07.23.16

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” John Muir

Most of the country is under a “heat dome” right now.  When I see the temperatures on the national map, it reminds me of how I struggle to pack my suitcase when I’m off to a totally different climate.  It’s just hard to imagine I will wear that sleeveless blouse, so I pack light weight sweaters instead of the wool ones.  A low pressure system blew in hard yesterday, and when it raced across the lake, it blew our doors shut and the jam actually fell off the door to our bedroom.  I remember, years ago, Rita and I had returned from a week-end in Calgary, about 10:00 on a Sunday evening.   Don was asleep on the sofa, on a warmish summer evening, and at the exact same time we opened the front door, a squall hit the house lake-side, and all the doors slammed and pictures balanced on the rail above the wainscoting, smashed to the floor.  We still laugh at the “what the hell just happened” look on his face when he jumped awake.  It can happen that suddenly.

Rita and Lee brought pizza down for supper last night and we had planned to sit on the porch to eat, but it was too windy and cool.  We hung around the dining room table, discussing the week’s events, both large and small, and then Rita announced we must simply go out on the porch to watch the golden sun begin its dramatic descent.  We grabbed the wool blankets and continued solving the world’s problems while golden light streamed over us on the porch.  That beautiful golden hour of photography, when the stones on the beach and the Birch tree leaves all turn to gold.  The British call it “the gloaming”, which always implies gloom to me, but I love the word anyway, and I love how John Muir talks about “…each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”  There is such beauty and comfort that “the grand show is eternal”.