REVIENS

Photo courtesy of Janie, bless her Dear Heart and carte blanche

On this absolutely-couldn't-have-been-chosen-more-perfectly Summer day, with the sunny skies and 66 degrees, with all the windows open wide with sheers stirring in the breeze, and the music of all six sets of wind chimes accompanying Pete the Canary in his joyful solo, another gift:

A gift of memories---memories so clear and vivid that they're as if my much-younger friend Janie had walked in my shoes, through that clattery screen-door into Aunt Lou's store, to the scents of sawdust sweepings and coal oil and the dusty burlap feed sacks and the exotic whiff of the bunch of bananas hanging on the big iron ceiling hook, the sweet fragrances of candy case and the tiny glassed-in counters holding "Voilet" and "Lavender" and "Lily of the Valley" colognes in their dear tiny bottles.

A trip to a century-old mercantile store provided Janie's talented lens with more memories of my childhood than I could take in---it was as if huge baskets of fudge and taffy and marshmallows had spilled out, to be eaten in huge greedy gulps of sweetness.   I could hardly breathe, and so fled away to share this glorious gift---my mind is too fluttery with memories and words and stories to come, of all the long-ago kindled and eager to be set down whilst I can. 

Do go and have a look---I'll be unashamedly borrowing pictures for all the deluge of words and thoughts I feel, and for now---just go and revel in the short-ago past.   It's too soon for words.

Thank you, Janie.