Trial and Error

I showed my friend Boo two pictures I recently took, one of an Episcopal church in Cowan and one of Taylor's window. 

She couldn't understand what I saw. 

Her advanced age, perhaps. Her hearing, perhaps. Her vision, perhaps. My own inability to explain, perhaps.

So on leaving, I stopped on her front porch and tried another outside/inside/outside shot, this time of her own house. Then I shall try to explain again tomorrow, with something familiar.

(Now if only I could figure out how to take what I actually see. But that's a whole other issue.)

Robley, the Spy

I
Artisan Depot

"Thank you for your service, sir, to this country."

Silence. The elderly veteran looked abased.

"Let's hope we make it great again."


II
St. Agnes' Church

Smudged windows, sheet music, organ, street vista, fall color.

III

When I walk, I enjoy seeing inside from the outside.

Errand Interrupted

Twenty minutes down the mountain to the vet's office, flea meds purchased at 9:37, home by 10. That's what I planned.

Then this happened.

Strong light on primary colors: they kill me single dadgum every time.

Home just before noon.

(Does this happen to everybody?)

A Favorite Garden

It's the time of year when I go the long way into Winchester, right through the heart of Cowan, (in)famous recently for a child pornographer who passed himself off as a reputable town benefactor, but I prefer to think on what lies across the street from the railroad museum and behind the bank, especially in the neatly tilled, planted, and tended rows behind the white fence: the first blousy blooms of almost-summer.

The Subtle Joy of Tea

Ten years ago, I spent a month in Oxford, England, attending a summer program on a scholarship from the English-Speaking Union. At Exeter College on The Turl, I learned many things, not the least of which is the pleasure of tea. Humble, everyday, nothing-fancy PG Tips. I drank it for breakfast with white toast, which I despised at first but grew to love. I drank it after lunch in The Junior Common Room. I drank it in the late afternoon in The Undercroft. I drank it after supper, again in the JCR.

Since then, I have been a tea fanatic.

Although I have tried fancy blends from the Boston-based Upton Tea Company, which friends here in Sewanee recommended, and although I love African Dew blend from New York's Alice's Teacup, and although I have tried other popular British brands including Typhoo, I'm partial to PG Tips and the signature pyramid-style bag.

First thing in the morning and last thing at night, I drink my black tea lightened with milk. Sometimes I have it with a snack, like this blueberry turnover made by the Cumberland Street Bakery in Cowan. Mostly, though, I just drink the tea, savoring the taste of soil and leaf, holding it on my tongue. It is a welcome tonic.

(A word about the objects in this photo, which I also love. I made the cup in 1973 or 1974 in one of two summer-long courses I took in wheel-throwing at Newcomb in New Orleans. The plate was made by Brown's Pottery of Arden, NC, a family-owned business famous for its practical line of dinnerware and its whimsical face jogs. All contributed to the happiness I felt before and after I took this picture.)