THE CRIMSON CHRISTMAS BELL

For me, a most spectacular childhood memory of Christmas was a crimson Christmas bell that appeared before my sleepy eyes one early Christmas-season morning when I was six or seven.

I had come downstairs for breakfast, and there it was ; and I knew it hadn't been there when I had gone to bed. Its splendid glowing red was framed within the wide wood doorway between the living room and dining room. It seemed so big and beautiful and magical, crafted as it was by a creative mother who had wrapped some crimson fabric around a wire form, while her children were asleep.

AND THEN I RECOGNIZED that heirloom fabric, and I was stunned. It was my mother's special shawl!

I had never seen her wear that shawl, nor had I ever known that it existed until one day I saw her pull it from a dresser drawer with careful hands. When I asked to see it, she let me hold a corner of its softness to my face and then returned it to the drawer.

Sometimes after that, I would open up that drawer and peer in at the shawl and touch it, but I never let my mother see me do that. I pondered on the mystery of that shawl.

Mom would never say from whence it came, only that she'd had it for the longest time, and I could see she loved it. It was a talisman; a thing of beauty for her. In years to come, I would make up many stories in my mind about that pretty piece that seemed to hold a special meaning for my mother.

And when that morning, in the week of Christmas, I saw the special decoration Mom had made from it, I was shocked at the enormity of her sacrifice.

But then I looked more closely at my mother and I could see her eyes were smiling at the pleasure that lovely Christmas bell would paint upon her children's faces.

Despite the Christmas tree nearby, the bell was all I seemed to see that year. It could have been a year without a tree, and I would not have known it.

MAGIC IN THE MORNINGS...

   Almost 5 a.m., outdoors.. 
   A big round moon is lighting up sheer shreds of silken clouds this morning, and the creek is soaking up and sending back that light to us as well. 
   The heavy frost on roof and ground is gleaming, and the valley mist is glowing. 
   It is really magical and lovely--25 degrees or not!--and there is not a whiff of wind to make that cold feel bitter.

NICE TRY, BIG MICK!...

      Daylight! My big dog steps outside to look around and spots a tightly furled, dry leaf skittering across the porch in a gust of wind. It looks just like a little rodent running by. 
     Mick tenses, then pounces! The weight of that great body instantly turns the "mouse" to tiny bits of leaf-crumb. 
     Mick looks quizzically at both his paws; no rodent!... He stands up and looks beneath his body; no rodent!... 
    He looks at me with wrinkled brow, and I can read his mind: 
   "I wonder where the rodent went!"

RING AROUND THE MOON...

     
  

     It's five o'clock and 25 degrees out here this morning. 

     The roof and grasses are well coated with a rime of frosty diamonds, and it's interesting to see the brightness of the good-sized ring around the moon.

     The ring, I know, is brought about by refracted moonlight, which is actually reflected sunlight from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. 

     The shape of the ice crystals focuses the light into a ring, which is what I'm looking at right now. There's probably a folkloric name for that effect, but I can't tell you what that name might be.

     There's a sheer cloud deck across the pre-dawn sky, and behind that veil, I can see some blurry stars.

    My big dog Mick is energized by cold, and he is prancing like a show horse back and forth across the frosty grasses.

       I am relieved when, finally, he decides it's time to go back to the house, where I can seek the warmth... and coffee!

WINTER... IT WILL COME...

This autumn, I have experienced some days when temperatures are barely 60, and yet the sun is shining from a blue, blue sky with very little breeze; or none at all. Such a day can be so beautiful, I have to be outdoors as much as I can be, to feel the weather.

I've also known some days with those same temperatures, and skies so bright and blue and mellow that, once again, I'm drawn outside to be there. BUT OH! I find instead a cruel north wind that slams like ice onto my skin and shuts my eyes against the beauty. The wind is all the difference.

That sort of day can make me think of an old English epic poem, The Vision of Sir Launfaul (James Russell Lowell). It was on a nasty winter day many years ago in elementary school, when I "met" the Lowell poem, and I worked to memorize a section of his poem that so well described how I had felt as I walked cross-town to school that very bitter winter morning. Here is part of what he wrote:

"Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,
From the snow five thousand summers old;
On open wold and hill-top bleak
It had gathered all the cold
And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek...

                                 (Et cetera)
 
I have remembered those words. After I was grown and married, when my husband and I would walk outside into a bitter winter wind, I would quote those words aloud theatrically to him. And if I didn't, the time came when he would remind me! He hadn't met Lowell's words until I spoke them, but after that on bitter winter days, it seemed those words would speak to him as well.

