Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Thursday, June 7, 2012

On the Porch

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. ~ C. S. Lewis

Just because I like the quote.










The first week of June and it is feeling like the dog days of summer. I'm feeling as if I live in the Mississippi Delta instead of near its headwater, which gives me an excuse to sit on the porch eying the crumbling, the peeling and the overgrowth without much enthusiasm.

I've dusted off the old blog, mostly as reason to take photos again. I got out of the habit and find I want to snap the shutter, not because I aspire to be good at it, but because I don't. One thing in my life I have done simply because I enjoy it. I like the history this digital record creates, that I can browse through and remember when.

The view from the porch changes year to year, even as it stays the same, just more so. Crumbling pots that once stood whole, gardens in bloom and then in decline, tree limbs that once sprawled are now gone from a storm. Peeling paint and freshly painted. Empty pots and blooming plantings.

The greyhounds Jessie and Nellie become Grace. Basset Harvey morphs into Howard. I guess we cannot just go on being an ordinary, decent egg. 

7 comments:

will said...

and then there are omelettes.

Sandra said...

Bill, :~)

A.Smith said...

I am no sure I am an egg, but if I am I hope to be a good one :)

Love these photos, I truly do. We don't have a porch which I would love to have more than words can tell. There is something legitimately decent and honest about laying about, letting time do its thing while one does nothing.
I know with bone certainty that I would never feel guilty about doing nothing and then taking a nap, as the Spaniards advice for a long and happy life. In any porch. Your porch is certainly inviting...

Sandra said...

No, probably not an egg!

I have found my inner Spaniard, then, for it has been easy for me to sink into a chair and look at my chaos. It is deeply ingrained in the Minnesota psyche to work, work, work. I read recently about migration and the various cultures of regions in the US and MN is very much like the North Eastern Yankees, who came here and brought their no nonsense ways with them, as well as all of those Scandinavians.

Another hot humid day on the way, as well as a steamy weekend. There will be plenty of laying around to be done.

Ganeida said...

It is mizzling & wet here as we gloom into winter. The cats are all for snuggling in the warmest spot ~ whether it's convienient or not. I usually have to eject the one in my lap before I leave for school each morning. He thinks if I'm seated it's an open invitation.

So glad you're back blogging. Love the pics...♥

Sandra said...

Cat's know we live to provide for them. He's taking what is rightfully his place. : )

You know about me and my blogging comeback(s): short-lived, erratic ventures. But I thank you for sticking with me. Maybe this time I'll actually stick with it.

Mel said...

Lovely, lovely post. I take pictures for the same reason as you, and find I can spend many nostalgic hours looking back through my digital archives.

I particularly love the shot of the empty pot and porch floor. It is so poignant, oddly sad and hopeful to me. I also love your porch and the view from it. And I love the CS Lewis quote. Thanks for sharing it all with us, and for popping in now and then with news from your neck of the woods.

Hope your summer is a peaceful, pain free one. I wonder quite often what you've been cooking, how the farm and the critters are doing.