Flutter

Fall leaves outside of Waynesville, North Carolina

I took this a couple of weeks ago. Most of the leaves are gone this week, driven down to the ground by wind, rain and snow.

Last week, I saw a Swallowtail butterfly stopping off for a drink at my butterfly bush. A few minutes later, another one of these lovely creatures appeared.

Fluttering by – the leaves and the butterflies…on their way to the end of their lives. And not minding at all.

People mind the thought of their lives ending. We think we should be entitled to live forever as we gather more and more things, find fabulous clothes to show off our bodies, and compete for which set of toenails has the best nail art. Oh, forgive me. I forgot tattoos.

I’m glad I don’t have tattoos, because I don’t want to look at my wrinkled skin when I’m old and see crinkly tattoos. But it’s perfectly all right for others to have them. I really don’t care much what others do. And I’m not worried about the end of my life. I’m too busy trying to do the next right thing in my own life for today. That’s a job, all right.

People flutter by in our lives as well. My friend from high school and I went to see the leaves together last week. We hadn’t spent any time together in more than forty years. We had a nice trip, stopping off at the old general store (of course I had to buy some of my favorite old-time candies). The rainbow trout I had for dinner both nights was delicious. My only regret was that I didn’t have my fishing rod with me! Now my friend has fluttered back to California, and I am still here in South Carolina with my two constants – Annie and Bootsie, my rescued kitties.

I just celebrated my 64th birthday. What a lot of living I’ve done. And what a lot of living I still have to do. I wish you well, my readers. Have a blessed day!

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Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon

Balloons at the Knoxville Balloon Festival, 2010

I always wanted to go to the huge hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque, NM. I haven’t made it yet, but last year my daughter and I went to a smaller version in Knoxville, TN. What a dream come true I had as I saw balloon after balloon rise, then go higher and higher until they were out of sight.

I never had a desire to ride in one; I just wanted to see them go up. That is not true of airplanes. I love traveling by plane. It gives me a sense of what it would be like to be the man on the bottom of the largest balloon in the picture at the top of this page. Just a sense.

Sometimes all we need is just a sense of something, a taste of whatever, a little bit of that thing we’ve been longing for. At times, it’s enough to set us on an entirely different path in life, because it ignites in us a passion we never realized we had before that moment.

Travel is one of my passions. I like traveling alone, and I like traveling with someone. Sometimes I think that if I had the chance, I’d be gone three weeks out of every four. But then I know that I would miss my kitties, my garden and my own sweet four-poster bed.  Maybe being gone two out of every four weeks would be a better balance.

This year I went to Puerto Rico. It wasn’t the most memorable trip I’ve had by any means. It was more like a comedy of errors. I’m still glad I went, though. Oscar was probably the highlight of the trip. Standing about 5’7″ tall with wavy brown hair, Oscar was the taxi driver who saved me a lot of money. He declared that a lot of drivers would overcharge people just because they were tourists. So I paid him a set amount to drive us around for a couple of days. He took us to a beach where we found a few beautiful shells. I have shells from everywhere, though I haven’t personally collected all of them myself.

There was a huge conch shell with a small piece broken off. I like that shell almost better than the perfect ones in my collection. It shows me how we are such amazing creatures. Even when a small piece of us breaks, we’re still beautiful if we can see it or allow others to see it and show us our beauty.

I’m really getting itchy to go somewhere again. But when? Where? I don’t know. What I do know is that for this moment, I’m happy to be at home writing my blog. My kitties are snuggled up on the guest bed in the office, waiting for me to tell them it’s time for us all to go to bed. I think I’ll do that now.

Where would you like to go in this wide world? Leave a comment!