Grandma's House, On A Helicopter Ride

A Lovely Place To Be

 Don't just fly. Soar high. - Anonymous

 If I flew on a helicopter I would visit... my grandma's house.

Such is the inscription on Second Granddaughter's pre-school art project that leaves a lump in my throat every time I look at it.

It is my favorite page among her stuff that I've compiled through the years and put together in a folio album.

A lone, blue helicopter tinged with a red tail dominates the space. Rotating propellers made of popsicle sticks enable the aircraft to navigate quietly across a sky that is huge and high and impossibly blue.

Overhead, a fat, white, slow-moving cotton ball cloud floats across the horizon. A solitary, gnarled wisp trailing behind seems to say, Wait up.

In anticipation, a stick person peers through the copter's bubble window.

What an endearing work! It has filled a space in my heart that I never knew was empty.

Of course, dear child, when you do come, it will be the loveliest place for you and me to be. 

But know that you won't need a helicopter to fly high. Your wings already exist. All you have to do is make the leap.

Soar high.

Touch the sky.

Dear Future

 A Lovely Place To Be

 Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now. - Anonymous

In 2039. I am 27.

Such is the title on the last panel of First Granddaughter's mini-autobiographical  pictograph.

A cartoonish girl wearing a purple shift dress that features a shine bright design on its front is winking, looking back, saying, Almost done. An open door with a view of a sunshiny day beckons on the far right.

It's my favorite page on the treasure album that I'd recently put together.

There's confidence in this girl, on her final tween year, no longer a little child, but not quite a teenager.

Her stance is certain, as she seems to assert, My day, my way. I'm looking to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.

It is going to be her happy place - and I'd very much like to be there with her.

For right now, I'm not blinking because I know she's growing up too fast.

So I say, Keep growing and glowing. I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck whether at 12 or 27!

For in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.

It's the life in your years.

Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory

 A Lovely Place To Be

 Enjoy the little things... for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things. - Anonymous

How would you like to get a pass that will allow you to get into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory? Moreso, how would you like to be the recipient of a lifetime supply of chocolates?

Yes! And yes! to that.

That, indeed, would be my lovely place to be - and I know just how to do that.

By perusing the pages of one of my treasure albums.

From one of its pocket pages will first fall out a toothpicked photograph. That of a squiggly, bald, wide-eyed baby boy.

Then, a Golden Ticket.

Mementoes of First Grandson's birthday when he turned one.

I remember.

Willy Wonka was the party theme.

Although we didn't quite re-create a palace made out of chocolate nor serve ice cream that didn't melt in the sun, First Daughter saw to it that there was chocolate galore -  from a three-foot fountain with a crown at the top and stacked tiers over a basin of chocolate fondue in which fresh strawberries could be dipped.

A cake was meticulously decorated by Second Daughter/Godmother Nani with spice drops and dots, and M&Ms were scattered throughout. Trees of Kisses and Hugs lined level and undulating surfaces to emulate a Wonka-ish wonderland of magic and whimsy.

Lolo had obliged to be the colorfully-dressed, small, spritely Willie Wonka. I may have worn wide slacks to mimic being a teeny Oompa-Loompa.

I still pull out my Golden Ticket from time to time to recreate that especial time in that lovely place.

A moment that has become a memory.

A memory that has become my treasure.

Madeleine And Tea At Combray

A Lovely Place To Be

Within the pages of my favorite books and treasure albums is a profusion of lovely places to be.

That's where I'd like to take you in this series.

*****

First, Combray. 

The fictional town created by Proust in Remembrance of Things Past.

It is here where the first scenes of the novel take place.

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which in Sunday mornings at Combray... when I went to say good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of lime-flower tea.

I so love this passage because of the exquisite connection of flavor and memory it explores.

... No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place.

I was obsessed. I'd actually searched and found madeleines (at Trader Joe's, if you're curious and/or interested).

I wanted Combray.

Even now, when things are broken and scattered, I like to think that I can nibble on this delicate scallop-shaped spongy French tea cake, as I sip lemon-flavored tea.  

And the smell and taste of things that had remained poised a long time, like souls, will be ready to remind me, waiting and hoping for their moment.

Winter

Four Seasons  

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." - Lewis Carroll

It is getting cold. Winter is putting footsteps on the garden.

 Snowy blanket covers all. 

Moon eerily peers through scrawny, blackened maple branches.

Lit reindeers cavort on snowy ledge. Photo: V.E.V., Columbus, Ohio: December 12, 2020 

Snow, like kisses from heaven, is sparkling like a million little suns.

Downtown Snow. Photo: I.T.V., Columbus, Ohio: December 13, 2016

But to tell you the truth, I like snow... when it comes in a paper cone and is covered in chocolate syrup.

             Can anyone tell me where the Delete Winter button is?

Fall

Four Seasons  

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves. 

Red and gold leaves from maple trees abound.

Rising Sun Redbud bush shows off spectacular profusion of pea-like pale pink, bright peach, orange, and yellow-speckled lime green heart-shaped leaves. Photo: V.E.V., Columbus, Ohio: September 18, 2023

Neighbor's spooky skull arbor. Photo: V.E.V., Columbus, Ohio: September 29, 2023

Fall... the year's last, loveliest smile - showing us how beautiful it is to let things go.

Summer

Four Seasons 

 I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket. - Kellie Elmore

I'm glad it's finally hot to complain about how hot it is.

Furry backyard denizens Chip and Sniffy share a bowl of bird seed.

Winged regulars (from left): blue jay, robin, and cardinal. Photos: V.E.V., Columbus, Ohio

Summer glow

Summer night is like a perfection of thought. You can stretch right up and touch the sky.

Rare sighting of a brilliant yellow American goldfinch perched on the drinking bowl. Photo: V.E.V., Columbus, Ohio

Night Visitors. Family of raccoons raid Chip's food stash.

Dear spring, I love my summer critters.

I'm breaking up with you.

Summer is hotter

than you.