Coming Soon

 

During this calm, sunny interval, I look out of the window and everything looks radiant, fresh and dazzling under the blue skies. I wonder how it is possible that this is typically a country of rain and mist. 

I am grateful for the unexpected warmth and mercy from Mother Nature. Now that I have enough sunlight in these last days of summer, I feel as if I can look full in the face of high winds and bitter rains, the enemies of the sun god, in the coming months of autumn and winter.

At present, I am restored to perfect health, both of body and mind. I shall make the most of the daylight and the fact that the house is full of peace this morning.  There is not one single trace of greyness. My eyes are on the bright ripples of the sea. Oh bright ripples! They are the eraser of the gloom.

 

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

 

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I’ve been circling for thousands of years

and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

 

Widening Circles by Rainer Maria Rilke

The birds are singing and it is music to my ears as if they were singing in verse. The warm sea breeze fills up the room with the sweet perfume from the last roses of summer which can cure whatever ache one might have either in the heart or the head. Oh how I wish I had a book of Rousseau near me. 

Lee Bailey’s books are classics. He was a true artist. I admire his elegant style of setting the table, cooking and entertaining. I'm always inspired by his books. 

Image credit: Lee Bailey’s Southern Food (1990), Photography by Tom Eckerle 

Image credit: Lee Bailey’s Southern Food (1990), Photography by Tom Eckerle 

I'll bake a peach pie for the food table,

and rolls for the supper,

Grandma Kenyon's recipe, which came down to me

along with her legs and her brooding disposition.

"Mrs. Kenyon," the doctor used to tell her,

you are simply killing yourself with work."

This she repeated often, with keen satisfaction.

 

She lived to be a hundred and three,

surviving all her children…

 

"Church Fair" by Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

 

It is the kind of morning Rousseau loved and wrote about in his Confessions:    

 

“Immediately after I rose from my bed I never failed, if the weather was fine, to run to the terrace to respire the fresh and salubrious air of the morning, and glide my eye over the horizon of the lake, bounded by banks and mountains, delightful to the view. I know no homage more worthy of the divinity than the silent admiration excited by the contemplation of His works…”

“'Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat / To peep at such a world” (William Cowper (1731-1800), The Task, IV. 88-89)