The Mundane

I often spend mornings at Starbucks: blogging, reading.

I just completed a few more pages of The Letters of Tolkien.

It is Sunday, overcast, drizzly. It is exactly how I remember Yorkshire. Exactly. The only difference: Now: in Starbucks reading and blogging. Then: a drive in the drizzly rain on a very curvy road (with roads that paralleled the river before turning across the bridge) to Ripon; church some days; then exploring.

I do think, of all things, Evensong, was most special. Nothing can replace that.

But only with another. Evensong with another has been replaced with reading. Alone. And I am content/satisfied. 

[I remember someone once telling me her theory about English roads paralleling the river before turning to the bridge: that way, drivers would see the whole expanse of the bridge. The builders were proud of their handiwork and wanted others to see it, the entire bridge. When boating down the Charles River in Boston (rarely) and going under a bridge I realize that we see things on the bridge that others have never seen.]

Speaking of which, it was my visit to Monet's garden at Giverney many, many years ago when stationed in Germany that "taught" me to see the various greens in the the color of leaves. When I walk now, I still see many, many hues of green. Had it not been for that visit to Monet's garden, I might never have seen that there were so many shades of green. I don't notice that so much in other colors. Same with yellow blades of grass. I never thought there was such a thing as yellow blades of grass (except dying) until I heard Norah Jones' song and then saw yellow blades of grass in England while visiting an abbey destroyed by Henry VIII. We listened to the song together many times, but I don't recall if I ever mentioned the yellow blades of grass. The video of Norah Jones is posted elsewhere, probably more than once.