Wednesday, July 18, 2012

thunderous change



As a kid, I wasn’t as fastidious and ‘tidy’ as I tend to be right now. But every once in a while, any disorder would get to me and I would dump all my personal belongings – all those Nancy Drews and Bobbsey Twins,  scraps of paper paper, puzzles, Archie comic books, all that, right in the middle of the floor, in an effort to restore order: after the great spill, I would carefully, meticulously replace each item onto the little blue and white bookshelf that I had to store all my belongings.

Maybe I haven’t changed much since those years. Before each semester, I enter my wee office on campus and dump stacks of papers onto the floor in an attempt to eventually set things straight again.

And here I am now on Ocean, needing to shake those quilts out a bit as well.

Today I take on the sidebar. There'd been a lot of sentimental mention of blogs that once listed Ocean as a friend. Oftentimes the blogs would stay dormant for months, years even and yet I hadn't the heart to cross them off. If someone listed Ocean as a favorite, I kept them here, no matter what. An Ocean friend for life!
But it's time for an honest review of what's there and, too, of who is still writing and what I'm still  reading. The truth is, just about the only blog that I will follow til death do us part is one that falls into the category of what we bloggers once referred to as “story blogs” – places where people wrote because they cared deeply about putting something up.

And the subject that attracts me most is the depiction of the everyday. Through some combination of photos and words, posted with care and with some regularity. This is what I love to read and this is what I'd like to list here. Maybe the list will grow. Know of a good story blogger?

And so I've thrown things on the floor and picked them up again. Fresh, honest and ordered!
 

In other news – a wave of storms pushed through (quickly, violently) this morning. Rainwater ran on the surface of parched earth, but I had to believe it had an impact. Surely even just a quarter of an inch mattered!

And then, lo, in the evening the storms came at us again. No, they didn’t offer the steady drizzle of an English country rain – the type that makes flower grow and poets hunker down and do their craft, but still, we had rain!

Change. Thunderous wonderful change. I leave you with a visitor who stayed a while on the overly tall Monarda plant by the farmhouse door and then flew away, just as the rains came.



DSC01695 - Version 2



And, too, a quick look at the fields to the east,  across the road from us. The clouds are just rolling in. We all wait, hoping for some good, sustaining rains.


DSC01708 - Version 2



And dinner? Well, in honor of the dampness outside, I cooked up a chicken inside: a good old fashioned home made chicken soup. Not with noodles, but with corn. In honor of summer -- you know, that season that delivers plenty of sunshine and also the occasional much needed rain.


DSC01720 - Version 2