Monday, June 13, 2011

Saying Goodbye


Leaving Page late in the afternoon yesterday, I was struck with the irony that all these years my sister Teona has lived in this haunting land of sandstone and azure waters, it never crossed my radar that going up there just to chill and enjoy her and Kaysee's company was an end unto itself and something we both would've enjoyed utterly. But alas, Friday they will be leaving for New Jersey with their U-Haul and dreams of a new and happier life, a certainly a life of totally different vintage than they have known these past 11 years. I am very close to my sister. The thought of her living thousands of miles away is difficult to entertain. I admire her immensely. She has strength that eludes me at this stage of life. I pray that the perfect home will be found, that her new job will be even more than she anticipates and that friendships will emerge to fill the emptiness she will know all too soon. May the U-Haul hold up, may everything fit, may the plants survive, may you find someone to travel with you, may the weather hold, may you and Kaysee have the roadtrip of your lives, may angels surround you and protect you in all ways. I love you.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Afternoon reflections

Sitting beneath the Chinese Elm gently (and not so gently) whipping around in the wind, my mind flits to the white mountains of once beautiful pristine Arizona where everything we knew and loved there has been ravaged by fire...still 0% uncontained, and it's been raging since May 29 when a campfire was left unattended. Our many friends there have been evacuated. The torment of the unknown hovers. 0 % uncontained. How can this be? I heard that the man in charge forbid water be extracted from Big Lake because of an endangered fish. Truly? Have we come to this? That human life and human homes are trumped by an endangered fish? The last I heard, they were trying to save Terry Flat where we used to ride the horses....that's the exquisite meadow at the foot of the climb to the lookout. My heart aches for those whose homes are in jeopardy, for the firefighters so hampered by wind, smoke and command. I pray for God to have mercy and grant that the winds cease their merciless onslaught and the fires be quelled. And I weep...that I must remember these things as lost.