Mirror, Mirror

Things that have made me recently reflective ~

 
re·flec·tion (rĭ-flĕk'shən) n.  1. The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected.  2. Something, such as light, radiant heat, sound, or an image, that is reflected.  3. Mental concentration; careful consideration.  4. An indirect expression of censure or discredit.  5. A manifestation or result.

The word 'benign' and all it implies.  Thank you, God.

A fading pink sky, a rising mist, a full moon.

Saying hello, reminiscing with old friends, 'church lady food', saying goodbye.

Biscuits and gravy with my daughter, soccer tournaments, the anticipation of a St. Louis visit.

A rose from a student...yellow, of course.

The sounds of a late night train. 

A quote:  "I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." ~Anne Quindlen 
 
...or two:  "The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were." ~John F. Kennedy
 
The arrival of fall, when my senses are most keen, the time of year when my sentiments are heightened.  It is in these days that I am an old, old soul.
 
Magic:  "Second star to the right, then straight on 'til morning...That Peter had told Wendy, was the way to Neverland."
 
And with that, I think I'll take flight.  For now.  ~S.

Let's roll.

Source: thestir.cafemom.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children. ~President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001 

These lines from final verse of our national anthem speak to my heart.  I hope they do likewise to yours.

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

May you and yours be richly blessed.  ~S.

Happenstance

I am in 'a mood' and have decided to whittle away the edge of it with words.  I am typing in a public place and I find the blaring sounds of YouTube on a neighboring laptop to be intrusive.  I wish I'd brought along my earphones.  I could wear them myself or offer them to the party at the adjacent table in exchange for some peace and quiet.  Annoying, too, is the way the young man behind the cafe counter keeps flicking his braid, a tiny thing that hangs behind one ear and down onto his shoulder.  (I don't understand the purpose of this style statement.  It seems bizarre, or maybe my thoughts simply indicate I am growing old.)  He serves me my vanilla cupcake with a smile and a wish for a great day.  Now I feel bad.  I need to rewind and begin again.  I, of all people, should know better than to judge a book by its cover.  Dang it.  What is wrong with me today?

Right now I wish Cape Cod wasn't so far from here...or maybe I am wishing that I was far away on Cape Cod.  My little sis pointed me in this direction and I am 'homesick'...

Source: hollymathisinteriors.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

I love the work of Holly Mathis Interiors and think I could make it work here, on Nantucket Island:

Source: images.search.yahoo.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Source: images.search.yahoo.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

And this driveway is lovely:

Source: images.search.yahoo.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

A young girl nearby has just asked to use my phone.  She is obviously trying to study but is frustrated with a new-but-dead battery in her own.  There is something about helping someone else that lessens the egocentrism.  My mood is shifting...

Someday, when we both reminisce we'll both say, 'There wasn't too much we missed,' and through the tears we'll smile when we recall we had it all for just a moment. ~St. Elmo's Fire

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.           ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel--both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. ~Frederick Buechner

 There:  a few final quotes...for me, if not for you.  I think I can study now.  I think.  ~S.

Over the River and Through the Woods

The memories which peaceful country scenes call up, are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes. Their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we loved: may purify our thoughts, and bear down before it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this, there lingers, in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride and worldliness beneath it. ~Charles Dickens

Is it any wonder this place is called Spring Garden?  That is the name of my childhood...of grandma's house. 

the yard

apple orchard

site of the old grape vines and a cherry tree

This tree reminds me of my favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Scout's reflective thoughts near the end of the story always tugs at me a bit... "We came to the street light on the corner, and I wondered how many times Dill had stood there hugging the fat pole, watching, waiting, hoping. I wondered how many times Jem and I had made this journey, but I entered the Radley front gate for the second time in my life. Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the front doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, went inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again. Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad."

We should all have one person who knows how to bless us despite the evidence, Grandmother was that person to me. ~Phyllis Theroux 

 

the old Spring Garden Baptist Church, abandoned for a newer structure, still stands on grandma's property

This little one-room schoolhouse, still in use as a community building, is just a skip down the gravel road from grandma's house.  I can see it from her porch.  I took this photo on the Fourth of July and love it.  My mother attended first grade here.  As a first grade teacher myself, this place is rather sweet.

xo, S.

