Friday Ramble - Twelve Years On

On Sunday morning, clocks will dance backward an hour in the little blue house in the village, and Daylight Saving Time will wave goodbye until next year. This week also marks twelve years of being here in cyberspace, twelve years of logging on in the morning, posting an image or two (sometimes three) and occasionally muttering along for a few paragraphs. Sometimes, I can't believe I had the audacity to set this "book of days" up in the first place, let alone do the blogging thing faithfully for twelve years in a row.

These are my my vägmärken (road marks), my morning or artist pages, and they will probably remain pretty much as they are in the coming year. There may be a bit of font and banner tinkering now and again, but that is as far as it goes. I don't foresee any significant changes to this place, and I expect life will simply go on as it has been doing so far.

We three will meander along at our own pace, watching morning fogs enfold the eastern Ontario highlands and oak leaves rain like honey in the autumn woods, feasting our eyes on skies alight with winter stars, on the sun going down like a ball of fire over Dalhousie Lake at the trailing edge of the year.

Two adored and cherished traveling companions, Penny and Dolores, passed beyond the fields we know this year and so did my sweet Spencer.  Now it is Beau who wanders along with us, and he is turning out to be an absolute treasure. Health issues notwithstanding, it's grand to be here and all wrapped up in what we call simply, "the Great Round".  Some days are more difficult than others, but every morning, the small adventures of our journeying will continue to make their way here and get spilled out on the computer screen with a bad photo and a whole rucksack of wonder. The incandescent Mary Oliver still says it best:

The years to come – this is a promise –
will grant you ample time

to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought
where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.

But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.
(excerpt from Terns)

In another poem, she wrote that sometimes one needs only to stand wherever she is to be blessed, something I try to remember. Thank you for your kind thoughts and healing energies, for your cards and letters, for journeying along with me this year. You are treasured more than you can ever know.  Alas, my fingers are still not working very well, thanks to chemotherapy.  If they were, I would write each and every one of you.