Function over form~

I spent the last day of 2011 with a group of photographers, taking pictures in Saint Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford. The ornate interior, decorated for the Christmas season, was beautiful. Gleaming floors and polished wooden pews reflected color and light from stained glass windows and detailed carvings.

Despite the color and detail available to shoot, I found myself drawn to the light that played through the rails of the drab stairway leading to the second and third levels of the church.

The stairs were off to the side of the foyer, easily overlooked by anyone intent upon entering the splendid sanctuary. Probably those who trudge up to the choir loft, which looks out over the gleaming center aisle in the nave, don’t give the stairs a second thought, but they are as necessary as the marble columns that support the arched ceiling.

A friend who saw my photos called the stairs “grungy and worn and burnished with age.”

And I thought … if we live long enough, we’ll all end up worn. But burnished? That’s something that comes only to those who allow the stresses of life to polish them, rather than scrape them raw. Not an easy thing. It comes, I think, from a willing acceptance of our purpose in life. As I said, not easy to accept that our function is ultimately greater than our form...especially in this world where glamor and glow distract us from inner beauty.

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You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your souls's own doing. ~ Marie Sropes

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,

Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.

~ American architect Louis Sullivan

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For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We&#

This retirement thing~

This retirement thing . . . it seems like it should be so easy, so effortless, so thrilling, to stop the daily grind. It is thrilling; at least I think it will be come September when I'm not following the school buses to work. But it's not easy. I had a plan book on my desk for 35 years, one I filled in weekly, scheduling new lessons at 45-minute intervals, meetings, parent conferences, and field trips. I knew what needed to be done and when. I got up at the same time everyday (5:45 a.m.), ate lunch at the same time (12:06 p.m.) and watched the kids pack their bags for home everyday at 2:15 p.m. I'm not sorry to give up that regimentation. But three weeks into the summer, I find myself making lists of things I need to do, and there is so much to do that I can't imagine how I managed while I was working eight hours on top of it all. There are the household chores, gardening, exercise (aren't retirees supposed to get fitter?), freelance writing, book reviewing, readin

Lesson from a Weed~

If dandelions could talk, here’s what I think they might say: " Bloom where you’re planted, sink your roots deep. Smile in the sun, soak up the rain, and let the wind take you to new places." Dandelions are an early spring food for bees. They are often the first flower a young child picks for his mother and they provide a sweet moment for a mother to teach her child to make a wish and blow away the seeds. They speckle landscapes with lemon-colored glory. Common, and often disliked by those in favor of perfect lawns, we trample over them with hardly a thought. All this crossed my mind as I stood in this field of dandelions, most having gone to seed. I had an hour to myself at a retreat at a beautiful family farm on this day of unexpected sunshine and warmth. I was looking for a moment of stillness. I’d watched two swans, visited the alpacas, chatted with the chickens, tried to coax a kitty closer...

~Upstream and Down~

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