Tag Archives: memories
A big journey
“Childhood isn’t just something we ‘get through.’ It’s a big journey, and it’s one we’ve all taken. Most likely, though, we’ve forgotten how much we had to learn along the way about ourselves and others.” — Fred Rogers One of the most sobering things about being around children is the realization that everything we do …
A safety place
“It is strange how a man believes he can think better in a special place. I have such a place, have always had it, but I know it isn’t thinking I do there, but feeling and experiencing and remembering. It’s a safety place. Everyone must have one, although I never heard a man tell of …
It still matters
“Tradition does not mean a dead town; it does not mean that the living are dead but that the dead are alive. It means that it still matters what Penn did two hundred years ago or what Franklin did a hundred years ago…” — G. K. Chesterton Tevye isn’t the only one who prizes tradition. …
A place once visited
“Venice appeared to me as in a recurring dream, a place once visited and now fixed in memory like images on a photographer’s plates…” — Gary Inbinder Sometimes a place seems magical because of the circumstances of our time there, but some are inherently spellbinding. Venice is certainly such a place, especially as the daylight …
The celebration
“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.” — Paul Sweeney This month, Jeff and I celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary. Without question the past year has been the most difficult and challenging time we have ever faced together, but the “together” part …
The world would kick the beam
“If the whole world were put into one scale, and my mother in the other, the whole world would kick the beam.” — Henry Bickersteth, Lord Langdale Even after I became a mother, I have never liked Mother’s Day. It seems to me an artificially contrived and ultimately inadequate invention designed primarily to sell cards and …
Capture a moment
“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” ― Karl Lagerfeld A couple of weeks ago I went into D.C. for the afternoon to see the cherry blossom trees at their peak. Not only was it indescribably beautiful, but I had perhaps the greatest opportunity ever to unobtrusively …
Memory is a child
“Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.” — Pierce Harris Memory is nothing if not selective in what it retains. Hence five people may truthfully give five different accounts of the same event. Yet some memories …
Firesides on winter evenings
“The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlor firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of …
But you knew
“You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.”― …
Even more beautiful
“The point is that things can be repaired. That they are even more beautiful for having been repaired.” — Sonali Dev I’ve read a few articles in recent years about “wabi sabi,” a term applied to a variety of philosophical contexts. The aspect of wabi sabi that first captured attention is the idea that flaws …
Never done with looking
“There are things you can’t reach. But You can reach out to them, and all day long. …I look; morning to night I am never done with looking…” — Mary Oliver What do you see in the photo above? A fountain, of course, and if you’ve ever been to Savannah, Georgia, you probably recognize it …
Like a fire
“A place that ever was lived in is like a fire that never goes out.” – Eudora Welty The house pictured above is the place I will always think of as my childhood home. I’ve returned there, just to drive by it, several times since my parents first moved away more than twenty years after …
A song for all the years
“Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. Even though you grew up and found you could never quite bring back the magic feeling of this night, …
As it always does
“But when fall comes, kicking summer out…as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed…” — Stephen King As I write this, Hurricane Florence is forecast to strike the Virginia and North Carolina coasts in a few days, and our beloved …
Like a handprint on my heart
You’ll be with me Like a handprint on my heart… — Stephen Schwartz Many of you will remember my earlier post about going to visit my “other Mama and Daddy” on the first Christmas after Jeff died. My siblings and I were blessed to have a second set of parents who provided us with another home …
No endings
“There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.” ― Hilary Mantel “…life is eternal And love is immortal And death is only a horizon Life is eternal As we move into the light And a horizon is nothing Save the limit of our …
One day
“I have wandered far upon the desert plain, but in my heart a bird keeps singing, and the daffodils beckon and blow, — and one day I shall wander back.” — Muriel Strode Last week was a good one for me, but it began on a gloomy note. I spent most of the week at …
Hopes rise blooming
Our sweetest hopes rise blooming And then again are gone, They bloom and fade alternate, And so it goes rolling on. I know it, and it troubles My life, my love, my rest, My heart is wise and witty, And it bleeds within my breast. — Heinrich Heine Recently, several of you asked me to …
My state of general wonder
“Not until years later would I realize that my state of general wonder throughout this process, peppered though it was with fear and doubt, would help preserve my sanity through the events that followed.” — Hilary Tindle Sometimes I will hear or read a sentence that rings so true in my own experience that I …
Defeat Despair 