Photo by James Wood, on an iPhone. Full Moon, approx 6:20pm. Grace looks simultaneously like a baby and like a teenager to me. I like the blurry, atmospheric effect James is working in the bottom 1/3 of the photo.

I think I mentioned that I recently reread The Great Gatsby. I really enjoyed it, underlining and writing in the margins in a way I don’t usually do.

And then today I found this quotation by Zelda, whom I’ve always adored. I don’t know much about her, but I love the legend she’s become: a colorful, passionate woman who wantonly embraced life, F Scott’s eternal inspiration (for that, shouldn’t we all love her?).

“Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.”

Snow day yesterday. It was really coming down in the morning, and by the afternoon the world had the snow-glazed beauty that I associate with a day apart from regular life. Somehow the world stops, or at least slows down dramatically, on days like this. No school, meetings cancelled, no cars parked on the major roads, everybody moving more gingerly and carefully. This morning the trees on the sides of the highway were white and frosted with snow. I wanted to take a picture but kept getting nothing but blur, and after one too many near-miss swerves I decided to put the camera (phone) down.
I do find myself with a sense of childlike wonder at the snow-covered world. A sense of wonder that I’d like to cultivate in more of my life. Catherine Newman’s post this week talks about the incredible unfolding of the personalities of her children. I’m familiar with that, but I worry that too often the stubbed toe from the toys left on the floor, the grating of the tired-and-whiny voice, the “Mummy?” asked one too many times – the irritations of day to day life – erode the rightful sense of wonder.
This is true in many of my relationships, not just those with my children. There is so much in this world that we ought to be in open-mouthed awe about, so much in other people that ought to amaze us! Sure, those very wonder-full (remember the etymology of that word!) people may mess up, occasionally step on an emotion here or there, display some annoying behavior. But wow, what depths and joys are within them. And what a privilege it is when individuals reveal themselves like that – that’s equally as wonder-full, in my view – when someone really unfolds their crossed arms and bravely reveals themselves. Another Catherine Newman quote captures this beautifully: “Another person is like a geode lined with hidden glittering.”
So – for today, perhaps for this month, God willing for 2008, I will try to focus on the glittering, and not on the slippery, treacherous, irritating entrance to the geode!