Three Beautiful (Orange) Things

Recently, I discovered a blog called Three Beautiful Things. In describing it, writer Clare Law has written, "I'm a mother and a writer and an editor. I've been keeping this daily diary since 2004: I started it because I needed a quick and easy-to-keep blog to be like my colleagues at a new job. It's brought me so many wonderful things, and introduced me to many wonderful people; and the practice has helped me take note of life's many tiny pleasures." She and I share this peculiar passion of daily noticing and reporting, and in celebration of our blogging kinship, I write today about three beautiful (orange) things.

1.
For weeks I have wondered where the Autumn Meadowhawks were: more than a month ago, they emerged; I photographed them; and then they departed to mature. Finally, today, I saw a single female, perched in a bit of light, on the path circling the lake. Now, she sports the crimson color of her sexual maturity along her abdomen.

Patient like a high-fashion model, she let me admire her beauty a long time before the coming storm chased us both away.

2.
This morning, I finished reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Limpopo School of Private Detection, one in the series of books featuring Precious Ramotswe in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mystery series. During their daily work, Mma Ramotswe and her employee Grace Makutsi frequently pause to drink "bush tea," which they believe solves one's problems. The ritual of tea drinking is something I practice myself, but rarely do I drink "bush tea." However, a friend served me Roibus this afternoon, and I felt the wisdom of Botswana fictional women descend.

3.
The light of a Himalayan pink salt lamp glows like ET's heart, lighting and burning brighter and brighter as he knows he's going home.

http://digboston.com/boston-movies-film/2012/07/afi-100-25-e-t-the-extra-terrestrial/