Monday, May 26, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
There was an orange tree outside her kitchen window she could never bear to pick.
She would sit in the evenings after a long day of work and take in its beauty. The roundness of its fruit, the color, the smell...
Its fruit would eventually fall to the ground where the birds would eat their fill. And then the bees and wasps would eat their fill. Then the other insects would finish the fruit.
She was a careful observer in the world around her.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is the woman who loved the orange tree outside her window.
She lived at Cross Creek, Florida when the swamps still flourished in wild beauty.
I would have loved to have lived then and been her friend. To have gone with her at midnight to look for blue crabs, and to dig up sea turtle eggs.
Every time she would sell a story she would fix something in her house at Cross Creek. One time putting in running water and a rest room. Having only had an outhouse.
I have read her life's story and it enthralls me. She was a bigger than life person. Living her life to the fullest. Living passionately.
I am struck by how a piece of land can change someones life. Really, it's not only the land, I guess it is the people who came with it.
Without them she would have had no stories.
Haven't most of us searched our whole lives for that link to another person? That invisible bond that binds kindred hearts together?
The shared love of art, music, words...nature, life.
Someone who gets us. Someone who loves to live life to the fullest as we do? Who sees the beauty in the everyday simple things. Who delights in the simple joys of life.
I remember one chapter of the book where she talks about going off to explore the everglades with a friend of hers. She wanted to see them before they were gone. They had started land development as far back as the 1940's. She took a woman friend who knew the Everglades very well and off they went. If memory serves me right they were gone for almost a week.
They camped under the stars on dry land. They slept in the boat. They found an abandoned cabin and slept in it one night.
Can you imagine doing that?
It would be scary but thrilling at the same time.
I want to live life to the fullest whatever time I have left here. What about you?
~Nita~
Tonight's song, Shimmer by Shawn Mullins
This is my favorite song. Out of all songs I have ever heard I love this one most. If you have a chance please listen to it.
1st video, 1st clip
We were born to shimmer, we were born to shine...We are born not to hate.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Rose...

Bette Midler - The Rose
This is lyrics from http://www.lyrics007.com/
that drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love it is a hunger
an endless aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you it's only seed
It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose"
Monday, May 19, 2008
After the Rain...
Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven. Know then that world exists for you.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I took this picture a few days ago after a big rain.
I planted this lavender rose bush last week right in front of where John use to park. When he opened his door that would have been the first thing he saw.
Thank you all for the comments... You comfort my heart. I will get back to everyone in a day or two. I have been really busy.
~Nita~
Saturday, May 17, 2008
I Don't Know How to Let You Go....
What ravages of spirit conjure this tempestuous rage...
Fate has lead me through it... You do what you have to do.
But I have a sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go....
I try to escape this desire... The yearning to be near you...I do what I have to do.
I don't know how to let you go...
Every moment marked with apparitions of your soul... I'm ever swiftly moving trying to escape this desire...this yearning to be near you...I do what I have to do.
But I have a sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go..
A glowing ember burning hot burning slow...
Deep within me I'm shaken by the violence of existing only for you...
Sarah McLaughlin
This is how I feel about John... Today is rough. Thoughts of him have just been running through my mind all day.
Thoughts of him come to me at the worst possible times. Driving down the street, while at the store, doing the dishes, and mopping the floors.
The loneliest part of the day is every hour without him....
Knowing he will not be here again is a burden almost too great to bear.
But he is gone and I am here...
Days seem to be getting easier than I have the rug pulled out from beneath me. Just little things that seem to haunt me. Finding a shirt of his in my closet. Finding notes he wrote and hid in the house for me to find...
~Nita~
John loved Snowball bushes... He would have loved this one.
Today's song, Do What You Have to Do by Sarah McLaughlin
1st video, 1st clip
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Photo Challenge....
I went back and read some more about the photo challenge.. It was supposed to be shiny things, sorry. Silly me. I found this picture I took a few months ago. I had borrowed my Dad's marble collection to do this shot. I then filled the red tin heart with sequins... I hope you like it.


The gazing ball and ivy photo I took in my Mother's yard. The ivy was a present from my sister and I many years ago. It was a small piece that Mom planted on a Red Bud tree stump. It has flourished.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
.
It isn't the big things that kids or people remember. We remember moments not days.
It the silly fun times we take out of our dreary days that remain.
I have a couple of quotes I want to share with you.
The ordinary acts we practice everyday at home are of more importance to the soul than their Simplicity might suggest. Thomas Moore
Irish Poet {1779-1852}

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." Mother Teresa
A gentle word, Like Summer rain, may soothe some heart and banish pain. What joy or sadness often springs from just the simple little things. Willa Hoey