Now that my Bob is no longer with me in this world, he will miss the coming winter, and I will have to speak those wintry words theatrically to Mick, my dog. Will he understand them? Possibly. 

After all, he is a very-short-haired breed, without an ounce of fat to warm him!

MICK ON THE OHIO WINTER TUNDRA

OCTOBER MORNING...

I sit here in the early morning at my window, gazing out into the woodland, and I wonder: How does this new morning find a way to create a sunny sanctuary in the deepness of the inner woods, when the trees and undergrowth around the budding brightness still stand dark?

I watch the morning mist, rising thickly from the morning creek, and the morning sky begins to sip it up to clear the day; blue sky grows bluer and more crystalline.

I feel and inhale the serenity and beauty, and then my peace is suddenly and rudely shattered by a rescue helicopter roaring overhead, shaking me, my house, my  windows and my peaceful relaxation; and warping all the beauty, peace and stillness into which my morning spirit has been sinking...

Reality assumes control, to remind me of the saving mission of this noise-producing, man-made medical machine, and I see it as the angel I know it really is; and not a harsh intrusion.

I  salute it and send out a prayer; and I rise up to my feet and begin my day.

"THINGS THE LITTLE CHILDREN SAY" ...

The words of children were, for me, a joy of long ago, when I still had little children in my household. 

I was reminded of that recently as I was waiting in a check-out line, and I listened as a pre-school child in the cart ahead chastised his mother:

"Mom," he said quite sternly, "I think you're wrong. You CAN call Heaven. Yesterday you called and talked to Gramma for a long, long time, and she lives far away in Florida. And all you did was poke the numbers on the phone!"

STAINED GLASS, OCTOBER EVENING...

OH, HOW those brightly colored leaves outside my bedroom window gleamed this morning in  the early daylight, before the sun had risen. AND NOW in dusky twilight, as the light fades  after sundown, those leaves still shine for me,  as lovely as a stained glass lamp. TIFFANY himself could never have created any  shade to stand before me with more elegance  and lovely glow, as I slip into my evening sleep.    --Rose Moore, in an evening of October 2017

LIKE AUTUMN BUTTERFLIES...

   My dog and I sat on the deck today, watching hefty breezes pulling leaves from off the trees.
   The leaves fell brightly all around, fluttering and then descending to my gardens, like butterflies that somehow had forgotten to leave for warmer places when our nights turned cold. 
    My dog was captivated. "That's the closest we can come to having butterflies in our northeast Ohio at this time of year," I told him. 

   He looked up at me and raised his ears and listened, as if he understood what I was telling him.
   And perhaps he did.

   

                                                                     ---Rose Moore, 10-04-2017

  

TROPICAL HEAT WAVE CONTINUES IN NORTHEAST OHIO...

DAY BEGAN SO HOT,
MOTHER NATURE SMEARED ROUGE ALL OVER HER FACE!

​

Mick didn't wake me 'til after 6 a.m. this Monday morning. Daylight was leaching in already; and oh, so hot and humid! 

The great outdoors felt somehow small, with air too thick to breathe. It had its own peculiar gym-sock odor; had the air itself been SWEATING?!

For me, there was no early-morning mowing, as I had planned. Even though the sun had not yet shown its steamy face, there was no morning coolness whatsoever! 

Though I enjoy my solo early mowing, I'm no fool!

                               ---Rose Moore, 9-25-2016

REFLECTION THROUGH A ROSE COLORED GLASS, SEPT. 23, 2017...

*THE DAY IS BORN...

   The cloudy season is ahead for my northeast Ohio ...

   But oh!  I glory in the beauty of the skies, both night and day, in this sweet and warm September ...

   The clarity of air brings daytime blue and night-time stars down close around us, as if we live within those skies ...

     Not underneath them.

*NOON ON THE PORCH...

   I sit quietly with Mick in the middle of the full length of the porch that spans the front length of my house ...

   I watch and listen to sere leaves that are so dry and crisp they rattle down, never soundless ...

   They sift their way through branches of the tallest valley tree close  to my home, making their own music as they fall in certain subtle rhythm past my eyes ... 

   They share their dusty, dry aroma with my senses, and occasionally they inspire a sneeze from me or my big dog ... 

    But we are both content to be a part of this so very rare September day.

