Preparing to Bask

This time of year I sometimes wonder: Do trees look forward to shedding their leaves and stretching their limbs to drink in the clear frosty air the same way we people do in May when we shed fabric and stretch up to soak in the warm summer air? A bare tree looks so limber and free in the winter wind.

One with the river

My friend and I sometimes walk upstream in the Virgin River for exercise on hot summer Saturday mornings. Last Saturday we walked farther than ever before. As we turned downstream for the return trip we wondered what would happen if we gave ourselves entirely to the knee-high meandering waters? Would they support two riverbed wanderers?

We bottomed out in a spot or two at the widest points, barely bumping over pebbly rapids or washing up against soft sandbars. For the better part of a half hour we relaxed completely into the river's arms, becoming one with the cosmic universe in a way never quite experienced before. There's something peacefully freeing about letting the gentle brown current of a desert stream lift and carry you wherever it will. 

Miracles in cars

Today at a stoplight the passenger in the car next to me was a very elderly man playing with a baby doll. For the first few seconds I pitied him. Then I thought about the miracles babies have been in my life. Three babies blessed our young married lives and grew to be even greater blessings. My toddler grandson is so full of giggles, and this typing was interrupted by a phone call telling me I am going to get a grand-daughter. I'm so excited!

When I am elderly, I hope someone is thoughtful enough to give me a baby doll to play with if my grand-children are not close by or I am not able to play with them well.

Hide 'n' Seek with one-year-olds

It's so much fun to play Hide 'n' Seek with a one-year-old! If you've never done it, I highly recommend you run right out and find a one-year-old to try it with. (Just don't take her home if she doesn't belong to you.)

All you have to do is mash your big body behind something slightly larger and at least 10 yards away from the one-year-old seeker. Giggles begin percolating immediately as the drooling seeker wobbles on their cute little chubby one-year-old legs toward your hiding place. When you make eye contact prepare for a hooting explosion. It's my new favorite hobby and I'm going to get to do it TOMORROW! Hurray for grandchildren!

My Blog Is Still Here

It's not that I haven't been grateful. Life has been so full of things to be grateful for that I haven't had a minute to enter a blog post. And then I hadn't posted for so long I forgot my blog address. But today I am grateful for a stretch of minutes long enough for me to do some remembering and backtracking and voile! Once again, I post. Yay!

Random Bird Visits

Sometimes when I sit on the deck in the mornings to put on my make-up in preparation for the new day, a random bird or two will flutter to the deck railing beside me. They usually don't see me until they have landed. Then, most look surprised and a little annoyed. And fly away quickly.

One morning a small girl bird, sparrowish in looks, magically appeared. She wasn't annoyed a bit. She tilted her little bird head from one side to the other examining the large peach-colored creature in the lounge chair. Then she bounced along the railing enjoying the summer air. Only when I stood to go inside did she flit upward into the safety of the branches overhead.

I like birds.

Thinking in the Trees

Just outside our bedroom door is a worn wooden deck with comfortable lounge chairs nestled under two Arizona ash trees we planted a few years after we built our home. I remember leaning over the white iron railing two decades ago, wondering what our family would be like by the time the saplings grew tall enough to shade the deck.

One is a girl tree, loaded with seedlings, and one is a boy tree, larger and less full from the weight of offspring. Birds come and go, sometimes encouraged by seed from a feeder. It is a wonderful place to appreciate the neighbor's yellow roses spilling over the fence, morning air washed clean by the rain, and solitude. Life becomes clearer when contemplated here.