Many Worlds
This stamp came on the envelope of a book I ordered from England a few years ago. I think it’s beautiful so I made it a bookmark. It reminds me there are so many worlds outside of my own. I’ve always felt a connection with England and Scotland. Always admired the beautiful & wild countryside - felt I knew it, somehow. When I opened a Ancestry.com account and dug into my family tree, I found out why. Many in my lineage came to this country before the Revolutionary War, fought in it. At least one from Scotland came when he grew up, after his father was beheaded by the English for his religious beliefs when the son was three years old. Another branch came over from Nottinghamshire, England. I still have research to do in that branch. I’m thankful they braved a long voyage in a dangerous world to come to America where they could be freer than anywhere else on Earth, a fact that’s still true today.
Today in 1783 the last British soldiers left New York, the last British military position in America.
A life-long childhood friend of my husband is terminally ill, a fact we and he found out this week. He’s on our minds constantly now - in front and in back, always there. I think about him and my mind goes to hospitals and waiting rooms and the very insular world of a dying loved one. Before my mother died in 2013, my sisters, daddy, and I lived in the ICU waiting room for several weeks with the families of other critically ill loved ones. The outside world disappeared, was irrelevant. Time existed only for short visits to her room. In between, we talked among ourselves, learned about the lives of the other families-in-waiting, saw families arrive, saw them leave in tears and stooped shoulders. Then one day, we were the ones in tears and stooped shoulders. The world of the critically ill hospitalized and their families is a small, concentrated one. I hope I’ll never visit again.
A light drizzle is falling this morning. The sky and the earth meet in a grey veil. I don’t mind. This weather is good for ruminating but I have to be careful my ruminations don’t stray into morbidity. I have the TV on a music station and “Love Shack” is playing on the 80s station. How can one be sad while listening to that?
Glitter on the mattress
Glitter on the highway
Glitter on the front porch
Glitter on the hallway
I’ll be getting out all the glittery things for Christmas this weekend. My holiday treasure trove has dwindled the last few years since I’ve simplified. I put out a few choice pieces of nostalgia and our tree is small and fake now but it suits us. It’s a pretty little thing, sitting on a marble topped table that was my mother-in-law’s. I think of her, how it sat in her living room, how we all had so many family Christmases there. The only constant in this world is change. We gotta roll with it.