August 21: I gazed into the eyes of Possibility yesterday. Her eyes were warm and inviting, and her imagination was far more expansive than mine. For just a moment, I saw with her eyes: what will I choose to do next?
August 22: Briefly this morning, I thought I saw a dozen bales of hay on a grassy place along my metro walk. Impossible, of course, but I remembered driving through Iowa farmland with my dear mother-in-law Lois, and the many things she showed me. The whimsy of my vision this morning would have suited hers. A woman walking behind me glanced over as I took this photo. I wonder what she saw — and remembered.
August 23: Rain hammered the afternoon. But the flowers in their beds and I in my sunroom savored the storm.
August 24: September slipped coyly between the steamy folds of August this morning, and I slipped outside with my coffee and newspaper. Each of my senses was engaged: sunshine twinkling my skin, bird calls and leaves rippling the quiet, glimpses of orange flowers and blue skies, sips and scents of pleasing things. Then a neighbor hailed me to share his delight in my delight. I will linger here as long as I can.
August 25: Over chocolate egg creams at our local diner, Jeremiah and I pondered the inevitability of baseball. Jeremiah posited that a planet far away might organically develop competitions in track, field, wrestling, ball-in-goal sports, and even football. (What is football if not a battle over territory?) But we mused that baseball seems so artificial, even arbitrary: why is a point tallied when a person touches a particular spot? Why is the ball the enemy? Did scarcity of balls (and the boredom of the ball-chasers in the field) lead to base-running? We eventually developed satisfactory answers to these questions. But our pleasure in the pondering remains.
August 26: I see clusters of bees and bouquets of lavender blooms. Usually I clasp the leaves in a moving stroke to unleash the fragrance. But today I left it for the bees.
August 27: Today supplied yet another opportunity to find God in all things and in all places, even in our dim office hallways. I shared with a co-worker a lovely catalogue of retreats and other events at Bon Secours Retreat Center, where silence recently refreshed my spirit. That sharing, in turn, inspired a conversation about finding and keeping the Sabbath. We chatted for 10 minutes, there at the door to my office. I felt refreshed again: a respite, a Sabbath.
(The featured photo above is from Edinburgh, Scotland: a working clock in a garden park, every bit a growing leaf, stem or bud.)
Fashioned For Joy 
I love knowing that Flat Jeremiah exists, and love knowing even more that he went on adventures. May I be that kind of grandmother one day.
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Dear Carolyn — You inspire me with an idea: Why wait to be a grandmother? As I write this, I think of the fun we could have inviting the children in our lives to make “flat” versions of themselves — and then we take “both” of them on outings, pictures included. Imagine the tiny stories we — or they — might compose! Hmm…
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Do you mean my children? I think that would be awesome!
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Yes, indeed! I’m smiling just imagining the stories, photos and fun Liam & Ava would have!!
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