“It was the Magic Hour, the moment in time when every leaf and blade of grass seemed to separate, when sunlight, burnished by the rain and softened by the coming night, gave the world an impossibly beautiful glow.”
― Kristin Hannah, Magic Hour
I wonder how often I overlook the magic hour. How I don’t look up from my book, or am so focused on making the salad for dinner, I don’t take in what is happening around me. But this hour was too bold to miss. Even he said something.
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“So sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands.”
― May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
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This is the closest I got to water this summer, except for that one day. That one day when I took a brief 15 minute swim, alone. A summer passed, with me on the shore, yearning but unable to ask for more. I see this so clearly now as summer fades and I walk into autumn. Ask for more I tell myself once again. NO, demand it.
"For a small child, there is no division between playing and learning, between the things he or she does just for fun and the things that are educational.
The child learns while living, and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play."
- Penelope Leach
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leaf study with glue
We head to the park where I set him loose to gather leaves. My job is to hold the bag and oo and ah. A few days later I dump them out, along side some paper, and hand him the glue bottle, and “leave” him to it. Later I ask if he wants to take it home, and he tells me he wants me to have it. I hang it in the kitchen where it will remind me of how lucky I am to “play” with him.
I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.
- Mary Oliver
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We walk the lake, he and the dog trotting ahead of me. I want to notice it all, the signs of summer fading, the signs of autumn ahead.
“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
― John O'Donohue
I get caught up in doubt, entangled in “rules” I have contrived in my own head. I back up, and wonder what life might look like if I take off the lifejacket and just let go. Will I sink? I don’t think so. I might capsize, and that might just be enough to entice me back into my life.
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