I’m surprised to find that my last post was written in 2013. So much time has passed! So much has happened in that time!
~ John Muir
In October 2013, our then-18-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer. Soon we were extremely busy running from one medical appointment to another. After our son successfully overcame cancer, we were completely exhausted–physically, mentally, and emotionally–and we struggled to regain our energy. We decided to get a new start in a new area, an area we had always loved, so we took a huge risk and moved from mid-Michigan to northern Michigan.
We moved from our small village to five beautifully forested acres, which I call our “enchanted forest.” My husband had grown up on a farm but I had always been a small-town girl so moving to the country was a new experience for me. It is here, surrounded by beautiful nature that we sought to regain our strength.
I paused this blog when our son was diagnosed with cancer but I continued to write about our battle with cancer, moving to our new home, and re-establishing our new life in my other blog called I Love To Go A Gardening. I felt it was time to restart this blog because I’ve always found delight in interesting and beautiful things. I have changed the look a bit and my plan to is post here weekly.
I have always thought rocks were interesting. I don’t know all that much about them. I just mostly enjoy the interesting beauty of them. I could easily learn about rocks, but I have a very long list of things that I want to learn, and I can’t learn them all at once. Mostly I am a casual “enjoyer” of rocks. With the Internet at my fingertips, I learn about the rocks that interest me.
Like many children, I always picked up interesting rocks that I found. I remember when I was a child, a neighbor spread pretty white rocks on his family’s driveway. My friends and I admired the rocks, and then noticed that some of them were sparkling with gold. We excitedly whispered, “Do you think they know there is GOLD in their driveway? Should we tell them???” I think we showed one of the rocks to one of our older siblings, who informed us that it wasn’t real gold. It was FOOL’S GOLD, “Ha, ha, you guys are so stupid.”
My husband and I spent our honeymoon along Lake Michigan. We walked along the beach and, yup, picked up interesting rocks. We found several that were plain brown with white cracks. We thought they looked like smashed chocolates with the filling showing through the cracks. They looked much like the rocks in the picture at the right.
As I looked for a picture of the rocks we found on our honeymoon, I just discovered that they are Septarian Nodules, locally called Lightning Stones. They are found on beaches in the lower west side of Michigan. They consist of clay cemented onto an iron mineral called siderite. These concretions form in part through bacterial activity. They become fractured and the fractures fill with calcite brought in by ground water. The results forms lightning like patterns on a dark background. Awesome.
What caused me to write about rocks is this picture I came across on the Internet. This type of rock is called Banded Chalcedony. I thought it was absolutely beautiful–a stunning work of art. I learned that Chalcedony is the form of Quartz that is compact and microcrystalline. It occurs in many different forms, colors, and patterns, and many varieties have been used as gemstones since antiquity. In the gemstone trade, the term Chalcedony is often used specifically to describe the white, gray, or blue translucent type of Chalcedony, but its technical term includes all additional varieties.
Once in a while, something happens that gives me a new perspective on life. It can be a big event or something small that only lasts a few moments, but it changes everything. I call these “defining moments.”
Years ago, when we were first married–and even before–my husband and I liked to attend what is now called the Battle Creek Air Show and Balloon Festival in Battle Creek, Michigan. During the five-day festival in early July, there is a variety of entertainment, vendors, and, of course, airs show and hot air balloon flights and competitions.
I love hot air balloons. I have a Life List of all the different modes of transportation I have been on. My list includes things like: Antique car, farm tractor, antique steam tractor, row boat, power boat, steam boat, ferry, Mississippi river boat, trains (modern and antique), helicopter, jet, small airplane, horse-drawn wagons and buggies, mule-drawn Conestoga wagon, camel, elephant, and a lot more. One thing I have always, always wanted to ride on is a hot air balloon. One day….
Anyway, I loved to go to the Battle Creek festival just to see all the hot air balloons. And also to see the fireworks. Every year, the festival has fireworks. They are stupendous. Fireworks constantly explode into the air, many at once, with no pauses between like in small towns.
I’ll never forget one year that we spent the whole day at the Festival and then stayed to watch the fireworks. A thunderstorm started moving in, lighting the sky. Thousands of people turned their backs on the beautiful firework display and “ooohed” and “ahhhhed” at each dramatic flash of lightning. I thought with amusement that God still overshadows man’s greatest efforts to “wow.”
Anyway, the defining moment came after the fireworks were over and thousands and thousands of people streamed through a couple of gates to their cars in the parking lot. In the midst of this exodus, a family began to joyfully sing old songs…like Rockin’ Robin.
They sang with joy, seemingly oblivious to the thousands of people around them. We were swept through the gate and at our cars within maybe 5 minutes, but in that five minutes, I was enchanted. And at that moment–that defining moment, that Enchanted Moment–I thought: “I want to be like them.”
The family had no idea that they were my defining moment, but from the moment I heard them sing together, I decided to strive to let my inner “goofy child” out. I had usually kept my silliness hidden because I didn’t want people to think I was being stupid. But the family that night didn’t care who heard them, and I certainly didn’t think they were being too silly. They delighted and inspired me. So why not let myself joyfully live life, not caring that a person or two might frown at my silliness?
I am a quiet, introspective person, and I will probably never have the boldness to sing in a crowd of thousands, but I do let my silliness out more and more. For example, sometimes I have approached the automatic doors at a store, and waved my hand as if I am using the FORCE to open them. I feel like a powerful Jedi when the doors WHOOSH open. And the telephone/cable company in my small town has a camera set up that is pointed outside. The feed from the camera airs on a local TV channel. For some reason, it’s kind of fun to watch people walk by the company. When my son was young, I sometimes told him to watch the TV channel, and then I walked down and acted goofy in front of the camera so he (and anyone else watching the channel) could see me on TV.
When my teenaged son rolls his eyes and says, “Mom, you are so WEIRD!” I always thank him and say, “Good! It is my goal to become an eccentric old lady.” I figure it will take until I am old for my silliness to fully emerge, but I am working on it. When I am an old lady, it is my plan to be something like the lady in this video:
Who knows, maybe someday I will someone else’s enchanting “defining moment.”
My husband and I occasionally discuss moving to someplace different. Every now and then we have looked at a map of the USA, and one by one we have eliminated states until we had one state left….and it’s always Michigan! The state we already live in! Michigan is beautiful, there are thousands of lakes and trees, there are beautiful seasons, and it’s not too hot. People always seem to think that, if given a choice, a person would choose to live in sunny tropical areas, but tropical areas are too, too hot for me. I think I must be part snowman. I melt when it’s too hot. I prefer the cool northern places. In fact, if I could, I’d move farther north.
Anyway, today we are supposed to get a little snow. Not much, just an inch or two. I am glad. I’m not quite ready to let go of winter. I love snow in winter. Snow covers and brightens a gloomy landscape into a beautiful world.
I have several friends who are artists with their cameras. They have really good cameras with filters and everything, and they have artistic talent. They take gorgeous pictures. Me? I have a small everyday camera–nothing special–that I can slip into my pocket when I go for a walk. I take pictures of stuff I see, like clouds or weeds or snow or bugs. Once in a great while I accidentally take a cool picture.
I really enjoy going outside with my camera when it is snowing at night. It’s fun because I never know what I will end up with. I can’t predict how the light of the flash will hit a falling snowflake so the results are always a surprise. I call it Snow Art. Here are some snow pictures I took in February:
I Love To Go A Wondering 