A Picturesque Saturday Evening

 

We looked forward to it all week: spending a winter Saturday evening with Ricky and Jasmine. The invitation promised supper at their table, a walk in "their park" (how handy is it to have your apartment back onto one of your city's beautiful parks?), and the privilege of joining them in their evening Advent time. It did not disappoint! Ricky & Jasmine's first hospitality feature was handing us cups of hot apple cider to accompany us warmly on our chilly stroll through Waterloo Park. 

The festival of lights called Wonders of Winter is on right now in the park. We saw various arrangements of lights displaying anything from animals to storybook characters to biblical scenes. 

Among the many light displays, there was a wooden structure depicted as the Bethlehem stable. A special nativity scene inside took our eye, especially after it was pointed out that the carvings came from the Shepherd's Fields olive wood store in Bethlehem. We'd been to that very place on our trip to Israel a few years ago, and recognized the style of wooden nativity scene.

Back in Ricky & Jasmine's apartment, supper was a beautiful and tasty event.

I loved how Jasmine paired the cornbread and butter on one platter.

The chili-turned-taco-soup was perfect for a mid-December evening!

What a gorgeous dessert tray! The peanut butter balls or chestnuts or buckeyes - take your pick of terminology - were as delicious as they were intriguing of name. I googled buckeyes and discovered that they are named after the Ohio Buckeye, a tree in the chestnut family. The picture of buckeye nuts that popped up on my phone screen looked very much like the buckeyes on the plate.  

The moments after supper were filled with relaxing conversation, music, and reminiscing.

Joining Ricky's in their evening Advent time was a perfect way to end the day. To slow down, be still, listen, wait, watch, yearn, confess, grieve, rejoice. To pray and to sing. To embrace the Light. Together.

A Dream Life

 

Have you ever had a dream that died? Or, rather, one that you thought had died? Have there been things that you dreamed of owning or doing that never did materialize? Weeks, months, or maybe even years of wishes, desires, and longings remaining just that, until you finally gave up on them? And it was like once they knew that you had surrendered them to unfulfillment, they quietly rolled over on their side and gave up the ghost? 

I have.

Have you ever attended the burial of a dream, grieving that you'll never encounter it again? And then, suddenly, one day much later, while you were in what you thought was a perfectly ordinary moment, suddenly there was the dream in front of you again? Clearly resurrected it was, but in a different form? Details deviating quite a lot from what you had once laid out, but at least one tiny piece of the dream come true, confirming that it is indeed the original? 

I have.

Recently, I've had three such dreams.

The first one has to do with walking. Early on in our marriage, I used to dream of going on lots of hikes with Ken. I thought that exploring rugged trails out in nature would be such a satisfying, invigorating, romantic thing to do with my new husband. But we didn't get into it much. Tramping around in some rocky, hilly place, or meandering through a leafy, muddy bush (or woods, as we call it where I come from) with really no destination in mind wasn't exactly my husband's idea of a blessed good time. We also got busy with work and raising our family and figured we didn't have a lot of time to go traipsing. Sometimes I'd want to go on a walk - just a straight walk along our side road to get some exercise - on an evening after supper and I'd invite Ken along. He'd ask if I'm going far, and I could tell that to stay on the cozy couch with a book or his phone would appeal to him much more than to put forth the effort to get up, get ready, go out, and walk for basically the anyhow of it. 

About two years ago, though, I started seeing a shift in this area. Ken made some personal goals that involved his becoming more physically active. He's taken great strides toward meeting those goals, and I'm proud of him. He purchased a fitbit type of device that tracks his progress toward his daily steps goal. He often gets in "the rest of his steps" for the day by walking after supper. Now he's the one to ask me if I'm coming on a walk with him! (I ask him if he's going far. 😉) Sometimes on a Saturday, we'll go on a long walk together. Ken enjoys Googling area trails and arranging for us to check out a place where we've never walked before. Numerous times when we're out in nature exploring a new trail, I think about my hiking dream and how it's been resurrected and fulfilled, mostly in ways I never expected.

