I continue to enjoy the Cardinal family that's right outside my office window. I've marveled at what appears to be a fair and equal division of duties between mother and father - especially regarding the young ones.

This morning I was wondering where the parents go to rest. Is this their primary residence and they have a second home somewhere else on my property?

I was on the porch this morning. It was very quiet. The young ones have either flown or sleeping in late.


*****


Last night I ordered paint to add to the *studio* Joan and Johnny Ray moved to my screened porch yesterday. I'm not much of an artist - not at all, but I like to slop around with colors much like I like to slop around with words. My paintings are quite uncomplicated - will never inspire chin-pulling deep discussions. I paint for myself.


*****


Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean continues to be a good read. At this stage in life I tend to be a harsh literary critic. When an author describes eyes as cold as stone... well, I *sigh* because I want more. I want to be given something different. Eyes cold as stone is cliche. Yet, this is a fine book. My interest has been seduced much like the Stockholm Syndrome.

The story takes place as the Germans advance toward Leningrad in 1941. There has been much suffering. The author writes:

No one weeps anymore, or if they do, it is over small things, inconsequential moments that catch them unprepared. What is left that is heartbreaking? Not death: death is ordinary. What is heartbreaking is the sight of a single gull lifting effortlessly from a street lamp. Its wings unfurl like silk scarves against the mauve sky, and Marina hears the rustle of its feathers. What is heartbreaking is that there is still beauty in the world.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

All the ordinary beauty in my tiny world, memories, people I've known and loved and maybe not loved. But it's beauty that stutters for words I can't find and yet my heart breaks for all the wonderment. My heart breaks for all the beauty it will miss. These are the type of thoughts that make my eyes flutter as I try to fall asleep.



*****



Yesterday, Linda spoke of a friend who is a cancer survivor and how this friend had expressed gratitude for cancer... how it changed her in all good ways. I get it. Most of us with a serious illness get it.

I've been doing some thinking and this is my variation to include who I think I am and I think most people are:

My illness hasn't made me a better person. I've always been a good person, a kind and generous person. My illness has amplified those traits. Do I sound arrogant? Too bad. I thought of this yesterday - that none of us should think an illness has reinvented us. No, I'm the very same good and wonderful person - just amplified and more appreciative and expressing gratitude more freely and speaking my love. And that is why so many of us can say we are grateful for the illness that has invaded our timeline. We love with haste. We give with haste. We have gratitude with haste. It's a marvelous, intense gift we've been given... and there's no time to waste!

(I wasn't going to go here, but the flipside is true too - cranky, bitter, manipulative people will generally have those amplified traits - I've witnessed it and it's ugly.)

Ah well, thanks for listening.


*****



These arrived yesterday. So much fun!






Love.