Visitor in the Night

♫Fly With Me♫

The night of the full moon I was graced with the sighting of a Cecropia Moth.  Since they only come out at night and because I am not usually outside at that time, I have never seen one before.  I had my camera with me when I stepped outside with the intent on capturing the full moon, but it had not risen above the trees.  Instead I was able to capture Poetry's intent interest in this elusive moth which has a lifespan of only two weeks.  Besides being the largest moth in North America it is quite beautiful....

Within moments, though, Gabriel, who was outside with me, saw it, too....

....and it fluttered upward over the roof into the night.  

I never did get a photo of the Supermoon.

More Moments Captured

♫Chopin Waltz Op.69 No.2♫

...from our weekend on the Chesapeake Bay....an egret fishing in the pond behind the house....

...the first sunlight reflecting off a loblolly pine....

 ...a bluebird perched on a branch....

...kayaking....a fishing boat in the background....

...the full moon over the Bay our second evening....

photo credit: Benjamin Schultz

...the moon setting the next morning over the pond...

...the sky just before sunrise....

...the last evening a cruise ship approaching the moon....

Feeling Alive

♫Ocean Waves♫

♫Brian Crain - Wind♫

"When I think of the moments I have felt most alive, they all have the quality of joining all-of-what-I-keep-inside with everything-outside-me in a way that makes me forget myself....[like] moments of being immersed in great music or great open spaces." --Mark Nepo

Mark Nepo's statement explains why I could not get enough of this scene this past weekend as I took Gabriel out for his morning walk just before sunrise....

We'd rented a house right on the Chesapeake Bay and the view from the 3rd floor balcony stretched even farther....

And if you stood farther back in the house in the living room you felt you were out to sea on a ship....

Nepo says Joy is the feeling of the Oneness we experience when we get in touch with that inner self...."it is the risk to be fully present that opens us to the Oneness that flows through all things."  

Expansive views have a way of making one fully present!  It is why I also love the views from mountain tops just as much....

Nepo notes that as infants we are one with everything and that in time we learn how to distinguish between ourselves and others, between the world we carry inside and the world we move through.  Then we spend a lifetime trying to get back in touch with that primary state of Oneness.  This makes me think of a quote by Charles Dickens and illustrated by Mary Engelbreit....

May you find ✻Joy✻ in the aliveness of your moments!

Beyond the Garden Gates - 2013

♫Bird Song♫

Every Spring Frederick, Maryland has a weekend-long tour of several private gardens in the downtown area.  This year's tour opened the garden gates to historic townhouses as well as individual homes.  It was a lovely day to be outside despite the overcast skies as we walked through these 11 gardens....

The Lesson of the Bee and the Flower

♫Love Me♫

The flower doesn't dream of the bee.  It blossoms and the bee comes."  --Mark Nepo, "The Book of Awakening"

Mark Nepo goes on to say, "At times in my life, I have wanted love so badly that I have reimagined myself, reinvented who I am, in an attempt to be more desirable or more deserving, only to discover, again and again, that it is the tending of my own soul that invites the natural process of love to begin.....By attending our own inner growth, we uncannily become exactly who we are..." and we attract "a host of loving others more real than all our fantasies."

A Foggy Morning

♫Spring Charm♫

I don my slicker and garden shoes and head out of doors.....the slight mist does not put me off.  With camera in hand I want to capture the moody morning....

What's in Bloom

♫Sounds of Spring♫

You know Spring has indeed arrived once the trees start to bloom!  Here's what's blooming today in my yard and woods--Click on the first photo for a slideshow--First the trees....

Redbud

Wild Cherry

Dogwood

Star Magnolia

Bushes....

Viburnum

Japaconia

Azalea

Does anyone know what this is?

And this one?

Bulbs....

Tulips

Daffodils

Anemone

Grape Hyacinth

Flowers....

Primrose

Bleeding Heart

Periwinkle

Violets and one lone dandelion

Play

"Sometimes you change the outer world.  Always, you can change your mind.  Adopt an attitude of play, and work will take its proper role in the healthy balance of all things." --Alan Cohen

When I read this I immediately thought of the unpublished children's stories I've written over the years.  For me they bring a sense of play into my life.  I wrote the following in 2004 as a picture book (the picture I intended is in parentheses).  The idea came to me one day when I heard the doorbell to the basement door ring, but when I went down to answer it no one was there!  As it turns out it was just a sticky door bell.  But what if........

♫Fun Song♫

NO ONE WAS THERE!

Dingggg...

Dingggg...

