Eventide

 

The sun is setting later each night. It is a slow burn turning orange as it descends from our viewpoint. Even as the sun sets, it stays bright with lingering light for such a long time. I can sit at my desk with a cup of tea and drink two cups before the rays diminish. Long summer days awaken in us a new sense of reality over the hottest months of the year. Trees have burst forth with the greenest leaves. I feel the shift in the air and it invokes a mellow vibe in me; something causes me to linger in thought - maybe it is the extra light. But the eventide falls and the words flow on a particularly windy evening. For now, the evenings have been dry and dusty, allowing a coolness to seep into the strong breezes.

Eventide

A wistful glow dances through leaves

Basking in the refreshing air, I seize

A breath where heart and soul choose a place

Here in the quiet melancholy of grace.

The softness of the air and light

Fills me with an atmospheric delight.

I am in the space between the trees,

Letting a subtle moment fill my needs.

If you look for me, I shall be here,

In my mind, letting in a breezy clear.

Brilliant Storytelling

 

I am thankful that in the last year I have discovered many writers, especially a wonderful, brilliant writer and storyteller, Susanna Clarke. I am absolutely enchanted by her writing, her style, her subtle themes and metaphors that reach into the past from writers, myths, and legends that influenced her. She writes with elegance and magic that I find so often missing from today's writers.

For years I was curious about Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but had not read it. Yet I wanted to at some point. Then, in September her newest book came out, Piranesi. In the last year I have been more intentional about supporting writers and their new releases as Covid had shut down so many bookshops and events/talks for authors. So in September, my interest was peaked, as this was already an author I wanted to read. 

I ordered Piranesi and read it in a couple days (it's not a long book at all - less than 250 pages), in a mysterious, enchanted, puzzlement of a story wrapped in wonder and imagination I deeply desire in a good book. It is difficult to describe the book without spoiling important things, but all I will say is - it is marvelous. I was left wanting more, and the feeling automatically swept over me that I wanted to read it again. 

The next step was to finally read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I did. You can read my post about it HERE. It was a heavy volume of more than 1,000 pages, and I loved it. I was further enchanted by her talented writing. After that epic book I still wanted more, and discovered that there was one more book available, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, which is a collection of short stories. I just finished reading this collection and feel that want for more yet again. These were all written whilst she wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and they feel like footnotes from that epic book (if you read it you would have noticed how her footnotes were stories themselves, often extending to the following pages). Indeed, even Jonathan Strange and other familiar characters appear in a few of the stories. The magical charm and wit of each story and her writing in general is sweeping my imagination with wonder-filled stories and I am only sad that there are not more books to explore by her. 

Is there an author you more recently discovered and wish there was more to read by such talent?

Ode to the Coffee Shop

 

I sat in my neighborhood coffee shop for the first time in over a year to enjoy my latte and write as I used to do on a weekly basis. I usually go in just to pick up coffee, but I have so deeply missed sitting there to drink and write. Real ceramic cups were still not being used, but I finally got a tiny sense of the way it used to be. Naturally a poem unfolded in appreciation of coffee shops.

Ode to the Coffee Shop

The simple nature of a semi-social space -

Chairs and tables sit lingering guests

Sipping hot lavender lattes in a place

set-up with vibes minimal, trendy, and cool,

I likely don't belong, and yet we all do.

The beauty of a coffee shop is a rule

unspoken, that all belong here and now.

If you have a love for coffee and tea

place your order, sip, and wonder how

they make a drink so keen, it makes

you desire to linger, like a cosy home.

It was a New Time ; It was an Old Time

It was a new time, it was an old time.

It was a strange, in between time.

We are in a new season of transition, one we have not experienced in our lifetimes before. Exiting a global pandemic isn't something we have had to think about before this year. This is the chance for a reset in how we do things, as a whole. My big question is - do we make meaningful, thoughtful changes to the way we did things before?

In the spirit of Charles Dickens' opening lines to A Tale of Two Cities ("It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...") can we see the contrasts of our last 14 months with fresh eyes to keep the good hanging around before it all goes back to the normal it is all rushing back to? I don't discount the loss and the pain of this last year in any way, but there are good things that can come out of a tough time, and I think history shows that in ways of innovation, poetry, story, and other creative acts of community. 

When we are forced to look at our comfortable way of life in an alternate way (with a newly revised sense of appreciation) our brains begin to formulate and ponder in a different way. Sometimes periods of trial forces upon our human nature something uncomfortable, hopefully resulting in a sense of ingenuity and creativity as we move through it. 

We humans have a great sense of resilience and comradery. In times of crisis, the importance of looking beyond ourselves fills the spirit. That quickly leaves the atmosphere in times of prosperity, though. It almost seems like we are right on the cusp of understanding this.  

Can we embrace the new time and the changes we will implement, as well as hold onto the good of the old? In a similar sense, can we embrace the old time whilst holding onto new goodness that can come through creative changes to lead to something better for all of us? 

These are just some muddy musings I ponder (in very general terms because there are multilayered elements of thought)  as I see things pushing forward. I don't pretend to have answers, but I take the advice of Rainer Rilke in his Letters to a Young Poet, to live the unanswered questions, to dwell in them. Let the unanswered questions live out as they unfold and some day we may live into the answers.

Take us to the Cosmos

 

Do you ever look up at the sky in wonder? Do you ponder what is out there beyond our telescopes? We humans are naturally inquisitive and we want to know more. Always seeking to discover and explore, if we set our sights into the imagination, there are no bounds. We can reach the other side of the universe to visit strange galaxies and planets. 

It amazes me that even all of the distant nebulae, galaxies, quasars, and black holes are part of God's creativity. God's creation is not limited to the bounds of earth, it expands out to everything we know, and even what we don't know yet (like what is dark matter?). For the earth did not come first and then the rest of the universe. No, God created all of it, with earth coming along at some point along the history of the cosmos. In the twinkling of an eye, really, God's eye.

Several weeks ago some of my family visited the Kennedy Space Center on a windy, chilly, rain-soaked day. We live close enough to make a day trip of it (how we were able to coordinate everyone is a mystery to me), and I hadn't been since I was a teenager, so my sense of wonder was opened again. Going with my two nieces and one nephew made me see things through their playful, imaginative eyes. If you read my blog regularly, you know I am endlessly fascinated by the cosmos and astronomy. Not only is it always a realm of possibly discovery, but it is a beauty of God's creation that we get to look up and see from our cosy neighborhoods (we can view with our eyes the moon, planets like Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Saturn, and sometime Mercury, plus innumerable amounts of stars).

We saw the Space Shuttle Atlantis, a full replica of the Hubble Space Telescope, the rocket garden, Mars mission objects including a full replica of the current Mars rover, Perseverance, and the helicopter, Ingenuity, which are both dancing around the Martian soil as I write. Dashing between heavy rain drops, we ate lunch in their large dining hall, watched a couple 3D IMAX films, and let the little ones play in the kids planet zone.