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: Monday
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
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 2/24/25
Marveling at the World’s Cutest Girl Scout …
… Cookie Seller …
I’m Not Concerned
The evil Trump Regime sends damaging ripples here in the low country.
Art is now under attack in the United States.
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.
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.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 12/30/24 “Big Foot”
Marveling this Monday Morning at … life.
Robert and I are up in Baltimore for his dear Aunt Pat’s funeral.
We are staying at a lovely old Airbnb in the Fells Point community at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor (our favorite area of the city).
On a walk yesterday afternoon, Mother Nature reminded me of her incredible strength and resiliency.
Surrounded by all of man’s “built-ness,” one of her daughters stands strong …
… her foot firmly planted in the ground.
Alive.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 12/23/24 “It’s Chili in Savannah!”
This morning, I am marveling at the memory of my Christmas Chili yesterday for Sunday Brunch.
It was just SO good!
With my Jalapeño Cornbread as supporting actor.
Monday Moaning or Monday Marveling? 12/16/24 “Marvelous Bells”
I’m marveling this Monday morning!
A couple of months ago, as I was aimlessly meandering through my Savannah Historic District neighborhood, minding my own business and thinking about who knows what, I came across one of those Free Little Libraries. Do you have them where you live? I love them! The Universe speaks to me through them!
This is my routine when I see one.
I stop. Gather my wits (which sometimes takes a while). And then sorta yell (if there are no mental health professionals such as my therapist Rubi lurking nearby):
“Okay, Universe, here we are again! What do you want me to read this time?!”
Well, this time it was “Jingle Bells: How the Holiday Classic Came to Be.”
Even though I had never heard of it, I was THRILLED when I saw the book’s cover. (It doesn’t take much to thrill me.) Wouldn’t you be thrilled? No, you probably wouldn’t be. So let me explain. Have you had your morning coffee?
Savannah has twenty-two uniquely beautiful squares in the Historic District (more in other parts of the city). And one of HR’s and my favorites is Troup Square near us.
I have walked through Troup a zillion times. I like the quirky globe in the center.
But the THRILL came from remembering this historical marker in the square near the Unitarian Universalist Church …
So it seems that James Lord Piedmont, music director of the church in the 1880’s, composed “Jingle Bells“!
Well, after the Universe graciously presented the book to me, I put it away in my bedroom closet. Wouldn’t you? No? Here’s why I did: Robert and I have this tradition of reading several holiday books during November/December. I wanted to wait till Christmas was approaching to find out about “Jingle Bells.”
I pulled it out yesterday, harassed Robert until he agreed to accompany the book and me to Troup Square to Holiday Read.
We sat on a bench facing the Unitarian Church …
… and I ardently read to a mesmerized HR the fictionalized account of Pierpont’s birthing “Jingle Bells.” (Eliciting only a handful of pitiful stares from Sunday afternoon passersby wondering why that old man was excitedly reading a children’s book to that obviously entranced non-child sitting next to him.)
[Perhaps I made up the “mesmerized” and “entranced” parts.]
But the book really is fun, especially the scene during Pierpont’s introducing his new song at the church’s Christmas concert. At the “Dashing through the snow” line, the children of the church throw up clouds of white feathers to symbolize snow (since warm Savannah rarely sees the real thing).
So There. That’s why I’m marveling this Monday morn.
NealEnJoy 