Author Archives: scillagrace

The Kiss

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Forty years ago today, the Love of My Life kissed me for the first time.

Yesterday, I kissed our son goodbye before he moves with his wife to Oregon.

To new beginnings and continued love.

scillagrace

A selection from my file marked “Widow’s Story”:

“I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I found out that he was in the same English class as my older sister, so I gave her a note to pass to him. I fastened it with a safety pin because I didn’t want her to read it. It was decorated with doodles and stuff, like a goofy schoolgirl with a crush would send. Basically, I offered to make him a cassette tape of my parents’ PDQ Bach album because I knew he was learning some of the madrigal pieces in choir and found them very funny. He sent me a note back, or spoke to me, and we agreed that I would give him that gift the next day before he got on the bus to go to the beach with the Senior class for Sneak Day. So, early on the morning of…

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Final Weekly Photo Challenge: All-Time Favorites

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FINAL? What? Wow. WordPress has been prompting and challenging us for 7 years. Now, I suppose it’s time to launch. Well, I will have to come up with my own motivation for posting now. Please keep watching this space! 

I have very much appreciated the WordPress team and their creative prodding. It’s been stimulating to play at word association and image association at the same time. I joined in the game on October 1, 2012 and have been participating ever since. The first WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge I posted was called “Mine”. I wrote: 

“What do we really possess? What possesses us? What is “me” all about? For years I called this place “my prairie”.  I do not own the land; I think it belongs to the village park district.  I cannot even claim to own land in the neighborhood any more, as I moved out of state almost 2 years ago. But I associate some of my deepest “me” moments with this place.  I walked into this prairie, with a feeling of reverence and retreat as if I were entering my personal sanctuary, on a regular basis while I was living nearby.  I was in the midst of  raising 4 children, nursing a dying husband, and striving to grow mature in those 20 years. My sense of identity, my sense of spirit and of sanctity and of God were all shaped by the time I spent here. I felt the place “talk” to me, as changes in weather, floral and fauna taught me to observe and ponder the significance of transience and transcendence.  I cannot say that anything here is “mine”, really, but much of me will always belong with this place.”

Which was my All-Time Favorite challenge? Scrolling through my archives, I found this one that I think is relevant and showcases some of my favorite images. The theme was “Temporary”. Which reminds me that even endings are temporary. As Thich Nhat Hahn points out, there really are no endings and beginnings, just continuations.

Blogging friends, may you all enjoy your continuations, and thank you for sharing!

All-Time Favorites