“Find beauty wherever you are.”

by chuckofish

We are thinking about Mother’s Day and we wish all mothers and grandmothers and lovely aunts a happy day. We will be celebrating with the boy and his family on Saturday night so that daughter #3 can spend Sunday with the wee babes doing fun things all day. We’ll FaceTime with daughter #2 and Baby Katie on Sunday.

Here’s a poem by May Sarton that reminds me of my mother:

For My Mother

Once more
I summon you
Out of the past
With poignant love,
You who nourished the poet
And the lover.
I see your gray eyes
Looking out to sea
In those Rockport summers,
Keeping a distance
Within the closeness
Which was never intrusive
Opening out
Into the world.
And what I remember
Is how we laughed
Till we cried
Swept into merriment
Especially when times were hard.
And what I remember
Is how you never stopped creating
And how people sent me
Dresses you had designed
With rich embroidery
In brilliant colors
Because they could not bear
To give them away
Or cast them aside.
I summon you now
Not to think of
The ceaseless battle
With pain and ill health,
The frailty and the anguish.
No, today I remember
The creator,
The lion-hearted.

Today is Truman Day in Missouri, honoring Harry S Truman, the only U.S. president born in our great state. Anyway, I thought I would share one of the videos daughter #1 has been working on for Small Business Month in MO. I think the woman in this story articulates very well how I feel about living in the Midwest–“a pretty good simple life”–which is to say, a good goal to have. You have to find the beauty wherever you are. If you look, it is there.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

1 TIMOTHY 6:6–10

I watched a good movie the other night: The Great Debaters (2007) (on Hulu), directed by and starring Denzel Washington. I had never heard of it, but I trust Denzel not to be in a terrible. movie. It is based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at the (historically black) Wiley College in Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school’s first debate team, which, in a nearly-undefeated season, sees the first debate between U.S. students from white and Negro colleges and ends with an invitation to face Harvard University’s national champions. Inspiring and true.

Have a great weekend! Call your mother.

The painting is by Hugh Cameron (1835-1918).