Last night was not a good sleeping night. Buddy was overly restless and couldn't decide whether to stay or go. I awoke once in the night with this crazy thought, there is nothing I can remember about my fourth grade year in school. Yes, the teacher's name and the fact that she had remarried during the summer, she was a young widow, but that is it. All the other elementary school years there are significant and mundane memories but nothing at all about the fourth grade. Weird...yes, that kept me awake for about thirty minutes. That thought and then the thought that I was a battalion chief, maybe in the fifth grade, for fire drills. I had a badge and when we had fire drills my job was to run down the fourth and fifth grade hallway, turn off fans and close room doors if they hadn't been closed already. I thought I was pretty cool doing that and I don't know what or if anything I did to get that honor. Except last night as I was trying to think through the fourth grade it occurred to me, what if there had really been a fire? Would they expect me to run through that hallway and turn off fans and close the room doors?
Another middle of the night thought...yes, because this is all so interesting she wrote sarcastically...my thoughts on yesterday's blog about choir...about loving choir but at the same time kind of being off and on about it...Back in those long ago youth days, I longed to be a part of all the fun that seemed to come with choir but circumstances like not reading music or just having a blender kind of voice wasn't going to help. It was also back before some found that humor in a performance could be refreshing and God honoring...but I didn't know really back then I could be funny. Seems like back then being funny was considered a behavior problem...guess it still is. Yet, I love choir for the friendships. I would add the obvious spiritual factors but I don't feel like being all churchy le femme this morning.
It is looking rather sad that the Feral Fam is down to three. Cali hasn't been seen for several days. That is unlike her because she kept close to Mama Cat most of the time. I thought Camo had been lost too but miraculously, she showed up last night. In fact the Feral Fam sans Cali came back last night and I almost missed them because it was dark and it was beginning to snow. Of course I went outside with food and then went back inside to wait for them to finish up. Even empty bowls attract possums. Daddy Cat showed his scoundrel self for a little bit. Mama Cat kind of chased him off and then my presence in the window caused him to retreat up to the gravel road. Hey, there would be no date night on my limited watch last night. This morning I traipsed outside in my jammies to get some food out to them.
This morning before closing off this post I want to write some wise words written by Wilma Dykeman. At some point I will quote the whole essay, but for now just a few thought provoking thoughts. I have mentioned on the blog previously that this is a season of quiet for me. It is a much needed season for all of us but we have a difficult time slowing down enough to enjoy and partake because there is that feeling and school of thought, we must be productive and doing something all the time. In this quiet season the Feral Fam have been such a gift. Doing the quiet work with Taylor is with anticipation for spring when life burst forth from the quiescent season. There are new places to see and explore. Oh believe me, there have been a few visits in the serenity from obtrusive chaos and meddlesome means...but in that I am learning.
" Sometimes we look upon winter as the season of death, of bleakness, of despair. Because the earth is locked in the grip of freeze and no green things grow and even the flow of water is silenced under crust of ice, we consider this a time of exinction, an abandonment of life.
But life is not annihilated; it is merely hidden beneath the earth....it moves underground, nourishing roots and filaments of growth for a time to come. This is the season of quiet and hidden renewal.
Yet we do not always have to be in full flower to prove that we are alive. Sometimes we need to be putting down roots....I know octogenarians who have never lost their child's sense of wonder and adventure, because they have tapped some source of renewal for spirit as well as body.
A quiet season, a time when roots can search out deeper holdings and tap fresh reserves of nourishment, is to be cherished. Without it the flowering which we await is shallow, paltry, frantic and soon withering on the stem. With it no miracle of growth is impossible."
Wilma Dykeman....Look To This Day
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