The second dream has to do with a little cabin in the woods. In the second year of our marriage, we moved to the place where we still live, and I loved the sprawling acreage around us on Ken's parents' farm. In the large bush (remember, think big wooded area and not huge shrub) behind our place, there were plenty of spots that I thought would be ideal for us to make a clearing in which to enjoy campfires and picnics out in the wild. I dreamed of putting up a cabin nearby. This small structure would be simple, but cute and cozy. It would be a place for storing camping and picnic gear, a place to sit near (or on the porch of) and observe nature, a place of retreat for someone wishing to meditate and write in a quiet, peaceful setting. 

My husband holds many wonderful titles, but Designer and Builder are not among them. So technically he was not a resource for consideration in taking my cabin visions and building them into reality. Instead, we purchased a nice little garden shed to situate in our backyard. It houses our camping and picnic gear, among a host of other items. I learned that one can observe nature while doing other activities such as working in the garden, hanging up laundry outside, or driving somewhere in the car. Most of the quiet, peaceful places I have found in which to write have not been in the woods. 

Eventually, I forgot about my dream cabin in the woods. Until one day this fall, when Ken and I went on a walk in our bush. We wanted to check out a log cabin that our Old Order Mennonite neighbor had described and urged us to visit. His eyes had sparkled as he spoke of the little cabin that he had promised his grandchildren he would help them to build this summer. They planned the right location for it, used logs straight from the bush for it, put a proper roof on it, and all. He had ended up having so much fun, he "kinda got carried away with the whole thing."

And we surely could see what he meant, when Ken and I found the log cabin in the woods. What a fascinating work of art nestled in a peaceful clearing in the woods. We sat on a bench near the cabin to survey the scene. Birds flitted about the feeders overhead as we admired the neatly-chinked log structure from the outside and then opened the two-part front door with the fancy metal latches to go inside the cabin. "There's even a bed in here," Ken said to me, as we looked around the interior. "Hey, we should overnight in here sometime!" And just like that, my cabin-in-the-woods dream flashed into my mind, dancing and alive as ever. "Really?" I breathed. "I would love that!"

The third dream involves a room in our basement. After our two sons got married and moved out of our house into homes of their own, I'd sometimes go into their empty bedroom downstairs and dream about what could be done with that extra space. I ponder-prayed over that room, asking God what He had in mind even as I imagined a retreat sort of place, a haven where someone might come for a few days to rest in body and soul, or a place where I could meet with a friend to hear her heart. I pictured conversation, prayer, blessing and encouragement happening in that room. Over the past few years, I didn't see the specifics of that dream come true, although we hosted overnight guests in the room from time to time. 

This past spring, our son Rolin got the idea to start a podcast called Everyday Expertise. He planned to invite a different guest on each week and record a conversation with them about their area of expertise. Rolin asked us if he could set up his recording equipment in his old room in our basement and we readily granted him permission to do that. Now he hangs out here in his recording studio a few hours each week. 

Soon after Rolin had produced the first several episodes of his show, he started bugging me to be a guest for an episode. My immediate response was no, that I'm much more cut out for writing than for podcast speaking, especially on his podcast because he likes the conversation to be at least an hour long, and preferably two. Over the next months Rolin alternated between subtly hinting and outright asking me if I'd changed my mind yet, and I kept saying I'm not ready. 

Finally, I decided to face my fears regarding speaking on the podcast, and I ended up promising Rolin I'd be a guest on his show. I decided to talk about creativity in my life, especially in the area of writing. The morning of Nov 20 found me heading to our basement for an appointment with Rolin in his studio. I was both nervous and excited. Before we began recording the interview, Rolin led out in a prayer asking God to direct our thoughts and to bless our conversation. I echoed his words in my heart - a longing to be able to encourage every listener in some small way. And right there was the room-dream in front of me, rather odd-shaped and wrapped in different paper than I had imagined, but a lovely gift nonetheless. 

What revived dreams have surprised you lately?

Note: If you'd like to access the above-mentioned podcast episode, click on this link. In my next blog post, I will feature the poem, "Autographed", that came up in my conversation with Rolin. 

Color Hunt in Mid-November

Today was a gorgeous cherry on top of the sun-day season we've been enjoying this November. The temperature was warm enough to thrill, and chill enough to charm. I went on two walks. On one of them, I remarked to my walking buddy that it would be nice to can some of this sunshine to bring out on the grey, dreary days of fall that are sure to come, and soon. In lieu of that rather ludicrous idea, I decided to hunt for some last vestiges of autumn color along the path as I journeyed on my second walk. Those spots of color I "canned" with my camera, so now I have some bits of color to bring out and enjoy during the drab days ahead.

