Sharing time

Sunset in a wavy woods. (I know it was simply camera shake, but there is a watery look to this image that I like.)

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

~ Gustave Flaubert

Hodgepodge of glass

It’s time for another Cee’s Share Your World.  Thank you, Cee!  Fun questions, as always.

What are some words that just make you smile?

I love words.  I’ve been in love with words since forever, it seems.  I take them in by reading books and listening to people tell their stories.  I release them by writing and talking.  There are so many good words.  Flibbertigibbet, ephemeral, kerfuffle, peccadillo, copacetic, farrago, rapscallion, equipoise, melodious, joy, ethereal, onomatopoeia (meow, buzz, chirp!) to name a few.

Of all the great words, my favorite is serendipity.  The word itself is from a Persian fairy tale called The Three Princes of Serendip (“Serendip” being the Persian name for what we know as Sri Lanka) in which the princes make happy and chance discoveries as they travel about.  Sir Horace Walpole happened upon the story, and added the word serendipity to the English language in 1754 so it’s been around a while.

Way back in the olden days, when M and I were dating, we were looking for something to do one Sunday when we stumbled across an article in the local newspaper about an event called Serendipity Sunday.  That was my first exposure to the word serendipity.  We looked up the word right away, and knew we had to attend the event because, well, it was a happy and chance discovery.  Serendipitous, one might say.  Serendipity Sunday turned out to be a small festival with good food, good beer, and good music.  It was a very merry day.  It was the first of many festivals, small and large, that we have attended.

Assortment

When you lose electricity in a storm, do you light the candles or turn on the flashlight?  How many of each do you own?

I light the candles, and use the flashlight.  The candles are for when I’m sitting.  The flashlight is for trying to make my way around in the dark.  I’m not sure how many of each we own.  I got rid of quite a few candles when we moved, especially those with overwhelming scents.  My best guess is that we own at least three or four flashlights (usually there is one in each of the main rooms — kitchen, living room, bedrooms), and maybe ten candles.

I once wrote a small stone called Power outage.  Power outages remind me of how far apart electricity sometimes keeps us from each other, and from the natural way of life.

Blues and green

What is the longest book you ever read?

I suppose it was the Bible (which I read as literature and not as revelation or religion).  A quick search shows it varies from between 1600 and 1900 pages.  I thought it might be Stephen King’s uncut version of The Stand, but that’s a mere 1200 pages.  George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, which I recently finished reading, is pretty hefty (1152 pages).  There may have been longer books, but I’ve long since forgotten them.

Jumbled

So you win a pet monkey at a fair, but this isn’t just any old monkey.  It can do one trick for you whenever you want from getting a pop out of the fridge to washing your hair.  What would be the trick?

That’s a tough one.  Her trick would be to remind me to lighten up and have fun.  She would do that just by being herself.  Or she would do the ironing, but only if she truly enjoyed it because I wouldn’t want to turn the monkey into a slave.

All lined up

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful to have had a week in which I could learn about and practice meditation.  I am grateful for spring, for all the greening and flowering.  I am grateful for love and family and friendship.

As for this week, I am looking forward to letting it unfold as it will.  Hopefully that means a few bike rides, if the weather permits.  M and I took our bikes to a local bike shop and had them tuned up for the season.  I am looking forward to putting a lot of mileage on my bike this year.

Once buried in the thicket, now uncovered.

Thank you for dropping in on this windy, rainy day.  There are storms coming, and there may be some coastal flooding on our side of the lower Eastern Shore, but the weather folks don’t think we’ll experience storms as devastating as they did in the South and Midwest yesterday.  My thoughts go out to all of those who were, and are today, in the line of the spring storms and tornadoes.

The dogwood dreams

Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

Note about the images:  All but the last of the bottle shots were taken at a flea market.  The last one was taken here last week when we uncovered a cache of bottles in one of the thickets.