{gold}
When you live in the same house for 23 years, you get to know the way the light falls at different times of year.
The slight shift in August when the shadows grow longer, the blue tint of January daylight, the way the gold of the sun hits the top of my bedroom windows just before it sets in October.
Subtle evidence of time’s passing, these changing shifts in pattern. Things I might not notice if I wasn’t paying attention, if I didn’t remind myself to lift my head and look around me. To breathe life in, to mark each day as something other than mundane.
Of course, there are many days when I don’t notice anything beautiful, days when my head is buried in work or stress or accomplishing. Those are the days when I fail to notice the beauty of being alive, fail to notice the color of sunrise, the mist hovering over the field outside my door, the sound of a bird singing the world awake.
But on this day, I noticed this light on these curtains as I walked past my green and blue bedroom for the fifth time after something I had forgotten, or to let the kittens in, or back out, in between making supper and doing laundry.
This light reached through the doorway and caught my eye
and I stopped in my tracks, enchanted by its beauty.
Just an ordinary moment on an ordinary day
that suddenly became quite golden.
October 20th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Beautiful and so, so true. Just yesterday, it was late afternoon and I was outside in my backyard chatting on the phone with my SIL when I suddenly noticed how bright gold my Jacob’s Ladder plants had gotten. I stop dead in my tracks while talking and had to tell her about them and then I went inside to grab my camera. I had never noticed that that get so beautiful in autumn before. I think having my camera has opened up my eyes!
Thanks for joining in!
October 20th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Over time, I am noticing that it is the most ordinary of moments that hold the most magic, beauty and potential for gratitude.
I am entranced by a similar light that slants into my kitchen between 7:40am and 8:30am on Fall mornings. It keeps me company as I prepare breakfast and lunches for my daughters’ days at school, prepare and pour coffee into my husband’s travel mug for his commute to work ~ and reminds me that my work is sacred, and lit with the light of Angels.
October 20th, 2010 at 11:48 am
I love how it’s often the ordinary moments that reach out and grab us.
October 20th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I’m guilty of letting myself get so busy I forget to notice the beauty around me, too.
October 20th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
Lovely. I too enjoy watching the light travel through the house!
October 20th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
we were just talking about the same thing….how the light changes dramatically this time of year and how we notice it more….and not take it for granted…..
October 20th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
I live for those moments. They make me stop, just like you did.
23 years in the same house is something I cannot imagine. We moved often when I was a child and it continued into adulthood. I find it exciting in a way.
October 20th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
that, sugar, is a real feat: to notice something even after you’ve looked at it day in/day out for 23 years.
October 21st, 2010 at 12:01 am
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
October 21st, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Very beautiful. Love the pattern of the curains with that light behind them.
October 22nd, 2010 at 12:02 am
that knowledge, the familiarity, the light as an old friend, is what i will miss the most when i leave this place i’ve inhabited the past 17 years. i am afraid the light will be unfriendly in a new place but i am ready to find out, to see the new way it falls on the same old furniture. you have been reading my dreams again. xoxo
October 22nd, 2010 at 7:09 pm
What whollyjeanne said — quite a feat! Those mundane days/sights – can float on by so easily…that photo is sublime!! (and makes me think of the saying: beauty is in the eye of the beholder – great eye you got there).
October 23rd, 2010 at 12:23 pm
That is beautiful…
October 23rd, 2010 at 7:17 pm
lovely words and a beautiful picture.
October 24th, 2010 at 12:52 am
One of the things I miss most about our last house is the way the light danced through the trees and landed on the curtains on summer afternoons. Thank you for this beautiful reminder.
October 24th, 2010 at 9:36 am
The light is just beautiful! I wish I was home more to see such things.
November 8th, 2010 at 1:32 am
Those are the best moments, aren’t they? The little tiny ones that stop you in your tracks. There is so much beauty…even in the places that seem so familiar. How I long to have a house of my own that I can make my own and grow into for many years, get to know the details that make it so unique and beautiful. It will have many big windows so I can watch the way the light plays with the walls. I truly long for this.