                                         ---Rose Moore, 9-23-2017

UNDER THE STARS WITH BIG MICK ...

Another pre-dawn walk with Mick, with skies so clear and stars so close! 

The morning star is like a lantern and the crescent moon, however slender, sheds some mellow light upon the ground around our feet. 

So mild... with a feel of summer and a splash of autumn.

Good morning to you all!

MOON IN THE MORNING...

MOON IN THE MORNING... 

The weather people say it's foggy this morning, but not in this valley. 

The sky is a brilliant litter of stars.

A slim crescent moon reigns in the east.

The air is clean and pure, and Mick is inspired; he leaps like a deer!
 
Good morning to all on this early, young day! 

Sunshine ahead when the daylight arrives.

                       Rose Moore 9-15-2017

THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN OUR 57TH ANNIVERSARY...

 Fifty-seven years ago, Sept. 10, 1960, I married Bob. He passed away in this past April, and we will always miss him. 

This photo is from our anniversary last year. Just the two of us at lunch at Bass Lake Inn in Chardon, Ohio.

Some would say his resting place is in this pretty little spot---the historic Concord Cemetery (behind white fencing, left of photo)---in the community in which we raised our boys, and on the same road where we built our current home. 

But Bob's true resting place is in our memories, and in our hearts. 

And always will be. 

On this anniversary date, I celebrate our happy years together.

LABOR DAY EVENING 2017...

  Special, classic summer-style weather here today.Big Dog Mick and I spent lots of time outside, soaking it all up. 
  Breezes scattered golden leaves onto the new-mown lawns, where they lie tonight like pirates' gold doubloons. 
  Temps are still so mild I could sit outside all night on the tree-house porch. 
  Like the 1950s Jimmy Dorsey song, "SO RARE" !

SEPTEMBER RISING... 9-01-2017, IN MY CONCORD TOWNSHIP VALLEY IN NORTHEAST OHIO...

​   Good morning, sweet September! 
   The daylight's not yet here, and it's a nippy 48 degrees, but I welcome you with open arms.
   In my beloved valley, I love every month and season of the year, for different reasons. 
   But if God would tell me, "Choose your favorite month and that will be your season in the after-life, above all others," I would choose September.

   And now the daylight intrudes itself in stages on the darkness of the pre-dawn sky.

   And then the colors of the sunrise drape their gorgeousness upon the light grey siding of my home; and on the whiteness of the concrete of my driveway; and, if I could see my face, I think it too would bear the color of this brand new first day of this brand new month, September 2017.

   The day from here, I know, will be both bright bright and beautiful.

A BRAND  NEW DAY, A NEW SEPTEMBER, EMERGING
...

DAYLIGHT REVEALING SOME FIRST LEAF-FALL

GOD'S BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL SEPTEMBER FIRST, 2017

WITNESSING A 'LESSER' ECLIPSE IN 1994...

   When our house was nearly new, I experienced an annular solar eclipse--not full but partial, in the 80-some percentage range. It wasn't any more publicized than the passage of the space station overhead, as I recall.

   It began as I was sipping morning coffee in an easy chair by the wall of windows in my living room. Mysteriously, colors of the world around me seemed to be intensifying, as if a giant hand was slowly lowering the bowl of sky down onto my own small chunk of world; and suddenly it seemed I was INSIDE that sky.

   The etched-glass entry door began to shoot a universe of prisms into the room in which I sat. I walked out onto the deck, and above me on the roof, every bit of fiberglass had turned to prisms too.

   I had to sit; the change was tinkering with my balance and perspective. I watched as all the morning motions of the springtime birds picked up speed progressively, and the change and depth of daylight colors deepened.

   Then as if by signal, the birds---seemingly-choreographed---settled down into the trees to roost, sitting quietly for who-knows-how-long, as an intense and incredible twilight established its growing presence in our enclosed valley world.

   It was mystic, utter quiet, so hypnotic. I actually resented the intrusive sound of one heavy truck descending and ascending the steepness of the valley road along our property. How long was it was before things normalized? I couldn't say. Like the birds, I had relaxed into a trance that did not lift until the shadow of the moon released the sun. 

   The bowl of sky encapsulating me was lifted too, as things came back to normal on that May day. I did not once attempt to find a place to look into the sun itself; I didn't need to. I witnessed and became a part of the effect.

AFTER NOTE:THAT ANNULAR SOLAR ECLIPSE OF May 10, 1994 occurred because the Moon had passed between the Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. 

Annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). 

An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. The path of annularity on May 1994 crossed Baja California, Mexico, the United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia.

HOW FRESH THIS AUGUST MORNING FOR MY DOG AND ME...

Friday! Daylight is rising, and Mick and I don't need a flashlight as we walk in soft, warm air at 6 a.m.
 
The storms are gone, and we are greeted by a very slender "outhouse" crescent moon on the east horizon, just above a slash of smutty "cat-scratch" clouds.

Once again, cicada sing the praises of another summer day, which promises to bring a mix of cloud and sun.
 
Leaves have fallen; just enough to give slight scrunch beneath our moving feet. Otherwise it's quiet, without a hint of breeze, and nothing moving but my dog and me.

Good morning, world! It's time to wake and start your day.

ANOTHER HOT AUGUST DAY...

AND HERE'S THE PROPER WAY TO SPEND IT-- 
RESTING BAREFOOT ON A 2ND-STORY DECK,
GAZING DOWN INTO THE VIBRANT COLORS 
OF A WILDFLOWER COURTYARD.

A SUMMER MEMORY IN AUGUST....

A favorite memory of summer from my childhood 
is of climbing up into a spread-armed maple tree 
where none could see me hidden in the thickness of the leaves. 

And in that coolness, privacy and peace, I would sit back 
and read a book I had brought up into that tree with me. 
An August never passes without that memory revisiting.



                        ~~Rose Moore at randrmoore@gmail.com
                                                   

"Old 77" daughter of a steam-age railroad man, celebrates her 77th birthday 8-06-2017...

Fresh-Flower Bouquet by dtr-in-law Chris Moore from her gardens

Granddaughter, Co-ed Katie, adds a birthday hug to the day

OLDE ROSE BLOWING OUT THE CANDLES

GOODBYE TO A BEAUTIFUL SYCAMORE TREE...

It was such a lovely thing to see, that tree!
It created so much shade for Bob and me.
What's left behind with me is mostly bones and leaves,
And emptiness where it once stood above my eaves.

(Do not malign the people who took down the big sycamore tree, or me the owner of the property. The tree in recent years became the victim of a borer. Nestled close against my home, it had no safe place to fall if it had come down in a storm).

MOWING THE LAWN...

It's been such a long-held habit for me,
to finish mowing the lawns, 
then go back to the house to my Bob and our dog.

Bob would serve me a summery snack and cool drink,
and together we'd sit on the porch
and admire the beauty of freshly mowed grass.

Now after mowing, I still find myself walking into 
the house with that fine expectation, 
and of course I know it's no longer so.

Yet somehow I still feel his smile upon me, 
and it still seems to me he is watching;
and his smile and the sunshine are one.

                 ---Bob's Rose 7/26/2017

RETURN OF THE ROSES.......

VINTAGE ROSES

   Do you recall my telling you about the vintage roses that were killed by the two unusually cold and unrelenting winters of four or five years ago? Nothing was left of those roses for a few years; not even a "stump" or minor growth to indicate that grand old shrub had ever existed in the backyard wild garden we enjoyed for decades!
   Then this year, in weeks following my Bob's death in April, that very fragrant shrub began to reappear; to climb its original trellis; and to BLOOM! 
   Like the surprising and unexpected bloom of the vintage native lilac that hadn't bloomed in our 25 years on this property, the old rose reappeared in the weeks after Bob's final exit from this earth. Our family attributed those two small miracles to Bob's own special brand of trademark mischief, post mortem. A lovely tribute to the gardening guy we teasingly referred to as our own Mr. Green Jeans!
   The antique rose, planted long ago by the previous owners of our property, is a shrub that, year after year, would send out its first blooms sometime in June and bloom for just a month; at most. Not this time around! The reincarnated rose began its growing season in April, and it's still blooming now as hot July draws to an end.  Every week, in fact, a new branch joins the main shrub, with a host of buds and blooms. 
   This photo shows the latest clutch of brand new blooms and buds. 
   Impulsively last evening, I walked down to that wild garden to photograph them for you.
   Bob's own mysterious roses! They are welcome here!

WITH ROSE AND MICK IN THE GARDEN...

Mick sits quietly; and I sit quietly, just as we often sat together quietly with Bob on our front porch on the summer days when Bob was still among us. 

Watching the gardens grow? Of course. But we see other things as well. 

