...and evening's gathering light....

The day is winding down.  I sit on my westerly porch looking out over the darkening valley.   Headlights on the road below are winking on.  People coming home from work.  The hour of twilight comes sooner these days.  Gone are the long and languid evenings of late July and August.  Night sounds echo from the grassy brown field.  Crickets and katydids in chorus.

It has been three years since we fell in love.  Three years since we knew this would be our home.  Three years of hard work and planning.  And what a reward we have.

I knew on that September afternoon when I first saw this tree that it was where I wanted to be forever.  My eyes still fill with tears remembering the peace that came just standing on that hill and looking out over the hills beyond.

How could we not fall in love with it? 

And now I am here, watching dusk creep up the hill.  I have work to do.  Tonight.  In the morning.  And still I sit, not wanting to break the spell.  First stars twinkle in the golden sky.  The moon's crescent swings above.  Night wind stirs the leaves on our beloved oak.  Peace, blessed peace....in evening's gathering light....  

Two are better than one.....

My daughter was married this weekend.  Guests came from all over to wish her and her new husband well.  The bride was beautiful.  The groom was everything a groom should be...attentive, charming, smiling, good-natured. 

The day was one of those heaven-sent days of early autumn that showcases that certain rock-bound and rolling charm of our Ozark hills.  Bright sun, blue sky, wispy clouds, and delightfully cool temperatures.  A perfect day.

We ate barbeque.  We listened to fiddle tunes played by a talented young woman who is our friend.  We talked and laughed and raised our glasses to toast the newlyweds.

As the long afternoon moved into dusk a hush came up with the shadows from the valley below.  That magical time between light and dark brought chairs out to the field and porch where guests sat and gazed at the stars and conversation faded from whispers gradually into peaceful silence.

Today the couple left to go home by way of Cape Cod where they will honeymoon for a few days.  And as I watched the truck go down the road I remembered the verses from Ecclesiastes that were read during the ceremony on that perfect wedding day.  "Two are better than one," it begins.  Yes, and these two have a wonderful start to a life filled with joy and laughter and love.

Long life and happiness always, Matt and Nina.  We love you.

 

 

  

 

 

Upon rising early....

It is still dark outside my window.  But there is something about greeting the new day that makes me throw off the warm cover of slumber and still half dazed with dreams, make my way to the porch that faces east.

I stand there, leaning forward to look first to the eastern sky and seek Orion's sparking belt.  He is still there, as he has been since time began.  I wonder how many of us have counted the stars and marveled at their beauty.

Huddled against the cold, bare arms crossed against the chill that comes with the quickening wind, I close my eyes.  And when I open them with cleared vision I smile.  For I can see a faint glow of softest pink kissing the mist covered river hills. 

The sun.  The sun is rising.  And with its brightening orb I whisper thanks again and again.  Another day.  Another day to live.  Another day to embrace.  Another day to spend as I see fit.  And all of this, because I took the time to rise early. 

Just a question for my friends who left Xanga and came over here.  I just tried to get on Xanga and check out my old site.  I did keep it there, just in case someone wanted to find me here....Anyway...I can not navigate that thing.  Is anyone else having trouble.  Please let me know.  Thanks

Dancing fool....

I am a dancing fool.  I readily admit to it.  Whenever you play a little fiddle music with a driving beat, I am on the floor  trying to keep up with it.  Play a little Liberty, or Fort Smith, or better yet, Soldier's Joy and I will be in dance heaven.

I love old time square dancing.  The above picture was taken several years ago when Andy and I started to learn how it is done here in extreme southern Missouri.  The fiddlers play at 140 beats a minute and the pace is fast and furious.  Each area of Missouri has a little different style of dancing and a few differences in fiddle music.  We dance hard and fast and when you are done with a set, you are usually drenched in sweat and breathing hard.

My favorite fiddle player once told me that he keyed on our set when he played a tune.  He claimed that the harder we danced the harder he played.  And I believe it is true.  The fiddle sets the tempo and the dancers keep it  going.

The dances I love are ones that have everyone going at once.  Some of them are Right Hand Lady, Chinese Puzzle, Whirl Like Thunder, and the ever popular Grandpa's Baby. 

It is amazing to me how the music can get you up and moving in nothing flat.  We danced in a nearby county at least twice a month.  The hall was full of people who were in their 60's, 70's and 80's.  You would look around and wonder how in the world some of these people could even make it in the door.  They walked slowly, stooped over and you could almost hear their bones creaking.  But they were there to dance.  And, by golly, when the fiddle started in, they would jump up like teenagers and move through the set with a smoothness and agility most 20-year-olds would envy.

I think the secret is in the music.  It just makes you feel good.  When I square dance all my troubles leave me.  I feel good.  My aches and pains, if I had any, are gone.  And I literally could dance all night.

We dance all three nights of Hootin an Hollarin.  We begin at 9 and are still here on the platform when the clock strikes midnight.  If the band could, we would ask them to play just one more.  Such dancing is good for you.  It gets your blood moving.  It gets your heart beating.  It is good for your soul.

And that is why I am a dancing fool.