Nighttime Insanity

The clock read 1:25 a.m. when I woke up to feel heartburn crawling around my chest. Must have been the cider I drank before bedtime or maybe the two or was it three pumpkin peeps I had along with the cider.

I lay there for awhile contemplating if the heartburn was bad enough for me to get up and take something. Lying on my side looking out the window I noticed car lights reflecting off the trees. Who would be on our dead end road at this time of the night?

I hustled out of bed and walked into the north bedroom and just caught the taillights going down the hill away from the house. Good - whoever it was, they were on their way out. But who was it? By now my heartburn was really kicking in so I proceeded to the kitchen for the ever trusty Ranitidine tablets.

Into my mind came the thought that there had been someone at the end of the road in the afternoon and they had turned around and left.

Had that person returned to steal something? My thoughts often go to the dark side after the midnight hour.

To get in a more positive vein I wondered if the Muskegon Chronicle delivery guy was delivering the Sunday paper. Why not go check? If the paper was there, then I’d know there weren’t any people up to no good. Besides I was curious to know how Mona Shores beat Muskegon in Friday night’s football game. I would probably be awake for awhile and that would be good reading.

I shoved my feet into some slip on shoes, grabbed a jacket off the hook to cover my nightgown and unlocked the door. I hesitated before turning on the outside light on the garage, but figured it was better to light my way to the end of the driveway.

The shadows turned my legs into toothpicks which I found amusing. In the next second a panicked feeling came over me as I saw car lights coming toward me where the last car had gone out and disappeared. What the heck? Why were the bad guys returning? I knew how stupid I would look to anyone, let alone someone I didn’t know. I felt like a deer in the headlights until the fight or flight mechanism in my brain kicked in. I chose flight.

The garage door was down so I couldn’t hide there and I had to run fast to make it to the house. If only I hadn’t turned that darned outside light on. At first I was jogging toward the house and then as the lights got closer I started to sprint. For two glorious seconds I felt powerful and strong and fast. It felt like it did when I was a kid running. Then old age hit me in the face. My left knee buckled with a shooting pain in my kneecap. I grabbed the railing to pull myself up to the small deck and gasping I opened the entryway door and snapped off the outside light. When I entered the kitchen I turned that light off as well. I was convinced no one had seen me, but I was in agony.

I hobbled to the front window and watched the car drive slowly toward the middle of our property. I couldn’t see if it was going up my son’s driveway but by this time I had figured out the scenario. If I hadn’t been in so much pain I would have taken a vehicle to the end of the road just to make sure there wasn't a strange car there.

But instead I downed three Ibuprofen and stiff legged it back to my bed. As I tried to get comfortable my husband asked me if I had been awake and if I needed a back rub. I said, “I did something stupid.”

He said, “Oh, O.K.” and went back to sleep.

Around 2:30 a.m. he was awake enough to hear the story and he got the heating pad. It has been heat and ice on my poor knee ever since. Hopefully it will mend.

There was no boogeyman in the night. Our granddaughter Avery had a friend over whose parents were staying down the road at our neighbors. Her friend Ava had felt sick in the middle of the night so my daughter-in-law was taking her back to be with her parents. In essence I was running from my daughter-in-law.

I am now paying the price for going nuts in those dark hours. However I have to confess by saying it’s not the first time I’ve been out of my mind at night and it probably won’t be the last.   

Autumn Tribute to Mr.Frost

               THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
                             
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far a I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

                                           -Robert Frost


Robert Frost has always been one of my favorite American poets. His works often take us into nature and leave a twist at the end. I find his lines comprehensible, but with something thought provoking added. I thought of him this morning as I was starting to write a letter to a friend and my husband came into the house and said, "Get dressed in something warm; get your camera and go to the big meadow. The light is just right.

I dressed and then put on a winter jacket, gloves without fingers, ear muffs and hopped on the golf cart.  When I got to the big meadow I gasped.  It was that fantastic. The sun was hitting the woods at the far end of the meadow and the colors were at their peak.  The family dog Penny was excited we were out and about and she ran along side the cart.

I parked in the middle of the meadow and started snapping shots. The perimeter had color that couldn't be beat by any trip further north. I waited for the sun to get higher and the shadows on the bottom of the trees to disappear. I decided it was my time to capture what might be gone in a few days.  

