Long Golden Days
How good it is to play at last! How good, how good good good to be able to breathe! How good to sing because I want to sing!
This morning, Brittainy being gone all day to visit a homeless shelter, I got up and took Charity off to the library to return books. We had a silly, adorable time, complete with fruit parfaits (fruit, granola, yogurt) from McDonald's. Once home we did not go in, but sat on the front step. Marjorie came out all snuggle-barefoot-pyjama-clad to talk with us.
Mama and Daddy appeared next, and we all adjourned to the deck to admire the new fountain and the spice-garden planted around it. We girls chattered and sang like magpies, drinking grape juice (O sweet sparkling purpleness!) in the gold-green-breeze-clad summer morning.
"Berrying!" Somebody said. "Let's go berrying!"
Daddy had to reconstitute a piece of work that had been lost at the office, but Mama and Charity and Marjorie and I all scrambled to find appropriate clothes for berrying. We took long-handled wicker baskets. Charity wore (I am not joking) a sunbonnet of straw with brown ribbon ties. "If I had known you were going to wear a bonnet and look adorable," Mama said later, "I would have brought my camera!"
There is a six-hundred-acre park historic park laid out all around our house. We, like the royal family of some old fairy tale, live just on the edge of it. Consequently it was quite possible for four women to spend the entire morning wandering along mown paths, sometimes in sun, sometimes in shade, sometimes near the old stone ruin, sometimes in places I am sure no one but the park wardens have ever seen.
Parks seem to be shockingly under-utilized in our part of the country, which moves me to compassion for those who sit in buildings all day, but also fills me with elation, for because of it we have a private kingdom. Anything could happen in that forest!---adventures or magicians or princes or enchantments---anything!
We came home with baskets respectably fullish (ours was a pleasure-trip, not a really serious berry-picking trip) of blackberries and raspberries. Tomorrow we shall pour them in handfuls over brownies and vanilla ice cream for Sunday Lunch.
Yesterday evening, Brittainy and I took our run through a new part of the park and found heaps of raspberries. We shall have to go back and pick them soon, before the foxes and deer do. Speaking of which, gentle reader,
I report that we saw a deer and two foxes. The run (which included some walking) took 45 minutes; I will have leg cramps for perhaps another 36 hours; it was glorious!
I spent this whole afternoon reading and cleaning. It is so good to have time for both! I read one of the Dorothy Sayers stories---Gaudy Night, but I did not really seriously read it. I only skimmed the good parts. Then later in the afternoon I took a turn through Livy's History of Early Rome because it looked so darkly lustrous and splendid, sitting on my shelf (it is an Easton Press edition). I also cleaned out my blue-and-brass trunk preparatory for school, and mused my way through some old letters that made me smile tenderly over my foolish former self.
Today I began to wear a key on a silver chain around my neck. Don't ask why---there is a reason, but you will almost certainly never know it.
When Brittainy comes home, she and the High Queen and I will share a pleasant few hours watching one of the quietest movies I have ever seen: The New World. Why? I'm not sure. Because we feel like it, I suppose. Brittainy and I try to keep a lid on how many movies we watch, since there is much else to do, but it being the weekend we indulged in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical version of Cinderella (my family calls it "The Magic Cinderella"), and tonight will indulge again in a completely different piece of art.
We have been expanding our tastes, watching each other's favorite movies that the other has never seen and even foraging into unexplored territory such as (gasp!) Indian cinema. You would not believe me, gentle reader, if I told you how amazingly gifted the Indians are as storytellers, even when they dress the story up in Hollywood tinsel. They may wear Hollywood, but their souls are much deeper than that. What a joy to discover, for example, the movie Devdas!
To our list of new experiences this summer I must add tennis. Brittainy and I bought rackets and now try to play four days out of seven, with other days reserved for yoga, weights, and running. We are improving quickly, though we still laugh at our ineptitude and struggle to perform a respectable volley.
I have so much. It overwhelms me. But how true it is that this perception is a matter of perspective. There is so much I could pine for that I choose not to, and some difficult things that must be endured, about which I choose not to complain. Strange, wonderful, but true, what I read so long ago in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment---that contentment is a matter of suiting our wishes to God's disposition in our lives, and of framing our souls to be content with our circumstances, rather than the other way round. Three years later, I feel that I have learned the secret of contentment, and have for some time now been living the gold-on-silver loveliness of it. How grateful I am to have had this instruction, and to have been enabled by grace to grow into it!
This morning, Brittainy being gone all day to visit a homeless shelter, I got up and took Charity off to the library to return books. We had a silly, adorable time, complete with fruit parfaits (fruit, granola, yogurt) from McDonald's. Once home we did not go in, but sat on the front step. Marjorie came out all snuggle-barefoot-pyjama-clad to talk with us.
Mama and Daddy appeared next, and we all adjourned to the deck to admire the new fountain and the spice-garden planted around it. We girls chattered and sang like magpies, drinking grape juice (O sweet sparkling purpleness!) in the gold-green-breeze-clad summer morning.
