I’m marveling this rainy Georgia morning at the mystery, the illusive and changing allure of clouds.
And here’s a post HR did about clouds a while back …
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 3/10/25
Tag: Marveling
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 3/3/25
Marveling this morning at my grandson Daniel‘s convincing performance as a REALLY messed-up teenager in his latest play, this time at the Tybee Arts Association Black Box Theater on Tybee Island near Savannah.
The play: Marvin’s Room.
Daniel’s character: Seventeen year-old Hank. (D is also seventeen.)
Here’s what Google’s AI says about Hank:
Whew!
Hank, onstage, with his psychiatrist on the right and his emotionally distant mother on the left:
As a grandfather, it was actually (and probably foolishly) somewhat difficult to see the normally exuberantly positive and usually smiling Daniel portraying such a severely damaged young man. (Hank doesn’t smile very much in the play.)
For a moment, I forgot what actors actually do. Act.
Daniel’s now been in over thirty plays, and his specialty seems to be the romantic lead in musical theatre (Prince Topher in Cinderella, Marius in Les Mis), Raoul in Phantom of the Opera.)
Sitting in the audience for Marvin’s Room, I kept having a bit of conflict between watching that mentally challenged CHARACTER I just met and denying to myself that the young ACTOR I knew so well could have ANY of Hank’s negative qualities.
But, uh oh. Maybe we haven’t burned down a house, but haven’t we all pushed a button or two to provoke a reaction from someone else?
Haven’t we all occasionally struggled to express our emotions openly?
Haven’t we all used sarcasm?
And haven’t we all felt (or acted) a little … crazy from time to time?!
The play ends (thankfully) on a positive note with Hank seemingly on his way to a better life.
And here’s Hank — I mean Daniel (!) — smiling his usual smile with HR and me after the performance.
Chatting and joking about his crazy character, we asked Daniel what he was going to be doing after this play ran its course.
“Oh, I’ll probably burn down my high school.”
O
There’s a Story Here Somewhere
Walking through Savannah’s Colonial Park Cemetery this morning with HR, we came across this bench.
There has to be a story somewhere. Is the story’s central character Mary Helen Ray, whose name is on the bench?
Or maybe one of the nearly 700 folks who died during a yellow fever epidemic in Savannah: “The most macabre bit of history involves a subtly tweaked fact on a historical marker about the yellow fever. According to the marker, ‘nearly 700’ victims of the 1820 yellow fever epidemic were buried in a mass grave, but historical records allegedly show that exactly 666 people are buried in the grave. Nearly 700, indeed.” savannahnow.com.
Here’s a link to an interesting story about Colonial Park Cemetery: 
Oh, and for extra credit, here is Robert sitting in a bunch of ginkgo biloba leaves at one of the entrances to Colonial Park Cemetery …
That’s probably a story in itself.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 2/24/25
Marveling at the World’s Cutest Girl Scout …
… Cookie Seller …
My Saturday Evening Post: 2/22/25 “Berry Good”
Yesterday in my Five Friday Happy Bringers, I mentioned the delicious joy that can be found in simple food.
And these days, with the turmoil going on in our nation, I need bits of joy wherever they can be found.
Easy breakfast. Costco Apple Danish.
Okay, maybe HR sliced some fresh strawberries on top of the apples.
Thick-cut bacon with freshly ground black pepper and a dash of cayenne.
LOVE-ly morning.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 2/10/25
Marveling this morning, remembering our beautiful visit to the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, FL last Friday.
It is one of our favorite art museums anywhere, but this time, because the weather was so beautiful, we decided to simply hang out in the gardens.
Robert and a BIG oak tree …
Me, pausing by a reflection pool …
HR too …
The gardens make up the “backyard” of the museum, along the mighty St. John’s River, with downtown in the distance.
MARVELOUS!
I think it’s important, perhaps now more than ever, that we finds things that cause us to pause and marvel.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 2/3/25
Marveling at this morning’s BEAUTIFULLY DELICIOUS pastry & coffee breakfast at Flora and Fauna here in Savannah.
Left Behind
It’s hard to believe that a week ago Savannah was COVERED in snow and ice.
Quite the rarity.
But it’s 70° now, and I just finished a delightful afternoon walk.
But as I was traversing a particularly shady area, LO AND BEHOLD, look what I saw!
A gigantic Snow Frog leaping from the Monkey Grass onto the sidewalk directly in front of me.
I started to question his pedestrian sensibilities, but then decided against it.
I wanted to give him a little more precious time to get to wherever he was going.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 1/6/25 “Small Kindnesses”
Marveling this Monday Morning at the simple and beautiful truth of poetry.
Small Kindnesses
By Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
Danusha Laméris’ insightful poem asks us to notice and cherish the many “small kindnesses” we exchange with strangers as we move through the world. Though quick, these moments have the potential to fulfill our shared need for compassion.
NealEnJoy 