Ordinary Beauty

I cleaned out my handbag. Deep-clean. The kind where you dump out everything and then pull the lining inside-out and shake again. Take a damp rag to it, dust out the cobwebs.

I found unintended souvenirs of my last few weeks. Glitter, honey-dust, “Sweeney Todd” ticket stub, sticker from the top of a bottle of tasty bubbly, and a dime or two.

Seemed more interesting at the time, while I was cleaning and shaking these tidbits loose. But I guess that is how life ought to be–more interesting at the time, than in the telling.

Here’s a new link to more info about doing jury duty in Washington State.

Have fun.

Terrific wind blowing in the dark morning. I see the silhouettes of the trees and bushes bouncing around with a force that I have not seen here. The noise is deep and thick and I am anxious.I do not know why big winds cause me to be edgy, and perhaps it is only the wind in the dark which disturbs me. But I am tense and have been all these hours since the sounds first woke me.

Because it is winter, the maples are naked and I am grateful for that–grateful for the “quiet” because there are no leaves to thunderously rustle in the gusts. But their bare branches rub against each other with an eerie squeak and there’s a whistle now and again as the wind flies through them.

The tops of the pine and the fir trees are at least graceful as they bend and that beauty distracts me from my sense that they will snap loose and tumble in just another moment.

And now, just now, the rain has come. Big drops falling, adding to the noise, more fodder for my foolish angst.

I will crawl back into bed soon–as daylight creeps into the sky and tempers the sharp edges of this weather–and I will sleep deeply while my world whirls around me.