So I drove the golf cart all over the farm finding shots by pointing my camera up through tree leaves to the sky and down on the ground at leaves artistically paired with rocks and moss. I took photos of leaves in the water, a small waterfall at the spring, our old barn, the pond and then I got in the car for shots around the neighborhood. I went to Gales Pond where I used to take my English classes for creative writing this time of year. I drove down a road that is so close to us that went past the Oceana Grange building.  I was surprised to find that I had never been to the end of that road.  I discovered a chartreuse field of asparagus all leafed out with colorful trees behind it.  

I drove down another road and as I glanced to my left I saw a number of trees that were each a different solid color.The sun was hitting them just right, but when I got out to take a picture the sun had disappeared. I had to return later and got a five second opportunity to capture them in the sunshine.

Robert Frost's poem kept looping through my head all morning as I trekked down dirt roads and paved roads.  Now I will show you what I saw.  I'm sure everyone who lives in Michigan has seen similar sights the last few days and has them stored in their head for a cold winter's night.  

The road leading to the center of our farm.

                                                      The Big Meadow                               

Looking up

A forest floor covered with color.

Rays of sunshine coming through the trees by the spring.

My favorite place on the farm....the spring.

Stepping Stones

Old but solid.

Pond reflections



A rainbow of trees.



Beauty beyond belief.

Shades of nature on a road I had never taken before today.
..



Our neighbor's waterfall behind her house.





The loveliness of a country farm house in October.

Last Glimpse

 A final look at various places in England and Edinburgh, Scotland that tell a little more of the story of our travels.  

Stonehenge with what is called the slaughter stone in front.  The stone circle was erected around 2500 BC.  It is one
of the wonders of the world.  We visited on a gray and misty morning and I felt a sense of awe that such a thing could be erected in prehistoric times and still survive.  

At Stonehenge this photo shows the distance visitors must stand from the stones.

Very gooey English pastries. 

Building in Stow-on-the Wold.  A lovely little town in the Cotswolds.

I liked this knob on the door of the loo at a coffee shop.

Just cute.

Despite the antique sign there was no antique store here.  In fact in our travels I only saw one antique store.

So appropriate as there are sheep everywhere in the UK.

Very strange sculptured hedge in Chipping Campden.  

A large old house in the town of Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds.

I was struck by the bright green walls in one room of William
 Wordworth's house, Rydal Mount.

A side yard at Wordsworth's house overlooking Lake Windermere.

Beatrix Potter's house at Hill Top. If you haven't seen the movie Miss Potter, it is a good
one to watch about her life.  The house is filled with little treasures.

Beatrix's garden.  Can't you see the bunnies hiding in the plants?

Stone buildings and stone walls everywhere.

Stepping Stones across a small river in the Lake District.  

Edinburgh, Scotland

Roses against a stone wall in the city center.

Castle on one end of the Royal Mile.

A street musician.  Wouldn't you expect a kilt in Scotland?

The World of William Wordsworth

When our son toured the Lake District of England in 1997 he said he thought it was as beautiful as Switzerland.  I wasn’t sure I could agree with that until I experienced it myself. It does indeed have a remarkable gentle beauty that can not be matched by anything I have ever seen.  The romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was inspired by the beauty and one of my favorite poems by him was one I chose to read to my class when I was in 6th grade.  I will only quote the opening stanza.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills

When all at once I saw

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

We visited both homes of Wordsworth, Dove Cottage in Grasmere and Rydal Mount a few miles outside of Grasmere. Dove Cottage was small and dark and they were burning a coal fire while we were there which made me feel a bit nauseated.  I liked the look of the cottage from the outside but would have been claustrophobic if I had had to live there.  Yet Wordsworth wrote much of his important poetry in that small place.

On the other hand Rydal Mount was bright and large and there were only two other people visiting the house when I was there.  Hack chose to walk other places and didn’t go inside.  After seeing the house I then had the side yard and garden all to myself. Wordsworth and his family lived here in his later years.  When his daughter died after being ill most of her life, Wordsworth who was 77 at the time along with his wife Mary planted a meadow of daffodils in her memory.  The field has regenerated itself over the years and can still be seen today in the spring with all its splendor.  

The back of Dove Cottage.

Beauty outside the window at Dove Cottage.

Rydal Mount, the second house of William, his wife
Mary and sister Dorothy

Bouquet of flowers in living room of Rydal Mount.

A view from an upstairs bedroom window at Rydal Mount.

The story of Wordsworth's daughter.  

Old needlework in one of the bedrooms.

Flowers in a side garden

A view of Rydal Mount from the lower lawn.

Stone building on lower lawn.

A lower patio at Rydal Mount with a view of Lake Windermere.

The hills above Lake Windermere where William Wordsworth wandered and found inspiration.