Morning after

My exhausted body awakens slowly, rejuvenated from a crazy busy week and an even crazier wild night in the neighborhood.

I look out a window and then another, basking in the beauty and quietude of our peaceful neighborhood.  The streets are empty now - except for the leftover chalk art to cheer and remind me.  The huge empty lot next door seems almost empty again other than a cluster of folding tables and another cluster of the amazingly efficient cardboard garbage bins. I breathe in the peace and quiet.  

But then voices... somewhere outside… getting louder.  

Talking.

Now singing?

Where is that coming from?

And where did they find a microphone?

It’s not even 7:30 in the morning.

Checking yet another window I discover one lonely vendor tent still standing in the empty lot turned marketplace.  So that answers one of the where questions.

...

PorchFest happened.

We survived.

What an amazing event.

So many people..

Food trucks and vendors and musicians

So much color and noise.

Oh, the noise!

A band setting up early in the day... testing the volume of their system.

And then another.

Bands on porches behind, beside, and across from.

(Thanks to Robert Sims for photos.)

We had reserved our porch to be a little gathering spot this year.  A writers’s nook with newly-released books for sale and signing by several local writers.  A hang-out for friends and a respite for strangers.

We almost imagined it could be a quiet little island in the sea of noise - well, except for the times when bands were performing directly across…. How silly of us.

What we had not calculated was that there might be a generator running just a few feet from our book displays.  Plugged in and running 40 minutes before start time, it never paused until 40 minutes after closing time. Six solid hours of loud generator noise.  Our little conversation circle now required raising our voices to hear each other - to the point of raspiness.

We slowly begin sorting through the piles and starting to put things away.

Back-to-back renditions of “Jolene” are booming now from next door.

More singing along… through somebody’s karaoke microphone maybe.

More sorting and cleaning up.

Remembering the festivities.

The beautiful moments.

The connections with people.

So many good people.

Old friends and new.

And the conversations… so good… even while struggling to hear each other.

And that one favorite chalk artist.

Keep putting stuff away.

Keep processing.

Start picking up the trash outside.

But wait; what do I hear?

Is that silence?  

Could it be?

Let me look.

Sure enough, the tent is gone. The radio is silent and the truck doors are closing. The smoker is hitched up and pulling away.

It is only 10:30 a.m.

Ah, yes, peace and quiet.

Sunshine and blue skies.

I love my neighborhood.

Why do I drag my feet… ?

When I’ve worked so hard to get to this point, why do I now slow down the process?

I just published another book… but now I don’t seem to be in a hurry to promote it.  My husband can’t figure out why.  Actually he keeps trying to promote it for me, and I keep asking him to wait a little.

I understand his confusion.  I mean, I have been working on this book for a long time and have pushed really hard for months to get to the moment of publication.  

One factor is that there is always one more little change that needs to be made.  I start to wish that I would have done another proof copy or three - to make sure ALL the kinks are worked out and every typo is fixed.  Of course, we all know that it will never be quite good enough.  I’ve already done a revision.  So now of course I feel badly that anyone got the first edition that wasn’t perfect…  Ugh.

That part of it certainly makes sense to me.  But there’s one other thing that kinda’ caught me off-guard.  Writing this book has involved mining deep within my being. It has been an extremely valuable journey, but now leaves me feeling a little vulnerable.  I’ve let a few people in on the process one as I was ready.  But now that it is published…  It’s out there!  Publication is so dang public.

So…. Maybe the only way I know to protect myself a teeny bit is to ease in gradually.  To tell this person about it - and maybe that one.  Then maybe this small group….  I suppose that seems silly to some - and it may be.  Maybe it would make more sense to just jump in and get it over with.  

So what is my book about?

Thanks for asking.  It chronicles my spiritual journey by referencing several of the books and authors that influenced me through those years.

Precious photos & memories

June 30 is always a day of memories for me, because it’s the date of my dad’s birth.  To celebrate the centennial of that event four years ago, I put together a book of photos from the “giant red photo album” with faded and worn black pages.  Of course, many of those photos are from before my time of remembering.  

Then again some of them seem timeless - like the old farmhouse where so many of those memories began - long before I was around and then for lots of years of memories for me.  Of course, some of my favorite memories from that house are from the year we lived there as newlyweds. 

This week and this month I have again been looking at those old faded photos.  I love this one of my dad with his little sister, Lois, who was a piano virtuoso at a very young age.  More than 70 years later, the cherished Gibson guitar is now in the care of my brother, Paul.

I wish I could figure out whose house this is where they set up a card table for our family.  I love this photo - maybe because we were such a good-looking family.

I do know exactly where this one was - by the big south window in the living room.  It feels so homey to me.  I was going to crop it a bit more, but I simply must leave those big feet and long legs in there.  Speaking of feet & legs, I notice that Paul is sitting on the deer-leg stool.  I wonder where that ended up…

Swing the camera a few feet to the left... and a few years later... finally one with little brother, Richard, who would eventually become the steward of the old farm places. 

June 26 memories

If you come here often, you know that I love me some FB memories.  If I can find the time, I take a few minutes to browse them each day.  It is usually a fun stroll down Memory Lane.  

This date is pretty typical - with a bit of fun mixed in with a whole lot of ordinary.

...

2009

Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Zion, Illinois - for my annual check-up

Just got good news: all the test results were normal.  Wahoo!!! Now I can get excited about heading home!!!

