It Ain't Shakespeare

Something today reminded me of a similar occurrence two years ago when I was readying the house in Kentucky to go on the market. It involved a trip to the hardware store and the drive home. We had picked up a sheet of drywall that proved too large to fit into the car!

Oh nay! We made it fit! Laying it flat, extending the length of the inside of the car, including half the front seat. We drove home sitting on the edge of the seat, hunched forward with the dry wall resting against the back of our necks. Any quick stops and we would have been decapitated. We laughed the entire drive.

Not that I drove around on the brink of beheading myself today, but I did make a trip to the hardware store to purchase plumbing supplies. I had to return and exchange a do-hickey as I allowed the clerk to help me choose the right thingy but the wrong size. I almost had to go back again because I once again allowed them to give me the right size, but wrong thingy. Not being a plumber, I was clueless but my plumber kept rolling his eyes at the ineptitude of today's Hardware Clerks.

Which brings me to the secondary subject of today's essay....I went to my hand written journal from 2005 looking for an entry about that drive from Home Depot. I searched in vain. Yet, I had the most fascinating half hour of reading. My writing style, the ease and flow! It was incredible. I must have been writing every day .... about nothing! Just my observations, feelings, fears, thoughts, selling the house in KY and the long drives to this strange land called North East Indiana.

Why did I stop? Not that I ever really stopped, it just tapered off to an entry here and then one there. I stopped examining things around me. I stopped looking for things to describe and wonder about. Also I have stopped looking through the lens of my camera.

Recently I have had the urge to write write write again. And maybe in time I will regain the flow and the ease. I long to pick up the camera again and not be self conscious. Why I am so self conscious up here is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with my malaise.

I stopped looking and there by stopped seeing.

As I prepare to leave, I want to document this fascinating area so I will always remember my time here.

The beauty that is here if one just looks for it.


I sat in the parking lot of a Menards struggling with a hand held computer that was crashing on me. I looked out the window in a snit of frustration when a family of four Amish came walking through the parking lot. A tiny girl-child dressed in an exact replica of her mothers outfit. Little white bonnet, short legs in thick stockings, calf length dress and over coat, walking quickly with determination to keep up with her parents and sibling.

Very few places on this earth that you could witness such a beautiful sight.

And......it was raining.