Morning Is Breaking More Gently

This morning I heard robins near the house. Pretty-pretty-pretty, they seem to boast proudly. Sparrows trill in the popple grove, crows call raucously from a distance, the heart-lifting sound of a sandhill crane comes from far overhead, and the woods rings with sounds of the busy cleanup crew, woodpeckers in dead and dying trees. 

Spring’s arrival varies from year to year and can be quite teasing with its advances and retreats. We may yet have another blizzard. But if we do have a big snow in April, as I used to tell the Artist, “It will be a spring blizzard!” And sooner or later the seasonal page will be turned for good, and there will be only memories with which to answer the inevitable Up North spring question, “How was your winter?”

Mornings are easier and more pleasant with less cold wind and more birdsong as Sunny Juliet with her nose, I with my eyes, both of us with our ears explore a morning world that never grows stale. No two mornings –no two moments! -- are ever identical.

Reading her morning newspaper

I’ll keep this short today. One bookish thing on my mind is the idea of a ‘page-turner.’ You know, a book you can’t stop reading until the end. It strikes me now (and I have not taken time to develop this thought) that page-turners are of at least two different sorts. Some are consumables: That kind of page-turner is like a deep tub of popcorn at a movie theatre, a near-mindless reading binge. Such books serve a purpose in our lives. They provide a day’s distraction and relief. Tomorrow we will be ready to face our own life situations again. 

The second kind of page-turner is a life-changer, or at least a mind- or heart-changer, as well as a page-turner. We find ourselves totally immersed in a new world, seeing life through freshly opened eyes. Even familiar elements encountered in such a book evoke a new surge of love from us. We can’t stop reading because we are spellbound, enchanted.

 

Those in the second group are likely to burrow into our lives for good, as precious as old friends of whom we never tire. At least, that’s how I see things this morning on the eve of the Ides of March. How about you? And what's going on in your neck of the woods?

Will there be more? Stay tuned!

For what I learned in a very, very important new film, tap here. For a comforting soup, winter or summer, tap here. Thank you for sharing links with anything you find worth sharing.