Foggy

I apologize, dear reader, for being out of touch for so long, with my writing sparse and my postings irregular. I’m still here, on the Cutoff, finishing up a few projects that nestled in between a sinus infection that finally abated, only to be followed by a nasty cold – all of which have left me in a bit of foggy state.

How foggy was it? So foggy that even the Hallmark Channel didn’t interest me, nor Turner Classics. So foggy that the jumbo KitKat candy bar Tom brought home for me hasn’t been torn into. So foggy that I slept through Jennifer’s visit, whilst kind and considerate Tom made dinner.

I did, at long last, come out of the foggy bottom, with my Grecian beak just a wee bit tender, sucking on cough drops and avoiding comedies lest my nose not be the only thing dripping, to see this week’s episode of “Call the Midwife”. How I love Chummy and her constable. Poor Cynthia. How wonderfully her friends rallied, reminding me that I must be better at reaching out to friends in distress. Even though I read the book, I didn’t “see it coming” with Jimmy, and wanted to shake him while comforting Jenny for her disappointment in him.

The dear sisters at Nonnatus House are real and complicated and simple, for their mission is one of care to the women of Poplar in the East End of London. I did start to tear up when I heard the echos of  ”you are my special angel” down the long corridor. I won’t say why, for those of you who haven’t seen it, I’ll just that it all reminded me that my own fog has lifted, and isn’t that grand, though nowhere as grand as the fog that eventually lifted in this impoverished section of London in the 1950′s. My drippy nose also made me hold the often curmudgeonly Sister Evangeline, whose nose tends to drip as much as mine was, with a little more compassion as I watched her compassion come through in several scenes.

If you are a fan of the book and/or series, I would love to read your thoughts. If you are not yet, I encourage to you to read or watch – or both.

While looking for the correct spelling of Nannatus House, I came across this article about the sisters that you might find interesting, which can be found by clicking here. . . .

. . . and I do still plan to share a few photos of the germ miners that generously shared their colds with me from way up north.

Off I go. Nose to blow, work to get done, nature to contemplate here on the Cutoff.

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In the garden of your mind

Thank you, PBS.

As summer slowly fades, children board school buses again, and the leaves start to turn, a robot named Curiosity roams about a planet known in my own childhood through science fiction and encyclopedias.

I was thinking about Curiosity, wondering who named it, curious myself about life and all its wonders. As I thought about my little life here on the Cutoff, with its herd of deer, soaring hawk, trotting horses that disappear into the forest –  and Midnight, the cat –  Fred Rogers appeared on my television screen.

Go ahead. Click on.

Snap your fingers.

Be curious.

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Decoration Day

Today is a federal holiday in the United States. Memorial Day. Dating back to customs following the Civil War of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers, it was originally called Decoration Day and slowly, over time and years and wars, became a national day of remembering.

I remember my childhood, all of us packed into a car, driving to Elmwood Cemetery, putting flowers on my grandfather’s grave, playing as children do around the old headstones, all the little American flags at the section a little further away where the soldiers were buried, and then the sudden round of a twenty-one gun salute.

It is right to remember those who sacrificed their lives for their countrymen.

Those of you in other lands across the oceans and hemispheres have similar days for honoring your fallen men and women. Though each country calls such an occasion a different name under a different flag, it is the act of  honoring those who have fallen that holds a universal meaning.

This song is from the Ken Burns/PBS production of The War. It came to mind today and I  would like to share it with you now.

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