2010

Reporting on my daily walk

I got out there too late & it's too hot - so I only did 2 miles. Ugh.

2011

What a beautiful glorious day - the perfect temp.  How fun to be able to move from sun to shade while reading a good book.  A day of Sabbath rest.  Ah…..

2012

Dinner out with our kids

Sushi, bourbon chicken, crab rangoon…. Yum.

2013

Not a good technology week for me.  

• Old computer dies
• When trying to find back-up copies of files and documents, Google Drive gives me only blank pages.

(Wait.  Stop.  Today (in 2023) I am again dealing with some of these same issues… so I think I’m gonna’ skip over this one… because I can.)

2014 

Denali, Alaska, in our little old fifth-wheel RV

The rain has stopped, the clouds have thinned enough to reveal lots of new snow on the surrounding mountains. Even Mt. Healy is snow-covered - with more snow than the summer staffers have seen before.

2015

Ortonville, Michigan

I was at the deli in the grocery store when the lights flickered and went out. People started freaking out about how the cash registers won't work and wondering how long they might be out. Took me back 25 years to when it happened all the time in the D.R. and the cashiers just whipped out their calculators and just kept going.  Sure enough, the lights were back on within a minute or so.

2019

Celebrating the centennial of my dad’s birth all month with lots of pictures

2020. -  Pandemic wisdom from Jason Boyett:

Maybe you believe wearing a mask is an affront to your personal liberties. But we set aside our personal liberties all the time to show respect to others. 

• If you've ever given up a weekend afternoon to visit an elderly grandparent, you have shown respect and love at the expense of your personal liberties. 
• If you've ever yielded your car to allow a funeral procession to pass by, you have shown respect and love at the expense of your personal liberties. 
• If you've ever bought a cup of coffee for someone in military fatigues at the airport, you have shown respect and love at the expense of your personal liberties.

You can wear a mask for 30 minutes at the grocery store for the same reason. Setting aside your personal liberties to protect others doesn't have to mean you're a sheep or a fool. 

It can mean you are a person willing to show respect and love to others, even at the (brief) expense of your freedom.

2022

 What a grand day for porch-sitting!

All the usual summer pleasures…

• Gaze at the roses that were planted here 100 years ago.
• Inhale the smell of coffee roasting next door.
• Listen to the chants and the music... and the occasional vuvuzela from the stadium as the Flint Bucks play the Mexican National B team…

Ah, yes, I love my life.

...

(2023 comment on this one)

Same view today. Similar sentiments. The smell of the roasting coffee is particularly wonderful today and I am feeling particularly grateful.

And there we have it.  I’m one of the lucky ones with just a few bothersome memories that make me even more grateful for the ordinary and the delightful ones.

Last day of May

Well, that went quickly.

My favorite month of the year.

Such a lovely month

• So nice to not have to bundle up for my walk every morning.
• Fun to be able to ride our bikes again.
• Even fun to push the lawn mower…  I don’t know what to do with the “no-mow May” idea.  I kinda’ love mowing at this time of year - and I’m not tired of it yet.   It feels like part of my world looking so lovely.  But I am trying to be open to change. To learn better ways to treat our amazing planet and its inhabitants.

A neighborhood month 

• I participated in neighborhood clean-up - both at an organized event and on my daily walk.
• I joined neighbors in welcoming the Flint City Bucks for another summer.  The event was held at the soon-to-be-open wine and cheese shop a couple blocks away.   
• Lots of visiting with neighbors at porches and flower gardens.
• I attended my first Bucks game. Most of the 5800 fans drive in from the surrounding area so the parking lot was filled to overflowing.  This country girl is enamored by the fact that I get to walk right over there from my house and grateful for neighbors that invited me to tag along.   
• What a great month to live in Carriage Town.

A writing month - though not evident on this page  

• My local writing group hosted our first annual writing retreat.  I was honored to be a panel member discussing the publication process.
• The first draft of my second book has been in the hands of Alpha readers.  It has also been printed as a proof copy* and I am now in the middle of the first major edit.
• I have brainstormed big ideas about revitalizing this blog.  I hope to write more about writing and maybe crank out several posts for a series - and then another.  I have tried numerous times to write even a single post.  
• I’m learning things about myself as a writer.  Apparently there are times when my brain is so focused on a major writing project that there’s no band-width to write other things.  
• I did however make a deal with myself a long time ago that I would post something here at least once a month.  So here's my measly single offering for May.

My recent ponderings rather remind me of similar thoughts and feelings when we lived on the road.  At that time I wrote about how travel days mess with the travel writing.

 

“I often feel like these places are slipping by my window and I just can't capture them all. Certainly the best time to write about a place is while I'm living there, but I just can't seem to get 'er done. So then I fear that I will lose it. Lose the memory, lose the moment, lose the beauty of the setting or the fun of the story. And then I feel sad.”

Yep, it sounds like real life.  Good times and places slip by my calendar and I just can’t capture them all. And that’s okay.  Sometimes I just need to pause and not fret about writing everything down.  Sometimes it is better just to live and breathe in the moment.  

I’ve done lots of breathing this month.

Inhaling the moments.

Thinking the thoughts.

Feeling the feels.

And yes, it has been a good month. 

____

* The proof print cover of my new book.  Thank you, photographer Bob Sims!