Sweet Sorrow

Don't want to say goodbye!  "Parting is such sweet sorrow."  We linger, savoring the moments, intending that this space in time will continue on uninterrupted.  Forever.  But the only thing that is for sure is change.  We will be parted, summer and we.

The laundry is nearly dry before it is hung!

Our dry, blue skies have been an amazement to visitors, to Portland folks in general, and especially to the weather forecasters.  And we, as we read the forecast in the paper, day after day, week after week, month after month figure we must be three sheets to the wind to see uninterrupted sunshine for nearly all of three months.  Sun worshippers are in heaven.  Rain lovers are nervous.

Daily humidity for our area averages 50-60%.  Of late it has been for weeks now between 10 and 20%.  Line-dried laundry freak that I am, this has been bliss.  My garden, flowers and grass are not so happy.  And, I admit to being a rain lover.

For the past two or three weeks the Things I get to do today include spending a few moments each day deep in my imagination, smelling the rain, listening to its patter on leaves and roofs, hearing it gurgle down the gutters and into the empty rain barrels, seeing the plants bask in the life-giving moisture.  The weather forecasters say the dry blue will be gone on Friday.  Showers, they say. Rain, they say.  Thank you to all heaven, I say.

PS: This morning's newspaper says we could have up to 3 inches of rain this weekend. Perhaps I've overdone it!

Heaven on Earth

Heavenly gold 

It happened again this evening.  About half an hour before sunset, the clouds in the western sky parted while the brilliance of the sun enflamed their front edge and underbelly.  Beneath the dark upper canopy the earth glowed warm and golden, a reflection of the fire overhead.

We've had unsettled weather the last six weeks, actually longer, I think.  An elderly neighbor, grouchy with the pain of illness and old-age, told me certainly yesterday that we would have no summer this year at all.  He meant it, but I kidded him back into a smile with, "Oh, Tony, it's only June.  We'll have at least one sunny day before the snow flies and you know it."

Catching this special blessing of gold from heaven bathing the land, the houses, the trees will conclude the Things I get to do today.   May we all rest well.