August

Somewhere in the world today is a boy, I mean a man, who is celebrating a birthday.  He was from Paris and spent a month in my neighborhood as a foreign exchange student in the summer of 1986.  He attempted to teach his uncultured American friends how to blow smoke rings.  I wonder where he is today.  I wonder why I even wonder.

July was a lot of busy-ness for me.  I completed the inaugural session of my doctoral work and just last evening, registered for the next semester of courses.  Now if only gas prices would fall (ha), I'd enjoy the trek to class a bit more.  I am contemplating research in the area of literacy-deficit children and their experiences in the primary grades.  I have this persistent drive to narrow my focus and make a plan.  Time is money and I'd like to begin spending less of it (money, that is).  Besides, if I'm going to conduct research and then prepare a manuscript of, say, 500 to 1000 to God-knows-how-many pages, I'd rather begin sooner than later.

I'd also like the rain to begin sooner versus later.  Days on end with exorbitant temperatures and sweltering humidity makes for hefty doses of misery.  I need gills.  I am dreaming of fall, of this:

Flicker. Onironauta.

Summer here is summed up by one word:  sweat.  Personally, I think sweat is disgusting. 

So today while I clothe myself in air conditioning,  I am going to begin the prep work for creating an office.  First, I need to clear the area (a lofty goal).  Ultimately, I think I'd like a space like this:  

Source: google.com via Britney on Pinterest

or this:

Source: whimages.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

using fabric like this:

Source: fabric.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

on a settee such as this:

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

 

inside of antiquated walls like these:

Source: tumblr.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

in a setting identical to this:

Source: cognacandcoffee.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

And now we're back to Autumn...soon, I hope.  *sigh*

Into My Own

~Robert Frost
 

ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they knew—
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Dear Mom,

Many words in these posts are about dad, perhaps not always overtly so, but you recognize the ebb and flow of my words.  Sometimes the most difficult aspect of a relationship is the lack of closure following its end.  I seem to be always searching for the period at the end of the sentence, or the epilogue that comes at the fading of the book.  It is true that dad provided much of the fuel for my maddening fight.  Sometimes it was much like gasoline.  Ultimately though, the story of me is about survival.  For that fire, I can be grateful to dad despite everything.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honore de Balzac, author

Still, I wonder if you can forgive me...for always looking back at the sadness, for struggling to channel the anger, for trying to assimilate it all, somehow, into my life today.  What I want you to know is that I have not forgotten:  I am not only his daughter.  I am yours as well.  No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. ~Florida Scott-Maxwell  It is your calm, your smile, the seeds that you have sown. ~ These are anchors that hold me steady when my heart is adrift. You are, as you always have been, a safe harbor.

What I want you to know is that where I have been may have a lot to do with dad, but where I am going has everything to do with you.  How could you have known so many years ago that those alphabet flashcards (still in my cabinet) and journals and stories ~ shared because you believed literacy mattered ~ could have such an impact? Most mothers are instinctive philosophers. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe  More importantly, I watched (and am still watching) you read.  You taught by example. That best academy, a mother's knee. ~James Russell Lowell  And so today, as I contemplate research that will perhaps impact the lives of others, I return to those memories of us...a mother and her young child, reading and learning and falling in love with words. I only hope that every child might be so blessed.  Whatever I do in this educational journey that is good, it is you to whom I am indebted foremost.  Love, S. xo

As is the mother, so is her daughter.~Ezekiel 16:4  

Lord, let it be so.

Patriotism, belated, is still timely...

O' beautiful for spacious skies

This is America ... a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky. ~GEORGE H.W. BUSH, RNC acceptance speech, August 18, 1988

God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her, through the night with a light from above.

Young man, there is America -- which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. ~EDMUND BURKE, speech on conciliation with America, 1775

 God shed His grace on Thee

No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.

~GEORGE WASHINGTON, first inaugural address, Apr. 30, 1789

O' say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o'er the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave?

France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter—it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, "The Swimmers," Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 19, 1929

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. 

~Thomas Jefferson