There is a place, I  imagined and I go there often-everybody ought to.  I call it “Somewhere North of the Moon” and you can get to it from anywhere.

My niece graduated from High School,  a few days ago.  That is quite a milestone. . . and there are many more to come.  During the ceremony,  I began sending her wishes for a beautiful journey and of course, they weren’t ordinary wishes.  I will not spend a wish on such things .  The things that have mattered to me most came about without any grand effort on my part-and I have quite a collection that I have stored just north of the moon.  They can’t be stored on shelves or in closets and they have  certainly never showed up in my bank accounts-but they are very real and my heart remembers them clearly and calls upon them about daily.  I wished those things for her too.

I looked at my niece and remembered making a lot of cakes with her.  She helped me paint the barns at the rabbit patch and climbed in to places I couldn’t,  to find their secrets . We watched old black and white movies together.  Once we took a midnight stroll around the rabbit patch.  The account of all this is alive and well-just north of the moon.

I am a lot further on my journey than my niece is on her’s.  One thing I am completely sure of is , the road can take a turn you didn’t see coming and a bridge may be washed out along the way.  I ended up at the rabbit patch on account of such things.  Sometimes there’s a good long stretch of easy going and that may be shocking too.  No matter what you do and how carefully you plan,  the truth is things work out like they ought to.  After a lot of vain attempts and  sometimes  the “luck of the Irish”   along the way, I can declare with my whole heart it’s going to take some Faith.  You might start out without it, but you’re going to end up with it, more likely than not.  I have needed it to get around those washed out bridges- and to stand steadfast on shaky ground  and  at such times,  it is Faith ” that has made all the difference.”

I have a lot of beautiful things that I have come acrossed so far and  most of those things presented themselves in broad daylight.   Some events have  seemed a disappointment at first sight.  It took the moonlight to see their beauty.

I have been working on another Sunday dinner as I write this-and rain is falling again.  I listened to the “water music” while I peeled fresh peaches.  I washed young cabbages while the baby chattered with her sweet voice.  I thought of the roses and hydrangeas blooming in the yard.  What a pretty arrangement they will make for the table, I thought.  I sent all of that somewhere north of the moon where my redbirds , roses and wild violets  are kept- along with the way my mama touched my hand after  the graduation, when we said goodnight.  It all went north-somewhere north of the moon.

                                          Go well, and live happily ever after