YESTERDAY, for instance, Mick watched from the porch in early morning as I dead-headed fading blooms on four mature knock-out rose bushes, to clear the way for the buds to have a chance to grow and show their stuff. Afterward, the buds seemed so small and tightly furled, I had little hope I'd see the new blooms for awhile. 

That afternoon, the much needed rains began, and I went out to lunch. When I returned much later--WOW! All four shrubs were filled with vivid, fancy blooms---eye-popping; spectacular! I knew the gardens had been very thirsty, but I hadn't guessed they could revive so quickly and completely. Just add the water of one summer rain! An ode to joy!

TODAY IT'S our little wren who stops to hop and poke along the ground around and underneath the shrubs and flowers. Mick and I sit motionless and watch that little wren re-discovering my largest stepping stone. Until now, I hadn't noticed the generous hollow on the surface of that stone, nor had I seen the water gathered there. But Mr Wren! What fun to watch a tiny pool accommodate that tiny bird who now indulges in quite an energetic bath there. His private spa; he takes his time; our prying eyes are no concern to him!

THEN A TINY hummingbird arrives, an offspring of the full-sized hummer usually seen at dinner in our gardens. Like a hungry baby, he vigorously suckles nectar from the very tiny purple flowers I have barely noticed up and down along the spears that grow out of the lamb's-ear plants.
,
AND THEN our resident dragonfly descends, acing his usual perfect landing atop the tall, thick bamboo stick I have put there just for him. Most afternoons he shows up for Siesta... (and I think, as well, to re-assert his proper ownership).

If all this seems insignificant, maybe that is what we like about it.  

The small and quiet things in life and all around us...

STARTING TUESDAY...

  
Out the door walk Rose and Big Dog Mick into the pre-dawn darkness, and in the mild morning we can hear the critters of all sizes scurrying to escape our feet. 
  Bird song is beginning slowly, like wake-up breakfast conversation, and the sky begins to let a little daylight in, and then a little more...
  The sky, we see, is higher than it was at this time yesterday, and its milky color might turn blue at sunrise; or it might turn out to be a sheer cloud cover that portends the later rains. The walks are dry, at least for now...
  When our walk is over, Mick and I return into our cozy little windowed library, and we watch the colors re-appear a little at a time into the day outside... 
  So green the trees; and dewy-wet the grasses dotted with the white of clover we allow to mix in with the lawns; and over by the little garden house that shelters all my garden gear, my mother's oldest tiger lilies, saved from many years ago, are introducing orange into the picture...
  In gardens closer to the house, increasing daylight reveals colors of the purple cone flowers; the bright begonias; the roses and impatiens and the morning glories...
  Mick falls back to sleep on the softness of the bright rug underneath my feet; he is content; and I begin my second cup of coffee.
  Good morning to you all! 

WORDS for my Bob...

It was little more than a word or two, a tiny introduction when first we met, that lit the lamp between us for all the days and weeks, and months and years and decades, in our half-a-century-plus together until your death.

Words and conversation kept a glow alive through all our years together, and when you entered your last illness, the words continued to maintain us.

We talked, we whispered, I even read to you, and more than once you told me that a blessing in your illness was that you could still enjoy the words between us; and you hoped that, when your final moments came, you would fall asleep forever hanging onto loving words between us;  and that with your last breath, you could send a word of love to me...

It didn't happen quite that way.

In what I could not have known would be your final morning, your words were being lost to me by medical equipment that made the spoken words impossible for you; and my words were being lost to you by all the harsh and rasping sounds of that equipment.

And when I left the room for several minutes, to catch my breath and calm my spirit, you were called into eternity. 

I will always feel grief for the lost words, and I grieve that I could not sustain you in the moment of your passing, with at least one word.

Love.

REVERENCE AS DAWN ARRIVES... 6-22-2017 IN MY VALLEY...

This is Thursday; not a Sunday, but our pre-dawn world is like an empty church still waiting for the people to arrive.

Stained-glass color echoes into every corner of the sky. 

Birdsong is subdued in an atmosphere so still, my big dog tiptoes reverently in deference. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see him genuflect.

                         ~~Rose Moore

SPEAKING OF ANGELS...

There are angels among us.
They take many forms...

Some of our angels are now Angels Relocated, and they still are among us in so many ways. You cannot erase all that mischief, exuberance, love..

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This is one of those angels, my Robert. I still feel his presence. 

Heaven has to be rocking with laughter.
That's how he lived, in humor and high spirits.
And that's what he shared all through his life.