one another leaving me dizzy with the emotion.
We buried my mother in September.
Surely other things happened. So many things. School started. Football and soccer games were won and lost. The trees began to turn. The rain came once more to these dry foothills. Days filled up with activity, one after another, and tended to pass in a stream of consciousness manner, and so it has been quiet here.
When Rebecca sent me this poem though I thought of one September evening when I truly stopped and felt the damp late summer grass brushing my legs and watched my daughter brush errant strands of hair from her sweaty brow as she rested on the edge of her grandparents' corn crib. The mosquitos hummed. Tendrils of grapevine coiled up on empty vines. Moments like those get you through Septembers like this.
I love that she knew this and makes sure I am doing just that.
Storing September
(a poem by Elizabeth Rooney)
You ask me what I did today.
I could pretend and say,
"I don't remember."
But no, I'll tell you what I did today–
I stored September.
Sat in the sun and let the sun sink in,
Let all the warmth of it caress my skin.
When winter comes, my skin will still remember
The day I stored September.
And then my eyes–
I filled them with the deepest, bluest skies
And all the traceries of wasps and butterflies.
When winter comes, my eyes will still remember
The day they stored September.
And there was cricket song to fill my ears!
And the taste of grapes
And the deep purple o f them!
And asters, like small clumps of sky…
You know how much I love them.
That's what I did today
And I know why.
Just simply for the love of it,
I stored September.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
We read the Rime of the Ancient Mariner last Monday. Just for fun. I had started reading it alone and got so caught up in it I began to read aloud. My friend and editor Theresa Thomas who had also shared poetry last week suggested a challenge, that we share a bit of poetry close to our hearts each Monday.
As political debates heat up in the news and even among friends and neighbors a bit of despair can creep into our hearts late at night, wondering how this or that will all play out – for us, for our children. This piece reminds me how to meet that worry.
Starry Sky Journal 