"Berrying!" Somebody said. "Let's go berrying!"
Daddy had to reconstitute a piece of work that had been lost at the office, but Mama and Charity and Marjorie and I all scrambled to find appropriate clothes for berrying. We took long-handled wicker baskets. Charity wore (I am not joking) a sunbonnet of straw with brown ribbon ties. "If I had known you were going to wear a bonnet and look adorable," Mama said later, "I would have brought my camera!"
There is a six-hundred-acre park historic park laid out all around our house. We, like the royal family of some old fairy tale, live just on the edge of it. Consequently it was quite possible for four women to spend the entire morning wandering along mown paths, sometimes in sun, sometimes in shade, sometimes near the old stone ruin, sometimes in places I am sure no one but the park wardens have ever seen.
Parks seem to be shockingly under-utilized in our part of the country, which moves me to compassion for those who sit in buildings all day, but also fills me with elation, for because of it we have a private kingdom. Anything could happen in that forest!---adventures or magicians or princes or enchantments---anything!
We came home with baskets respectably fullish (ours was a pleasure-trip, not a really serious berry-picking trip) of blackberries and raspberries. Tomorrow we shall pour them in handfuls over brownies and vanilla ice cream for Sunday Lunch.
Yesterday evening, Brittainy and I took our run through a new part of the park and found heaps of raspberries. We shall have to go back and pick them soon, before the foxes and deer do. Speaking of which, gentle reader,
I report that we saw a deer and two foxes. The run (which included some walking) took 45 minutes; I will have leg cramps for perhaps another 36 hours; it was glorious!
I spent this whole afternoon reading and cleaning. It is so good to have time for both! I read one of the Dorothy Sayers stories---Gaudy Night, but I did not really seriously read it. I only skimmed the good parts. Then later in the afternoon I took a turn through Livy's History of Early Rome because it looked so darkly lustrous and splendid, sitting on my shelf (it is an Easton Press edition). I also cleaned out my blue-and-brass trunk preparatory for school, and mused my way through some old letters that made me smile tenderly over my foolish former self.
Today I began to wear a key on a silver chain around my neck. Don't ask why---there is a reason, but you will almost certainly never know it.
When Brittainy comes home, she and the High Queen and I will share a pleasant few hours watching one of the quietest movies I have ever seen: The New World. Why? I'm not sure. Because we feel like it, I suppose. Brittainy and I try to keep a lid on how many movies we watch, since there is much else to do, but it being the weekend we indulged in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical version of Cinderella (my family calls it "The Magic Cinderella"), and tonight will indulge again in a completely different piece of art.
We have been expanding our tastes, watching each other's favorite movies that the other has never seen and even foraging into unexplored territory such as (gasp!) Indian cinema. You would not believe me, gentle reader, if I told you how amazingly gifted the Indians are as storytellers, even when they dress the story up in Hollywood tinsel. They may wear Hollywood, but their souls are much deeper than that. What a joy to discover, for example, the movie Devdas!
To our list of new experiences this summer I must add tennis. Brittainy and I bought rackets and now try to play four days out of seven, with other days reserved for yoga, weights, and running. We are improving quickly, though we still laugh at our ineptitude and struggle to perform a respectable volley.
I have so much. It overwhelms me. But how true it is that this perception is a matter of perspective. There is so much I could pine for that I choose not to, and some difficult things that must be endured, about which I choose not to complain. Strange, wonderful, but true, what I read so long ago in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment---that contentment is a matter of suiting our wishes to God's disposition in our lives, and of framing our souls to be content with our circumstances, rather than the other way round. Three years later, I feel that I have learned the secret of contentment, and have for some time now been living the gold-on-silver loveliness of it. How grateful I am to have had this instruction, and to have been enabled by grace to grow into it!
posted by Praelucor at 4:18 PM
4 Comments:
You amaze me Christy. Every time I read your posts, I am struck with a portion of just how joyful life is.
I think that if I had not subscribed your blog, the blogosphere would be a rather dull library of records, while with it, it is more like an orchard of truth. It does not become boring; it makes me desire to do something meaningful or joyful. Thank you for that.
I think I will go upstairs and learn how to dance.
My brother and sister went on a similar errand in the farm park today. They came back with a dishcloth full of ripe blackberries.
Kevin caught me. I confess, I adore your writing style. In his comment on my blog he pointed out that I appeared to be trying to copy your style in my most recent post.
However, if and when you read it, please do not think, like Kevin, that I was trying to copy your style. Those are my own words from my own heart and mind, and as much as I love and endeavor to adopt your floridity, my post is nonetheless my own.
Speaking of my last post, I have a beautiful sunset to catch.
I am not so very sure that I would wish my "floridity" on you, Peter, though it does have its uses, and apparently pleasing you is one of them. :-) You are welcome to practice imitation upon it, though I hope it will be only one of many styles that you try out in search of your own "voice." I am very sure that those ARE your own thoughts and feelings on your blog, whatever Kevin says ;-)
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