‘Twas the day before T-day
and all through downtown,
masked people were leisurely milling around.
An autumnal day when the weather was mild––
just perfect for posing for pics with your child.
Happy young couples walking arm in arm
with bags full of treats from Blue Moon and Le Farm.
The wine store had people looking for advice
on what wine would make their meal taste extra nice.
The Cary Arts columns were wrapped ’round in green
and a towering pine tree had entered the scene.
Inflatable sculptures displayed in the park––
special ones that even can glow in the dark!
Going inside one building just filled me with glee––
The library’s open now here in Cary!
My walk through the downtown just leads me to say
I’m counting my blessings this Thanksgiving Day.
––Carol Cross
I know I have been neglecting my blog lately since I’ve been working so hard on my SPECIAL SURPRISE PROJECT that I’m HOPING to be able to share next week. It has kept me really busy on top of teaching and doing things with my spiritual center and life and all that. However, this week our local library, which has been doing outdoor pick-ups of reserved books for several months now, has actually open the building to a limited number of people at a time. You have to go into the anteroom, where they have a device where you position the picture of your face in a face outline and it takes your temperature. If you don’t have a temperature above 99 or something, and the building hasn’t reached its maximum of 75 people, you can actually GO INSIDE and scour the racks for books that catch your fancy.
I actually had two popular books that I had requested months ago come in (at the same time, naturally), so my son and I walked over to pick them up and visit the inside of the library that we haven’t seen in 8 months!
It was such a lovely day, and it was wonderful walking by the park where families were gathered to take pictures of adorable children in front of the fountain or the giant Christmas tree that had recently been added. People were walking carrying bags from local shops that I imagined would be part of their celebrations tomorrow. I was elated to be back in the library, which I used to go to on almost a weekly basis before the pandemic. Libraries are essential to homeschoolers, and some of the long-term staff there have watched my son grow up. So while the Books on the Go program was FANTASTIC for getting me books that I needed or wanted, the library itself is part of my community, and it felt so good to reunite with both the books and the people.
The picture at the beginning of the blog is the view from the second story windows. As I looked down on our town park, or the adjacent Cary Arts Center, or the temporary art display across the street, I just had a feeling like in that moment, I was living in a Hallmark movie. For a moment, everything felt so perfect that it just didn’t seem real.
So there have been lots of bad things about the pandemic, and the loss of life and jobs and other dreams for so many pains me. But a silver lining is that it is making me really appreciate the simple things I’ve taken for granted, like how lovely our town really is, especially around the holidays, and how special it is to be able to stand in a room full of books.
One of the other things I really like about our town is that it is very supportive of the arts. Cary Visual Arts had recently installed a new temporary exhibit in the open space where the old library used to be, so my son and I went over to check that out.
It is an exhibit of botanically-inspired inflatable sculptures that are white by day, but are vibrant, luminous colors by night––hence, the name “Glow” for the installation. I don’t have a night picture, but you can see some here: https://carycitizen.news/2020/11/19/cary-public-art-pop-up-installations-glow-up-downtown-cary/. It is just a delightful display.
As for the puns…my son came up with what I thought were clever wintery titles for each of the two major types of sculptures in the exhibit shown below:
But rather than just tell you his ideas, I thought I would ask for yours. Any good ideas for “pun-y” names for each of these two sculptures? I know at least a couple of my regular followers enjoy word games and making puns, so I’m giving you a chance. Share your best winter-inspired titles in the comment section below. I’ll reveal my son’s suggestions in a couple of days, but let’s see if you all can come up with something even better.
However your Thanksgiving looks tomorrow, I hope you will enjoy it. And I hope that you, too, will be able to fill your heart with gratitude, despite…or maybe, in some ways, because of…the ways Thanksgiving is different this year.
BlissFullU 