Elinor Nauen

The dogs, Ernie & Bert, run, eat, nap, run, eat, sleep. My life here is almost as simple: Read, eat pie, nap, read, marvel at my luck in being here. The first time I visited Steve on this same land, I was 19 & in South Carolina for the first time. I floated on the lake & for a minute felt so happy that I believed if I had drowned right then I wouldn't have minded. I'm glad I didn't & especially glad that I have had the last 50+ years of friendship & getting to visit here. I still feel happy enough here to die, although I still don't want to. I don't seem to have thought of better criteria or maybe it just means this is the place where I don't die but breathe freely, revel, feel surrounded by sky, plants, & most of all love.

Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.
~ Harry Truman

I don't understand why the short way takes just as long as the long way. Maybe we took the short long way & not the long short way? Forrister was thriving & his dog & I fell in love. She lay on me. But Forrister, lying on you is like lying on the floor, whereas I'm a soft sofa. The mountains are always beautiful even with the fall colors and a lot of trees gone. 

Beyond happy to be in one of the places I love most in the world, with some of the people I love most in the world, who welcome me without reservation (although I do let them know I'm coming because I need to get picked up at the airport). Every minute here makes me feel better about the world. 

I am sitting on the deck absorbing the beauty of the years of mindful gardening. 

I am shaking out the towels for stinkbugs. 

I am breathing. 

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus. ~ Turskish proverb (unverified)

It's bracing to read the many thoughtful comments I've been seeing since Tuesday. It doesn't make it any easier to accept or absorb, but right now feeling none of us is alone in our horror/grief/shock/sorrow/fury is helpful. 

And in a few minutes I'm off for a week of R&R. I may not post regularly but if I do it'll be some stunning natural beauty. 

Sexism... racism... mis/disinformation... Putin... Musk... the failure of imagination that people could prefer a senile rapist to anybody. I know there'll be a ton of Monday morning quarterbacking & I'll eventually read some of it. My heart aches for the generation of my grandchildren. 

Didn't sleep, no more to say & tomorrow I'm off for a week's R&R in the Carolinas. May miss a day here & there. 

Anything encouraging to remind me? 

Everyone is so nervous that my plan to sleep until tomorrow night is not going to work. 

No predictions, no despair. 

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.
~ Rose Macaulay

My motto!

I did it. I fell in love again. They're siblings, & cute as kittens when they cock their heads at the same angle. They look at me. They are interested. They can almost fly so I suppose I'll lose them again, but maybe they won't be murdered like the last pigeons I loved. No surprise that I ran out to vote on Thursday when the special one-day-only voter sticker was a pigeon trick-or-treating. 

A Man Said to the Universe

A man said to the universe:

"Sir, I exist!"

"However," replied the universe,

"The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation."

~ Stephen Crane

He was my favorite poet in high school, probably my first favorite poet. I planned to get married on his November 1 birthday, though as it turns out I didn't.

Crane was an unusual predeliction for a teen, I think now, & while I am still a fan, I'm not sure what was so compelling to me then. Perhaps the directness of his language, something I still appreciate & aim for in my own work. Or the irony?