SkyWatch Friday: I take no less than skies

Perhaps I asked too large --
I take -- no less than skies --
For Earths, grow thick as
Berries, in my native town --

My Basket holds -- just -- Firmaments --
Those -- dangle easy -- on my arm,
But smaller bundles -- Cram.

~Emily Dickinson~

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Happy Friday! Happy Weekend!

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Taking requests

And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Matthew 21:22

That is all!

Spirit more than willing

Recently on this blog we covered the subject of unexpectedly wonderful experiences.

It has happened again.

A few weeks ago, through a certain mental fog, I heard TG say something about getting free tickets to a patriotic show that was coming to Columbia.

I confess I did not listen all that well.

On Thursday night last, even though he had already put in a ten-hour day at work, my darling acquiesced to a protracted (read: until the good light was gone) early-evening photo shoot at the South Carolina State House, with himself as the subject.

See what a pretty picture he takes?

It was on the way home from that event and already dark outside when TG remembered aloud, with a bit of a groan, that the aforementioned patriotic show was to take place the very next night.

I groaned too, having already planned to not go anywhere on Friday.

But Friday came and I put on my glad rags and looked forward to an evening with my sweetie, even though all I knew about the thing we were to attend was that it was named Spirit of America.

And the only reason I knew that is because on the way home from the State House on Thursday night, I saw an advertisement for it flash on one of the giant lighted billboards that relentlessly glitter and glow beside the Interstate.

Maybe you've heard of Spirit of America -- it's not new -- but I hadn't. My son is in the Air Force. This is a promotional show for the Army.

I won't try to tell you how breathtakingly wonderful it was. Only, if you have the chance to see it, don't think twice. Just go.

But I will tell you that several times during the show, while I had that thrill running up my leg -- something like Chris Matthews experiences when he hears the voice of his false god, Barack Obama, only much better -- from an excess of patriotic fervor, I also felt unsettled.

In the last eleven years -- and especially the last four years -- we have heard anti-American sentiments voiced loudly and vociferously on American soil, much more than at any other time in our history as a nation.

It worries me for my children and grandchildren more than for myself, but if you want to know the truth, I'm concerned about what it means to me personally as well.

I don't like it. Six weeks from tomorrow I hope we begin the task of changing it.

So as I watched Spirit of America, listened to the crowd roar when the band played God Bless the USA, saw thousands jump to their feet for several ovations, stood proudly as a Blue Star Mother when the USAF song was played, I thought about a lot of different things.

On Saturday I was still pondering all of it when I checked my emails. My beloved Uncle Dody had sent me a YouTube of himself playing the guitar and singing, from down in Louisiana.

Before you watch it I want to say how grateful I am to God for the family into which I was very fortunate to be born. These are warm, loving, generous people who would give anything to you that they had to eat or share.

You wouldn't have to do a single thing to earn or "deserve" it.

And they'd do it without a word about your general unworthiness. Their willing spirit has less to do with who others are and more to do with who they are, on the inside where it counts.

These are my mother's people. Southerners by the grace of God. I hope I am more like them than they are like me, and I hope I am more like them every day that I live.

They demonstrate the spirit of Christ -- and of the America I love -- to me in their actions as well as their words.

Happy Monday! Happy Week!

SkyWatch Friday: Catalogue, question, contemplate, and see

Tranquility at length, when autumn comes,
Will lie upon the spirit like that haze
Touching far islands on fine autumn days
With tenderest blue, like bloom on purple plums;
Harvest will ring, but not as summer hums,
With noisy enterprise -- to broaden, raise,
Proceed, proclaim, establish: autumn stays
The marching year one moment; stills the drums.
Then sits the insistent cricket in the grass;
But on the gravel crawls the chilly bee;
And all is over that could come to pass
Last year; excepting this: the mind is free
One moment, to compute, refute, amass,
Catalogue, question, contemplate, and see.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Happy Friday! Happy Autumn!

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Looks are everything

Sometimes when I'm not bored I just walk around my house looking at stuff.

If I'm not already holding it in my hand, within a minute or two I locate my camera.

I begin taking pictures.

No, the stuff in my house isn't new and my camera isn't particularly new either.

It's just that, being as enamored of photography as I am, when I see milky light float over and through an object in a certain way, or when I ponder the provenance of said object, or merely when I need a creative fix (which is often), I take a picture.

I know you know what I mean. My beloved blog readers are on this page with me or they wouldn't be on this page with me.

So then I'll smile when I remember the day my mom and I found this elephant in an antique store in Newberry, South Carolina.

"That's Alabama clay," she said.

All I knew was, I loved this elephant for his creaminess and his reddish streaks and his posture and the way his trunk makes a whole loop and his attitude and his all-around elephant-ness.

And I love my collection of green glass, and clear glass too, from special antique pieces down to those little bottles your maple syrup comes in at Cracker Barrel when you order pancakes.

I can't throw those away! They are good for holding one small flower to put beside your chair where you read.

Or even ordinary grocery store bottles that once held balsamic vinegar or a small soft drink. They are special and my lens loves them, their shape and their personality.

And there are the Persian limes assembled in their green net bag, draped over the Galas and the Granny Smiths camping out in the rooster bowl in one juicy riot of sweetness and color until they go where they are destined to go, i.e. my tummy.

Back over to the table where hang suspended the two miniature bird cages that hold not birds, but tealights. The "birds" perch on branches outside the cages.

You've seen this piece lots of times but I never get tired of taking its picture.

Back in the front room I leave you with a picture of my amber-beaded tortoise lamp, a gift from my mother many years ago.

Isn't he special? He sits on top of three books that he has never read.

What he tells me is that it's okay to be slow as long as you're lit from within.

That is all!

Happy Wednesday!