The Sense of Possibility

The sense of possibility that I mentioned last time--which the approach of spring brings out in me--reminds me of Dorothy's opening the door onto the Land of Oz and everything switching from a black-and-white maelstrom into a bedazzling Technicolor landscape.

From something like this, winter's view out my front door ...




to this ...


 

... the view out my door one January day two years ago when I arrived in Bali.  I even felt like Dorothy as I left behind what I characterized as a black-and-white part of my life and looked down from my veranda onto a magical garden of banana trees, coconut palms, sparkling pool, stone statuary of Hindu gods, and rice paddy beyond.  The only sounds were the occasional chirping of a lizard and some far-off rhythmic drumming.  That and the gurgling of a fountain that flowed into the pool.  Talk about possibility!!  Suddenly everything was sunny and promising.

But though a trip to Bali--or, more recently, Hawaii--can produce this shift from a grey and white world to a blue and green one, the advent of spring accomplishes the same thing.  The Bali trip took forty hours door to door.  The full extent of spring's renewal will take a few weeks.  But then it's as if you took a box off your head that had been there for months.  Or you found yourself pounds lighter--which, in fact, you were by removing parka, sweaters, scarves, mittens, hats, and clompy boots.   

As an aside, an insurance adjuster just came to assess winter roof damage--vent pipe, flashing, aluminum snow belt, ceiling plaster--and said, "It's very pretty around here, but I couldn't live through your winters.  It's too cold."  He had a soft accent, North Carolina plates, and he called me "ma'am." (To reach the roof, he also had the cutest--yes, that's the word--aluminum ladder I've ever seen.  Maybe 15" wide by 2 or 3 feet long--all telescoped into itself.  I mused that it might even fit into a suitcase.  He took each rung, and with a ka-chunk, ka-chunk, extended it out 12½ feet, set it against the house, and climbed up.)  

But to get back to my point, it is with that sense of possibility that I now push my own personal Refresh button and begin this new blog.  The idea began to germinate in October, but I needed to get through the dark months first.  That, at least, gave me time to think what I wanted to say:  "Words, Pictures, Homey Things ... Travels, Opinions, Fun Things."

The Words part will include comments on books, language, grammar, with occasional excerpts from various writings including my own.  Pictures will include photos I've taken, art work I've painted, plus maybe occasional comments about movies.  Homey Things might take in some nostalgia, a recipe or two, whatever.  Travels can be just that:  tales of adventures, past and recent.  Opinions can be something else entirely:  the lost art of conversation, the pleasures of puttering, tinkering, sauntering.  Fun things--well, that can be the goofy, the silly, the leavening, if you will.

As for the blog's title, it's right there in plain view (for me, at least), but I'll talk about that another time.  

In the meantime, here's a spring up-date from my front lawn:

©2011 Door Number Eight