Good morning to all.

As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent from my blog site.  Some of it is attributable to some mindless moran who decided to defame me and my entries.  So I backed away for a few days and just let it rest.  I eliminated all the entries he wrote as soon as I saw them.  I'm sure it was an isolated incident and he just managed to pull my site out of the hat.  I am surprised that Windows Live Spaces permits "unknown" persons to just write at will.  But I am back and am well.

So let's start with the weather! The northeast is slated for several days of stormy weather and fortunately most of it will be rain. I don't want to think about the possibility that if it were about 10 degrees cooler it could be snow. It would be a nor'easter if that were the case.

I have spent the past few days working on my orchids. I only have 11 orchids but I put them outside for the summer and I fear that some of the leaves are rather dog-eared as the result of being explosed to outdoor bugs etc.  So I have brought them into a space where I can attend to them and have added some indoor lighting which should help produce some blooms.  I have 3 or 4 in spike and bloom and the two new ones should bloom within the coming year. 

I just finished "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad and it was a real statement on living in Afghanistan and the life of women ijn this country.  Depressing and hopeless.

Well I suspect that I will be visiting many of you this weekend.  Malcolm....thank you for your inquiring message.    Bittersweet

 

This is something I wrote awhile ago after visiting Trinity Monastery in Saint David, Arizona.  I had heard about this little place from my mother who had visited it years before. It is really more a retreat with a camp ground for people to relax and spend time with themselves. Anyway, on one of my trips to Tucson I decided I'd visit this place my mother talked about.  As it would be, I ended up visiting it at a time when they had their festival and craft weekend and although it was in February, it was a 90 plus degree day. What was interesting, almost eerie,  was that I almost felt my mother was with me. So this is what I wrote in memory of that day.

 

The Monastery Chapel

 It sits on a desert knoll, a chapel tended by a band of monks.

It is a sanctuary for those lost in thought and a place I knew I'd visit.

 

Pushing open the heavy wooden doors, I walk into a sepulcher of quiet.

My eyes adjust to the darkened room and to a monstrance sitting on the wooden altar.

 

I sit in quiet and peer around. Guests - some sitting and some kneeling,

are lost in thought on loved one who may have passed with time.

 

Wooden beams, adobe walls and a floor of stone now sanctuary for those lost in thought.

Shadows dance from flickering votives lit by those offering one last prayer.

 

Light is restricted to the sunburst from stained glass panels.

A coolness takes hold and lets me forget the heat from a punishing sun.

 

I am attentive to the sounds of footfalls echoing on stone floors

and to the scent of frankincense filling the quiet nave.

 

A stippled "Madonna and Child" adorns the barren walls.

My Mother too once took in all I was seeing.

 

I can almost hear her footsteps and wonder what pew might she have chosen?

In this darkened chamber, I now begin to feel my mother's presence.

 

Might she know that I was here to trace the places she once knew.

Images from moment past begin to fill my thoughts.

 

I rise and light a blue votive and watch it flicker

before leaving this Chapel that sits on this desert knoll.

 

I am a visitor to what is home to these Desert Fathers.

A chapel of wood and stone parched by the desert sun.

***************************************************************

 

Wednesdays are supposed to be the quiet day of the week. But today isn't shaping up that way at all.  Pete, my twin brother is about to leave for Munich, Saltzburg, Vienna and Prague for the Mozart Tour. He's excited about it especially since he will be seeing a number of performances in each of those cities. He has instructions to come back with great pictures.

 

One of my nieces is having knee surgery today. The injury was from a skiing accident and while she was hoping it would heal on its own, such was not her luck.  The knee seemed to give out at the most unsuspecting of places including while riding her bicycle with the youngest of three sons strapped to the back, that was the last straw.  That incident was the last straw.  So today is surgery while her birthday is tomorrow.

 

I ordered a few books and received the first of four; "Miriam's Song," by Mark Mathabane. I've never read much about apartheid in South Africa so figured this will be added to my fall and winter reading. That is the beauty of winters in the northeast. There is pleanty of indoor down-time and what better way to spent an afternoon or evening than to catch up on reading!

 

I remember my graduate school and working years. My job required lots of professional reading and report writing and I said to myself, someday I'm only going to read the stuff I want to read.  It was years before I could pick up a book for pleasure and not be pressured by the demands of home and work.  So now I buy/collect everything that catches my fancy knowing I'd probably need another fifty years to read all I've purchased the past 10 years. But a noble goal!

 

So I am off. The winds are picking up and the leaves are falling as fast as snow flakes. Did I say that?  I'll have to change that....maybe dandelion puffs.  Have a good one.  Peace....   Bittersweet