A long week of farewells and new challenges brought forth a need in me to head to the shore for some respite and renewal. Here are some vignettes from that day:
· Chatting with a beloved aunt while my sweet little two year old nephew plays in a sand box with her grandchildren. Soon she points out a burrowing insect not unlike a flying ant of those infamous summertime swarms, its little legs furiously flinging sand as it tunneles headfirst in the sandbox -- What is this creature and does it sting?
· Dear uncles happy to share in stories, tea and play with grand nephews
· Walking with my dad on a tree lined road at the shore—he wants to take me to smell the fragrance of pin cherry trees on the soft, salt water kissed winds
- The startling bright pumpkin orange of an amanita bud pushing up through the gray brown floor beneath a scraggly spruce stand
· Gleaming Pearly Everlasting at its August peak
· A flitting tiny warbler proving out to be a young Common Yellowthroat Warbler
· The soft white inside of a jagged edge pale blue Robin’s egg on a grass patch on the road
· At the end of the quiet road and beyond the bordering potato field, the just- post sunset sky; pillowy pinks and somber greys in layered brushstrokes above the steely, rippling sea
· Silence punctuated by a plurality of singular deep thuds at the edge of the woods which upon closer inspection turned out to be the work of a soon- scolding squirrel high up in a spruce top sending down lime green cones to the ashy needle covered floor below
· My father pointing out to me the best patch of Pink Earth, its ballet slipper pink, fruiting bodies protruding just above the parched earth
· My mother standing at the trailer sink chatting with us as she prepares carrots on her new, larger than life, bamboo cutting board---a thriftshop find
- Two fishing boats heading back to nearby Naufrage harbour--one boat so close to shore we think we can count the number of passengers--three or four?
· A quiet sense of time’s motion with three generations of us spending an afternoon and garden fresh summertime supper and then evening together on my grandparent’s old farmland shore frontage on the dear, north eastern shore of this fair island
· My nephew, newly five, inspecting a perfect, sun- bleached, lobster claw his mother found him when checking out the water’s below the red faced cape
· The six inch long extended hind legs of a large frog as it leapt from the side-end of the winding red clay shore road, into the long grasses as we left the shore in the last light of evening
· The gleaming eyes of a small, curious fox as it crossed the highway while my son, very new to nighttime highway driving, was getting used to changing the headlights between bright and normal
· A dazzling, brilliant orange and smoky, black blaze of a large meteor, likely of the Perseid meteor shower, entering the earth’s atmosphere across a cloud swept, early night sky and we had a quintessentially, panoramic view of the rather rare, atmospheric event
· A youngish, lone male, wearing a t-shirt and denim jeans and walking on the wrong side of the road along a dark and lonely stretch of highway, back to us, flips us the bird as a gesture of who knows what? But we can only feel sorry for whatever brought him to that moment because we are too happy to feel bad for too very long
After a week where I’ve acutely felt a sense of loss after loss, both personal and communal, the need in me to bear witness to the astonishing beauty of the natural world is great. It helps me remember to hold space for both sadness and joy; for a sense of plenty and of need. A wise heart has room for all the world in it.
In gratitude,
Jill
Comments