Last Post?

This is my 90th day of posting a small blessing every day. It is the last day of my commitment to write every day till the New Year. Sometimes it has been a burden, other times a blessing in itself. It has made me more aware of the abundance of good things around me, the large blessings as well as the small. The discipline has also been worthwhile.

I have five official followers of the blog. I know of perhaps a half dozen more who read without signing up. I wonder if there are many more? It made me smile to hear the passage read about John the Baptist  - "a voice crying in the wilderness".  It feels very empty out there in the internet. Some bloggers have a way of counting visitors, but I don't.

Will I continue writing without the vow. I haven't decided. Maybe I will write intermittently. Will I be lazy and give it up, or will I miss it and make a new promise? Those of you out there, both the known and the  anonymous - care to comment? Has it made any difference to you to be reminded about some of the good things we tend to take for granted? Is it worthwhile?

So today's blessing is you out there. That you would spare a few minutes to read my daily musings gives me a warm feeling of connection. I wish you all love and abundance of blessings in the new year!

Polish

I have been polishing silver in preparation for our New Year's Day party. I don't do this often, which explains why some of the items have turned black. The blessing part, small as it is, comes from the way the glowing silver blooms out of the tarnish as I work.  I like the patina of old silver - the nooks and crannies where the tarnish remains giving depth to the silversmith's art. I like the white glow of freshly-polished silver.

My father was an ardent polisher of things. It must be, or have been, an English trait, for I have known other Englishmen who liked to polish. My father shined his shoes every Sunday morning before church, while waiting for us womenfolk declare ourselves fully dressed and ready to go. He liked to polish brass doorknobs, the brass parts on his model steamship, any bits of brass he could get his hands on. (I once visited a pub in Yorkshire filled with brass objects, all gleaming. The owner polished every day, working his way from one end to the other, then beginning over.) My father kept silver gleaming.

His biggest polishing project was his telescope mirror. He made it when I was four years old, and let me help. It involved repeatedly pushing one glass disk across another with water and rouge abrasive between. The lower glass disk gradually assumed a parabolic shape. As we worked, he would check the disk periodically on an improvised optical bench, to see how well it was focusing light. When it was finished, he polished the surface to perfection and silvered the back to make it reflective. This involved gently heating the mirror while sluicing it with a silver-nitrate solution. The silver precipitated onto the mirror forming a thin, perfect layer of pure silver. My dad experimented several times with silvering various objects, until he managed to cover the kitchen counter with permanent black blotches. My mother was annoyed and the kitchen was no longer used for chemistry experiments.

Stay-at-Home Snow

It wasn't supposed to snow. The first flakes fell like petals - like plum blossom petals - drifting down. We all looked around and thought, "Huh.." Then the flakes began falling in earnest, soft and silent, veiling the scenery. It wasn't supposed to stick, but it did. I made it home and settled down to enjoy. All over the city, autos on their homeward commute slid and jammed, but here it was lovely. Untracked, wet, fluffy snow clung to every twig deepening to about two inches. (I took these photos when it was only a half inch deep.) It stopped this evening, leaving every branch and twig and spray etched in black and white, so graceful and glowing.

It is a blessing to be safe at home, warm and snug, watching the gentle snow outside.

Making Lists

Once upon a time, I remembered everything. I never lost things because I remembered where I left them. Every paper in a stack was retrievable,  names matched up instantly to faces, and birthdays were always noted. Along the way, I think my brain got too full and began closing the doors of its storerooms, tacking up a notice: full, access denied. Gradually the filing system fell into a shambles. Now it is anybody's guess what is in that stack, or what you told me to do five minutes ago. Now the only thing that keeps me on track is lists.

I have always made lists. Now they are essential - shopping lists, packing lists, to-do lists. As we prepare for our annual New Year's Day party, I found I had made an excellent list of what we actually used at our last party along with our favorite punch recipe. This has saved us from overestimating amounts of food or forgetting items. I like lists - they give me a sense of control.

