"Writing is always a voyage of discovery." Nadine Gordimer. It is also a joyage.
My cousin David Macck gave me a little white Elvis bear some time ago. He sports a black wig worn side burn style and a pair of over-sized TCB sunglasses. One day I embroidered a rosy smile beneath his black button nose. This past weekend I sewed strips of red and silver craft gems along his arms and legs, around his neck and across his waist. Now he sits aglitter on the table to oversee today's entry in The Hogwarts Journal. I also stapled a row of red pom-poms to the Burger King crown of my Reese's stand-up Elvis which was given to me by Alice Holz. This is the kind of thing one does when she gets up early or stays up late.
It's been warm for late November and when I step outside I almost expect to be greeted by a chorus of sunny daffodils. "Good morning, good morning and how-do-you-do; Good morning, good morning we're glad to see you!" Of course, there is no snow to cover the ground so the sleds are still wrapped in summer spider webs. I find that snowshoes have short memories and mine do not recall our long winter walks through snow. A few chickadees are coming to the feeders. The pig has discovered the delicious sunflower seeds that have fallen below. She winks and says, "It's manna to me!" So I feed the birds and the birds feed the pig.
Last spring we burned a sick old rose bush and I thought that was the end of it. However, up came a healthy stalk that produced a single bud. In mid summer it opened into one perfect rose. Cedar loved the rose and visited it daily. Then on a certain morning she pulled the petals one by one and carried them in her small sweaty hand. She'd cup her hands over her nose and inhale the fragrance. Then she held them under my nose, too. At last she sprinkled them within the circle of a fairy ring. The fairies that dance by night were blessed by a child's offering of simple beauty and honest love.
Thoreau did not want a single life to be "frittered away". He urged all people to simplify and reduce. He said, "Keep your accounts on your thumbnail." But we are predators and parasites. We seek and destroy to feed our perceived needs and live off the death of others. Wendell Berry wrote, "I think an economy should be based on thrift, not on theft, usury, seduction, waste and ruin.
When I lived at the A-frame on the Oak Point Road the outhouse would be spider-infested early in the year. Over time the spiders disappeared until there remained only three large wolf spiders. They didn't bother me so I let them live there. But they had devoured all the food around them except one another. So I would sometimes think of them at night stalking and hiding. In the morning I'd look for them... or did they look for me? My grandson Saige said he could feel them watching him.
My cousin David Macck gave me a little white Elvis bear some time ago. He sports a black wig worn side burn style and a pair of over-sized TCB sunglasses. One day I embroidered a rosy smile beneath his black button nose. This past weekend I sewed strips of red and silver craft gems along his arms and legs, around his neck and across his waist. Now he sits aglitter on the table to oversee today's entry in The Hogwarts Journal. I also stapled a row of red pom-poms to the Burger King crown of my Reese's stand-up Elvis which was given to me by Alice Holz. This is the kind of thing one does when she gets up early or stays up late.
It's been warm for late November and when I step outside I almost expect to be greeted by a chorus of sunny daffodils. "Good morning, good morning and how-do-you-do; Good morning, good morning we're glad to see you!" Of course, there is no snow to cover the ground so the sleds are still wrapped in summer spider webs. I find that snowshoes have short memories and mine do not recall our long winter walks through snow. A few chickadees are coming to the feeders. The pig has discovered the delicious sunflower seeds that have fallen below. She winks and says, "It's manna to me!" So I feed the birds and the birds feed the pig.
Last spring we burned a sick old rose bush and I thought that was the end of it. However, up came a healthy stalk that produced a single bud. In mid summer it opened into one perfect rose. Cedar loved the rose and visited it daily. Then on a certain morning she pulled the petals one by one and carried them in her small sweaty hand. She'd cup her hands over her nose and inhale the fragrance. Then she held them under my nose, too. At last she sprinkled them within the circle of a fairy ring. The fairies that dance by night were blessed by a child's offering of simple beauty and honest love.
Thoreau did not want a single life to be "frittered away". He urged all people to simplify and reduce. He said, "Keep your accounts on your thumbnail." But we are predators and parasites. We seek and destroy to feed our perceived needs and live off the death of others. Wendell Berry wrote, "I think an economy should be based on thrift, not on theft, usury, seduction, waste and ruin.
When I lived at the A-frame on the Oak Point Road the outhouse would be spider-infested early in the year. Over time the spiders disappeared until there remained only three large wolf spiders. They didn't bother me so I let them live there. But they had devoured all the food around them except one another. So I would sometimes think of them at night stalking and hiding. In the morning I'd look for them... or did they look for me? My grandson Saige said he could feel them watching him.
No comments:
Post a Comment