40 years and more. July 14th, 1983. French Bastille day. That was the day our freedom came with a mortgage, but with it a place to land, grow, have a family and watch our kids then grow and fly away.
With a new owner next door, we have a new look. A window, draped in green, into the lake south in summer.
Life changes even as we stay in one place.
It's Pretty Good.
Over the weekend I finished Lila, the third book of four set in Gilead, the first being of the same name, by Marilynne Robinson. Much like it, this book was too deep for me but I loved it still. Lila, of the title, is the wife of the much older pastor we were introduced to in Gilead.
Lila, set in the 20s, begins with the backstory of who she was, how she lived and why she came to be in the small town. Lila's life, having been one of struggle and little money, did, though, have some love and care, by the woman who raised her and the family who, not really family, cared for her as they could.
These passages - of which there were many to choose and perhaps with no understanding to anyone but me since I read the book - come from the end. Lila is trying to make sense of love and heaven in relation to the unbaptized, guilty and forsaken people of this world. What a task!
This no longer believer would love to think Lila (through Robinson) knows more than most.* It is a world of love and care and joy, even as there is heartache, hard times and loss.
It could be our world too; we need to see the moment while having the courage to see past the worst to the possible.
* Doing a quick search on Robinson, thinking I remembered her as religious, I came across an article from New Yorker, 2012, by Mark O'Connell, "The First Church of Marilynne Robinson." Reading through I found my feelings exactly. Robinson "makes an atheist reader like myself capable of identifying with the sense of a fallen world that is filled with pain and sadness but also suffused with divine grace. Robinson is a Calvinist, but her spiritual sensibility is richly inclusive and non-dogmatic. There’s little talk about sin or damnation in her writing, but a lot about forgiveness and tolerance and kindness. Hers is the sort of Christianity, I suppose, that Christ could probably get behind."
We look forward with vibrancy to our vacations while looking back with muted and mellow memories. Much like the last night of our last trip.
Down at the water's edge we saw a brilliant sunset, but remembering a friend's admonishment to look behind, since often the opposing view can be just as good, I did just that. Perhaps not quite so this time, but enough to let the two stand for a week that was vibrant with sun some but muted with clouds and rain other times.
Pickle ball, walks, sits at the beach and cards and fun at night, life is good. Friends and family near and far coming together is always a great time.
Looking Good
What once I did came back this weekend. A quilt I'd made when I sewed was once again a gift. What a treat it to see my creation. Given as a gift to a loved relative, now another loved has it in hand.
"What goes around, comes around," is perfectly and joyfully apt here.
Still Is
What do you see,
poison ivy
or me?
A little hole
home for me,
and one, two, three more!
Playing pickle ball the last morning of vacation, we saw a tiny little rabbit, newly born, or close to it, meandering through the grass. Worried there was no mother around, we debated what to do, and in doing so, we found three more, and their hidey hole.
No bigger than four inches long, with back feet an inch and a beautiful light yellow, the women wanted to save them, while another, the pragmatic of the group, mentioned that rabbits had lots of babies because they were food for others out in nature. With that, I replied that that was why I couldn't watch nature shows. It was too sad.
Later reading the Saturday paper, I read the weekly column from the military chaplain, a down-to-earth man of common sense, and belief. His column this week on two, a preemie hoping for life with all the potential it brings and an elderly woman in hospice waiting, and crying, knowing the end of life was coming.
Any connection to the baby rabbits? Probably not, except that life is made as much on luck and chance as it is on hard work and diligence. The baby lived and the woman did die. The rabbits? We saw them come and go from their home. It was all we could ask for, I guess. Safety from the world and a prayer, knowing that nature would, as always, take its course.
In New Yorker this past week I read a seventeen page article on an art dealer, learning about a world that, frankly, I never knew I needed to know (but it was interesting), while also reading a six page one on a small town newspaper in Oklahoma that broke a national story on the unsavoriness of their county board. I remembered when that one was in the news, the soundbite of it. Now, I had the backstory. Good.
broken. The sound, and another
next, nothing.
Minutes more, one more
The heron. At water's edge, majestic
momentarily, motionless.
Another Morning at the Lake
Luckily, I have a hero.
Water snakes are big, ugly and disliked (by me). We've always left them alone at the lake, their habitat. Can't fault them for that. But, at the house? Nope.
My hero and I are in agreement, now.
From The Week's compendium of political cartoons yesterday.
Funny thoughts