Red Shoes

My friend Barbara suggested I write about my red shoes, since they always lift her spirits. I was wearing them in mild defiance of the severe black and white dress code of my choir. Red shoes make me happy - they always have.

I have had three other pairs of memorable red shoes. First there were the go-go boots. For those who do not remember these calf-fitting shiny plastic boots, feel free to google! Mine were the exact color of cream of tomato soup, and wow, did they ever lift my spirits! The next ones I recall were platform sandals. They had the platform part wrapped with raffia and the tops of red cloth, woven into a sexy knot over the instep. They made me feel like putting fruit on my head and doing the cha cha.  Then there were some wonderful open-toe pumps with little heels and big red leather bows on the front. Oh, those were special. When my podiatrist said, "No more heels for you", I couldn't give them away for two more years. I liked to look at them.

My current red shoes are very sensible in all but color. However, I cannot put them on without feeling light-footed and happy. I may not click my heels together like Dorothy, but I feel like it!

Shadow Box

We have a great many small treasures. Tim likes to arrange them in printers' type drawers to make shadow boxes. This is my favorite. Around a centerpiece of an annunciation angel are nearly fifty objects, natural and man-made.

Of the natural things, there is a small branch of coral and one of bryozoan, and a geode with a geopetal filling (a partial filling of the cavity of a geode that shows how the geode was oriented - mineral-bearing water filled the lower part of the cavity, depositing minerals only there). There is a polished oval of picture jasper, a sample core from a molybdenum mine in Colorado, a perfect pyrite crystal and a pyrite-crusted rock. There are calcite and fluoride crystals, and malachite and tiger eye, a polished half ammonite (see Fossil Seashells Nov. 2). Speaking of seashells, there are many shells throughout the display, including a sand dollar and some very tiny ones.

Crossing the line to man-made is a Chinese jade signature-seal with a leopard on top. Next to it is a brass sealing-wax seal. There is a clay figure of a boy we bought in Mexico at Christmas time - he is intended for use in the elaborate creche scenes we saw. There are two pottery birds from Turkey that Tim's mother gave us. They seemed very poor whistles until I discovered their secret years later - in a book on Armenia I learned that they are supposed to have a little bit of water inside. Then they warble melodiously like birds.

There is a bronze medallion showing Pablo Casals and a bass-playing jeweled cricket. There is a tiny ceramic sea turtle, just emerging from its leathery eggshell and a little shiny quail. There is a blown glass vase and a small golden bottle - one of my learning experiments in gold-leafing.

The fun thing about the shadow box is that it is beautiful from a distance, but rewards close examination.

Cheese

Among our Christmas gifts today was a lovely wheel of 3-year-old Tillamook cheddar cheese.  This cheese will be crumbly and sharp, no doubt delicious. Cheese is one of my favorite foods. (However, I do not care for moldy cheeses.)  Our oldest son, who now lives in San Francisco enjoys trips to the Rainbow Grocery, a natural-foods heaven in his neighborhood. Since he discovered their cheese counter, he comes home bearing cheesy gifts. He likes cheeses with odd names like Welsh Dragon, Stinking Bishop, or Capricious Goat.

Cheese is a product of obscure origins. There exist ancient Egyptian tomb murals depicting cheese making from 2000 BCE. Odysseus found cheeses in the cave of Cyclops, and Roman legionnaires carried firm molded cheeses among their rations. Cheese must have originated soon after the domestication of hoofed animals.

Years ago Tim and I stayed in a bed and breakfast in Ireland known for its fancy dinners (required of guests). The dinners unfortunately did not commence until 10 o'clock. Leisurely course after course was served, as we tourists began tipping in our chairs from exhaustion. As we ate our desserts, we all felt we were minutes from our beds. Then our hostess announced happily, "And now, the cheese course!" She produced an enormous tray laden with local cheeses in little wooden boxes, crocks and other authentic-looking containers. I am sure they were a gourmet's delight, but we were far too stuffed and tired to take advantage of them. A pity! It was a blessing scorned.

For me, there is little more satisfying than good bread, with cheese and fruit.