All the comforts of home

J.R.R. Tolkien described the comforts of home: "whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all, merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness."

Fifty days housebound, we remain in the security of four walls as the pandemic rages on.

In New England, frost covers the ground this morning, laying thick on the green grasses of mid-May. It was 70 degrees two days ago. Last week it snowed.

The weather is as changeable as our moods.

Working remotely, I spend my days doing much of the same tasks I did at the office; but I feel an undercurrent of uneasiness -- something is terribly wrong.

"There is nothing like staying home for real comfort," wrote Jane Austen.

Yes, Jane, but despite the comfortable confines of home, we grapple with weariness, fear and sadness.

God, help us!

View from picture window: purple azaleas dusted in snow.

The steep pitch of the barn clings to snowy pine needles.

Flag waves with each frigid blast.

Evergreens decorated with late April snow.

The stuff of ordinary days

Homebound, I spend a lot of time thinking about the stuff of ordinary days.

A creature of habit, I am lured to the sea.

Every Saturday morning I shed my work-a-day skin and plunk myself in the sand.

No matter the season, I walk along the seashore in cadence with the waves, which are as familiar as my own heartbeat.

When the cobwebs in my mind have washed away, I head to the town library, where I wander.

Laden with a cloth bag stuffed with books, I leave a half-hour later.

Thus ends my Saturday sojourn, which I had faithfully observed until three weeks ago.

Today I retrace the footsteps in my mind to a few paragraphs I had stumbled upon, in a random book I picked up one Saturday.

Intrigued by the beautiful photographs in a new book "Little Compton -- A Changing Landscape" by the Little Compton Historical Society, I tucked the heavy volume into the bag. Our summer place in Tiverton is but a stone's throw away from this neighboring town.

Turning the pages, I spotted a photograph of Walker's Roadside Stand, a place I have frequented since childhood.

I read: "Coll Walker grew up on a dairy farm in Swansea."

How interesting, I mused. I grew up in Swansea as well.

I read on: "In 1963 when he was ready for college, his parents, Ian Walker, a native of Scotland, and Frances Peckham Walker, decided to buy ten acres of Obbie (Osborn) Sherer's Red Top Farm on West Main Road. It was a way for Frances to move back to her hometown and would help pay for Coll's education. In years' past Obbie ran a roadside vegetable stand on the property that occasionally sold bear meat. The Walkers configured the vacant buildings and opened their own vegetable stand in 1964."

Then my eyes alighted on the sentence: "Ian, a high school principal, grew the  produce ...

Suddenly, I was 12 years old again, sitting in the public middle-school auditorium of Elizabeth Stevens Brown School in Swansea. At the start of our assemblies, Mr. Walker, a short, elderly gentleman who spoke with a Scottish burr, walked to the lectern on the stage, led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then spoke the words that I can still hear in my mind's eye:

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want / He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters ...

After all these years and in an instant, I began to acknowledge the profound effect this man and this prayer, the 23rd Psalm, have had on my life. Mr. Walker planted the seeds that would grow into my vocation, just as surely as he grew the vegetables that graced our table at the summer house.

With tears in my eyes, I read on: "After college and some time in the Peace Corps as an agricultural agent, Coll returned to Little Compton in 1970 when his dad became ill. Ian Walker had always run the farm as a hobby. Coll saw it in a new light. He thought there might be a future in a roadside stand business. Walker's Roadside Stand sits near the site of Little Compton's first English farm built by Benjamin Church in 1675. Coll's son Ian, named after his grandfather, is the newest farmer to work these fields."

Homebound, I spend a lot of time thinking about the stuff of miraculous days.

Shelter in place by the sea

Escape to this snowy, seaside New England town.

Sit on this bench and watch waters ebb and flow.

Take shelter with the ones you love.

Discover daffodils poking through snow, the Creator's promise of new life.

"Snow what? I'm bored in the barn."

A gaggle of geese gathering reminds us to keep in touch.

Seek and ye shall find: A sheep grazes, obscured in a world of white.

September stillness

Perhaps September is the most beautiful month by the sea.

Everything slows down.

There are few swimmers braving cooler waters.

Sailboats amble by, and hardy fishermen trawl, yearning for that one big tug.

Sauntering to the estuary, I find time stands still.

"Be still and know that I am God."

Surrounded by nature, soothed by the rhythm of waves, warmed by brilliant sunshine and fanned by gentle winds, one enters a portal to the Divine.

Solitary woman

Once in a blue moon, I find myself alone on the beach.

A late weekend afternoon, the sun is a torch; but the relentless wind propels and cools me as I wander along the deserted shoreline.

Craving silence, I hear the deafening crash of waves hurled with a vengeance at my feet.

I seek an unobstructed stretch of sand, but waters and winds conspire and throw rocks in my path.

I long for inner contemplation and escape from the noise of everyday life, but all around me nature cries out so loud that I stop in my tracks and acknowledge the presence of the Artist who created it all.

I'm listening, Lord.

Kneeling in the sand, I await the pounding waves.

The finery of wildflowers: Queen Anne's lace

One of my favorite places: a sandy crevice in the rocks.

Stairway to Heaven?

The Creator's artwork

Remnants of the Ice Age

Nature thrives in its rocky bed.

Blossoms

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said it best: "Earth's crammed with Heaven, / And every common bush afire with God."

Blossoms, big and small, dot our landscape.

Life slows to a saunter at the beach.

Look around; and along with blue skies and waters, seek the Creator's handiwork.

Puffs of fuchsia rhododendrons color our world.

Alongside a stone wall, violet blossoms light up the roadway.

Pink beach roses thrive amid rounded beach stones.

Bunches of white flowers reach for the sky.

Daffodils burst with buds of yellow.

Tiny purple flowers hide in sandy beach soil.

Heaven on earth

"Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads," reads one of my favorite Easter verses. Consequently, my head is always in the clouds. I am fascinated by the ever-changing vista above.

Dark swirling clouds shroud the sun.

Puffy clouds glide past.

Single seagull circles on a cloudless day.

Reach up and touch the sky.

Beyond the blue.

Heaven on earth.