Sunday, June 14, 2015

Natural Pause

There is that moment when nature takes a deep breath.

Cacophonous birdsong falls silent. Crickets halt the rubbing of legs. Gnats cease their spinning tornado dances. Butterflies fold their swings.

Tree leaves cease to flutter. Blades of grass no longer bend. Empty playground swings stop their ghostly pendulum. The day-long heat halts its advance. Shadows have turned from black to gray.

The silent world lies waiting...waiting... until comes that boom of thunder and sizzle of lightning announcing the opening of heavens gates. Winds churned to a howling fury send pregnant clouds racing to deliver life supporting rain. Even the stoutest of trees bend before the onslaught.

In its wake the storm leaves water drip drip dripping from a dozen and more surfaces. Sporadically at first, then with confidence, crickets resume their concerto - accompanied now by the bass of croaking frog. In the audience, birds chitter excitedly about the sumptuous breakfast to be had in the morn. And people... people revel in the shelter offered by their homes.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Christmas in June

I want to watch the Christmas movie. Those were the first words out of our 3 year-old granddaughter's mouth as she came through our front door on an 80 degree June day.  The desired movie being The Grinch That Stole Christmas.

Our granddaughter comes by it honestly.

When I was growing up Christmas was always a bid deal in my immediate and extended family. Later, the first Christmas tree I bought for an apartment of my own took up a full quarter of the living room. Later still, decorating the colonial style house in which my wife and I set up housekeeping grew to a four day undertaking.

Our own kids knew the words to every Christmas song there ever was by heart. A friend once speculated that I must have tied my son to a chair, placed speakers on either side of him, and refused to cut him loose until every holiday song was committed to memory.

My son went on to buy a Christmas tree that took up a full quarter of the living room of his apartment.

So when our daughter's daughter requested Christmas in June my wife looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said.... Oh my gosh -  it's genetic

Monday, June 8, 2015

Memory Lesson

The cardinal had fluttered to a landing on the hood of my parked car. From the opposite side of the windshield the bird pecked inquisitively at something beneath the cowling that sheltered the windshield wipers when they were off. The toughness of the cardinal's beak was evident in the rapping whenever the glass itself was struck.

Moving slowly, I sought a better vantage point that I might see what the cardinal was after. I was not the only curious one. A second cardinal came in for a landing.  The photo op was too good to pass up. Raising my cell phone, trying for the best shot, I leaned an inch too far forward. Both birds took to flight.

I took the message to heart. Sometimes the best memories are those that live.... only in your memory.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Turning on a Breeze

The glare of morning sun racing from horizon to shore had lessened as the sun rose ever higher into the royal blue sky. The crisp contrails of jet engines thinned into wispy curtains that others would take for clouds. Heat started to rise from previously damp sand and those strolling the water's edge risked an occasional detour into the swirling eddies.

The stiff breeze coming from the west brought only the inland heat. Umbrellas popped open. T-shirts and cover-ups came off. Skin glistened with newly applied sunblock. The volume of conversations lowered as folk succumbed to heat induced naps.

And then a tang salt was carried by a breath of cool; a cool quickly chased by a gust of heat. For long minutes they played back and forth - these breaths and gusts - until with the surety of the slow but steady turtle the breaths one out.

Umbrellas tool on extreme tilts - now blocking breezes rather than sun. Shirts and cover-ups reappeared along with beach towels thrown across legs and feet.

Just like that the breeze had turned the day.