Love

 

I just read the most beautiful love story...two, actually.  You can find them at Anne's blog, under the title, September Sunset.

I feel a good weep coming on, so please excuse the brevity.  Goodnight, all.

Say It Ain't So, Fyodor! Oh, Say It Ain't!

Image © Jeremy Early

(Found this passage at Whiskey River.  All I could think to say is to paraphrase a newspaper headline, from years ago, about the "Shoeless Joe" Jackson baseball scandal; hence the title of this post.  - Martha)

"We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is."

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

Home Again, Jiggity-jig

The Crow (how odd to refer to my alter ego self in the third person) has returned to the nest.  Internet access was restored this morning.  I feel like I've been isolated while molting and now, full-feathered again, I can fly freely once more.

Yet...

Yet, I feel something is amiss.  This feeling is predictable, since we humans resist change, even change for the better, or one for which we have yearned a good while.  The walk to a computer I use today is far shorter than a few days ago, but not nearly so interesting.  I know the layout of my home better than the back of my hand.  There is nothing interesting about the basket of clean laundry waiting to be folded, or the jumble of art supplies in need of a good sorting, or the dishes from breakfast lallygagging in the sink.  I thought surely they'd have washed themselves by now.  Must I do everything in this house?  Oh.  I guess I must, mustn't I?

I did brew some Peruvian coffee this morning, a gift from my last visit to the food bank.  Quite good, actually, but not the high-end stuff at the library.  On the other hand, I did bring a cup of it to the office, where I set it precariously atop the hard-drive tower while I cleared a spot for it next to the keyboard.  Wouldn't have been allowed such a risky indulgence at good old Guthrie Memorial.

The early morning light streamed into the back room (office) through sheer tan curtains, not the spectacularly colored bits of glass that make up the Aristotle window.  Against light tan walls, the light was monotone, almost dreary.  Except that it was light, in all its glory, and I was alive to see it, so I can forgive its flatness.

The only chatter I heard came from two squirrels in the dogwood outside the back door, scolding a blue jay about something.  Probably because the bird was bathing in their drinking water.  Little do they know that's not all the birds do in their basin.

There were no quirky neighbors at the desk, no gigglers, nose-miners, nor grunters.  No social butterfly who used her computer time to take phone calls and text her numerous friends, all the while posting to a variety of social media platforms.  Now that's multi-tasking, folks, to the max!

Quiet is the sound I hear.  Broken only by the sound of keys being struck as I type this post.

Too quiet.  At least, it is this morning.

I see there will be a period of adjustment to get through, this being alone with my own computer, in my own library (of sorts), listening to only my thoughts. 

If only I can ignore the bossy squirrels.

Composing Myself at Computer #2

Next week I will have Internet access at home again, so this is likely to be the last dispatch from the library for awhile.  That being the case, I thought I'd close out this chapter of my blogging life with a few more of the photos I took in April and May.

The photo to the right (I hope what I'm seeing as I type this is what we'll all see when I publish this post) is the marquee of one of the first cinema houses in Pennsylvania west of Philadelphia.  It has fallen into serious disrepair, like a number of buildings here in town.  When the business community started spreading away from the downtown area, one of the first things the developers did was put in a multi-screen theater complex.  (I think they are referred to as "multi-plex" cinemas.)  That meant that the old State Theater drew fewer and fewer patrons, eventually closing its doors as a movie house shortly after we moved to town.  It then served time as an antiques mall (there is sarcasm in those words), then something else equally unimpressive (a cat lived in the ticket window, which is now boarded up in the image here) before a group of civic-minded investors tried to get a grant to restore the theater to its former glory.  The grant was denied and the theater has sat forlorn ever since.  I was struck by the poignant message on the marquee the morning I first walked up to the library.  It could easily apply to this town as well as the building.




 I love to window shop, which is what I do every time I walk up here.  I named these shoes "Spring Peepers."  These are in the store with the pencil-like art deco facade in an earlier post.














One of my favorite shops in town is the local bead shop.  It appeals to the crow in me, all those sparklies in one spot! 




















Below is a wide-angle shot of the northwest corner of the town square. I love how the early spring sunlight makes the building glow.  This was taken on my first walk up to the library, in April.

Finally, this green-sided house is where I work.

Sorry for the hodgepodge jumble this post has turned out to be.  See you farther down the line, friends.