It's a Gray Sort of Day

Not in any bad way, but it's a gray day weather wise. The rain has been steady, and the cold hanging on like a piece of wet wool, soaking you to the core. I never mind this kind of dirty weather. It keeps me inside, doing hand work or spinning wool, tapping my free foot to old Irish ballads and sea shanties. My imagination taking root in thoughts of the ocean, dreaming up what it would be like to be out to sea on such a day, or to be standing at the door waiting for your man to return from the stormy expanse. It's not so much day dreaming on my part as much as it is remembering the stories my grandmother shared with me about her uncles as they spent their time being captains of a clipper ships, heading down to Boston from Nova Scotia. Some were sad stories of young men being swallowed up by the sea in a bad storm, one such story left my great great grandmother fatherless.

I love living in Texas, but I miss being close to the sea. Days like today, with the gray sky meeting the ground, makes me miss the smell of the salty air, and the way the wind feels as it whips off the waves. The sound of fog horns and buoy bells. I miss walking on cold wet sand and seeing a zillion stars twinkling in the black ink night sky. Tonight I will have to settle for the cold damp air and just pretend I can catch a whiff of the ocean.

A strange assortment of photos, rain hanging on the Italian pine tree

Melissa, playing with sea weed along the California coast

A not so in focus squirrel climbing up one of our pine trees.

music of the moment.... Altan "Blackwater"