Dingggg...

Lillian’s mother opened the outside door to the basement garage.  The deliveryman handed her a package. 

“Lill....li...an...” her mother yelled up the stairs, “I’m going out now.  I’ll be back in a little while.  Remember, don’t answer the door if it’s a stranger.” 

Lillian was in her room cutting out paper dolls.

Dingggg....

Dingggg....

Dingggg....

Lillian’s house has three doors and three doorbells.  She went to the front door and looked out the window.  But no one was there.  So she went to the back door and looked out that window.  When she found no one at the back door she went to the garage door in the basement.

“Hmmm,” she said.  No one was there either.  
(Meanwhile, there’s a cricket on the door windowpane.)

Dingggg...

Dingggg...

Dingggg...

She went back up the stairs to the back door, then to the front door.  Still no one there.

Dinggg...

Dinggg...

Dinggg...

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered.  Back down the stairs she went. 

This time she pushed a box over to the window in the door so she could look down on the ground in case the person ringing the doorbell was really short.  There was no one there.  Maybe Tony, the little brat that lived next door, was playing tricks on her.  

(Cricket still on the windowpane.)

Lillian went back up to her room.

Dinggg...

Dinggg...

Dinggg...

“Not again!”

Lillian did her routine again--first the front door, then the back door, and back down the basement stairs to the garage.  Just then her mother drove into the garage.

“Oh, Mom!  I’m so glad you’re home!  Someone’s been ringing the doorbell ever since you left!  But no one’s ever at the door!”

Dinggg....

Dinggg...

Dinggg...

“See!  There it goes again!”

Lillian’s mother opened the garage door and looked at the doorbell.  “Here’s the problem,” she said.  “The button must have gotten stuck when the delivery man pushed it.”  She pushed it a couple times.  “There that should do it.”  

(The cricket hops inside.)

She closed the door.  Lillian went back to her room to play with her paper dolls.  

(The cricket follows her up the stairs.)

Childhood Memories

♫The Way We Were♫

My First Birthday

How well do you remember your childhood?  I remember quite a bit about mine.  It helps that I lived in 16 different houses in 18 years (17 if you count the two weeks in an apartment after the fire) because my memories are attached to a particular house which then tells me what year it was and makes recall easier.  It also helps that my Dad made home movies starting when I was not yet two, and in later years I kept a diary and photo album of my own.  

For the past month I've been working on a memoir about my childhood.  I really don't like that word much--memoir.  It's sounds rather pretentious for someone like me who is not famous, but it's the only word I could find in the dictionary that fit.  I brought down my boxes of memorabilia from the attic and have been going through all the notebooks, bits of paper, ticket stubs, photos, yearbooks, etc.  The Internet has allowed me to find street views of where I used to live and former friends on Facebook.  I've been corresponding on Facebook with the first guy I had a crush on when I was 15.... 

Clark is at the top

....and all of a sudden I'm 15 again as we correspond about those times.   

I met my husband-to-be later that year and have every thought and feeling recorded of falling in love with him....

Ken

All of this has actually unsettled me.  Going back to my earliest memories starting when I was three--almost 60 years ago--and then reliving the years in the detailed diaries I kept not only brings up long-forgotten feelings, it makes you realize just how fast time does fly.  One moment I'm absorbed in my memories of being three....

Me and my friend, Lillian

and the next I qualify for social security!  

As I uncover one memory several more come flooding in and then I wish I'd done this project in my 20's when I still had both my parents to ask all the questions that are forming in my heart.  Things I didn't know I wanted or needed to know about their lives....

My parents

....things about myself I'm sure I no longer remember--of who I was....then.

They say your personality is formed in your first three years....and then things happen to you that change who you really are.  For me, the moves did a great deal in allowing me to continue to be shy and unsure of myself.  And seeing my grandfather....

Me and Papaw

....in his casket when I was 10 made me afraid of dead people and the fire when I was 11 made me care more about my belongings than was good.  And my perfectionism started when....well, all that's in my story.  Thankfully, I have overcome most of those shortcomings over the years.  But what else might there be I haven't seen yet that I've always considered "just me" and therefore blithely accepted?  Or what talent has been covered up and lain dormant?

Looking back has made me care for that little girl....

Age 2

....the one who was shy but yet could look the camera in the eye.  As I gather all my research materials and sit down to write my memoir, for that is what it is (memoir: an autobiography or a written account of one's memory of certain events or people), I'm listening closely to what that little girl wants to tell me about who she really is so that together we can become who she was meant to be--finally.