I went to one of my favorite local trails, the Mill Race Trail, for my color hunt. This lovely path spans the distance between the St. Jacobs dam and the village of St. Jacobs. The mill race, after which the trail is named, is pictured above. This canal was made by diverting water from the Conestogo River, and years ago it provided the power for turning the waterwheel at the mill in St. Jacobs. The mill race lies on one side of the trail and the river runs on the other side. 

One main color to show up on today's palette was sky blue. The clean and stark white of the birches also took my eye. White birch trees are a nostalgic item for me, since I grew up basically surrounded by them.

There weren't many colorful leaves left anywhere, but this yellow one lay a bright gem on the forest floor in the afternoon sun.

I think the reds were my favorite color swatches today.

There are chickadees galore along this mill race path. Visitors have treated the birds to sunflower seeds so frequently that now they've got the birds eating right out of their hand. I just loved this perky little fellow. Look at that jaunty tilt of his head!

The wildlife pics I took aren't very stunning for color, but I think they are beautiful, nonetheless. And the mallards' heads are definitely a colorful metallic green - if anyone wants to know.

Shh, don't tell anyone, but I thought this muskrat was kind of cute. I mean, who could actually look this guy in his shiny dark eye, and not think so, too?

Stately beauty.

Would you call this red or pink? Or other?

I liked the shadow of a leaf on another leaf.

This maple leaf turned arrowhead is beautiful in its own way.

I was fascinated by the various ways these flowers go to seed.

Some more blues. (The kind you want to get.) This time it was river blue instead of sky blue.

Berry good-looking.

The effect of the brilliant white light through the cedars was almost otherworldly. 

And when I got home from my walk, another spot of color greeted me from our front porch. The last of my Russian Sage dried bouquet sits in an old metal maple syrup bucket, with bright orange mini pumpkins clustering around. 

Maybe tomorrow or next week there will be snow swirling in and muting the colors in our world, but today I went on a color hunt, and reveled in the bounty. 

What's coloring your world right now?

 

Walking Into the Sunset

According to Idioms by The Free Dictionary, the term "riding into the sunset" means "To resolve or conclude things in a neat, happy, and satisfactory fashion; to retire from work, use, or relevance, especially on a positive note or after a long and successful period of activity." When I read that definition, I thought how nice it would be if COVID Life would ride off into the sunset for once. I refer to the ending in a neat and happy fashion, and the part about retiring after a long period of activity, not so much the word "successful". 

If there will be anything to be described as successful about this time, perhaps it will have to do with lessons we've learned, the new perspectives we've gained. I'm convinced that, for me, the good memories of this time will include a more relaxed schedule, more time bonding with family and friends, and more moments observing nature.

One of my activities during COVID involving all three of those memories is walking. I don't walk nearly as often as Ken does (he's up to a 16,000+ steps daily goal!) but I walk several times a week, most often in the evenings. I usually walk with Ken or Kerra, or both, and sometimes with a friend. I love seeing beauty in nature as I walk. Once in a while I take my camera along, and photograph some of that beauty. It slows down the walking, for sure, but it speeds up my enjoyment of the activity.

I notice the variety in clouds - from great hulking masses that backdrop a whole set of farm and town buildings...

...to the horsetails wispy-swishing across the blue yonder.

Flowers take my eye - the dainty elegance of Queen Anne's Lace...

...the milkweed's purple burst of fireworks... 

...and the spiky teasel spearing the evening sky. 

And who knew that going-to-seed wild asparagus in the ditch has tiny yellow bells along its ferny fronds?

I take note of all the rabbits. There are many. I call them names like Fiver and Bigwig and wonder about their secret life, especially since reading Watership Down, our first book in the Book Club for we3@home this summer.

I marvel at the way God enhances ordinary scenes of grasses, weeds, and leaves by placing a setting sun behind them.  

"Walking into the sunset." I can't think of a much better term for describing the event of strolling along our road with Ken on a summer evening, sometimes hand in hand, "retiring from work, especially on a positive note, in a neat, happy, and satisfactory fashion." I call that "successful" for making good memories. Thanks, COVID.

                         Photo cred: Kerra Martin