In the middle of tense negotiations between Frog and Turtle, one side looses an angry salvo over the head of the neutral mediator:
Look in the mirror and find the spot on your face that was marred by the corner of a coffee table, dresser or vanity when you were a kid. You know it's there, perhaps hidden now under bangs or behind an intricately-groomed mustache, but it's there. The mark of the dreaded corner.
How much longer must we silently stand by and let corners have their way with our beautiful faces and those of our children? How many corners lurk menacingly in your house - right under your nose! - while you blithely turn a blind eye?
It can happen to you. It can happen to your children.
Corners.
Get the facts... before it's too late.
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| Nora & Sophie |
"Nora \n(o)-ra\, pronounced NOR-ah. It is of English origin. Short for Eleanora (Greek), meaning 'light'."
"...but light is more elusive than we like to remember. When the ancients observed the winter solstice, it was with thousands of years of fear that, once gone, the light might not come back. It might not, this time, return to warm the earth or grow the seeds or prod the harvests upon which they depended for life. The great ancient monuments—Stonehenge in England, or New Grange, even older, in Ireland—were built to function in the midst of wet, cold, black winter, when darkness was its deepest, its longest, its cruelest. Then the light was tenuous. Then even the days were gray. The monuments were built to catch the first gleam of light after the longest night in the year. When the days were darkest, then the light came. But you couldn’t be sure it would. You had to be patient, be hopeful, be strong. It was the return of light that you were celebrating. It was the return of the light that gave reason for hope in another year." - Joan Chittister
Nora. We like her. She's all good stuff with a dash of sea salt in the form of yelped frustration when she can't quite do something she wants (like get her zipper zipped or have the iPod). This morning, nearly every sentence spoken ended with "I think." She's a fiend for dancing. She's mastering the somersault. She melted us into proud puddles with her care of a pulltoy when we were at the thrift store: "Come here, you sweet bean."
There is so much more. But right now I'm just taking this moment in the middle of it all (and there is so much "all" right now, because someone's mother believes that the way to go about things is to open a show, move into a new apartment and knit a Halloween costume all in the same two weeks) to reflect on one clear reason Fall is my favorite season:
