Great Show, God: The Autumnal Edition

It has been the kind of week where the wonders of creation make me say again and again, "Great show, God!"* 

First there was the eclipse.  Our eclipse was not the blood moon experience that others had.  I joked that ours was more like the tooth decay moon:  sort of gold and shadowed at the same time.  There was a muckiness to it.  Maybe it was the clouds that moved across the moon during the time of the eclipse.  Maybe our light reflected and refracted differently than in, say, Hawaii.  To be honest, I wasn't sure I really saw it, except for about 2 minutes.

So, why did that make me sing praises to the Creator?  It was the hours leading up to it.  I got up early, and when my backyard neighbor needed coffee, I offered to bring it to her.  When I opened the door, the sight of that moon left me breathless with gratitude for the chance to see it.  It made me happy all day.

Later that day, I was blown away by the moonrise as I did some work at night after getting home. Although I could theoretically do computer work anywhere--I have a laptop, after all--I usually write in the front bedroom, the guest room, the library, the closet where I keep my clothes and boxes full of memorabilia and writing archives and Christmas decorations.  I write on the student desk left behind by my best friend from high school who later became a housemate.  The window above my desk faces east.

At one point last night, I saw a pearly glow from the east.  The irrational brain of mine said, "Did I work through the night?"

And then I realized that I was seeing the early hours of the moonrise.  Too late to get to the beach, where I bet it was spectacular.

It was still spectacular from my window.  The clouds came and went in huge feathers.  I got to the end of my grading.  I went to the front yard to get a better view.  I went back to watch several times.

In between moonrise and moonset, there have been glorious clouds all week:  white and puffy during the day, rosy and violet as the sun sets.

It's also been the week where I bring the first autumnal flowers to the house.  I got a bouquet of cut autumnal flowers in burgundy and butterscotch colors.  I also got 2 pots of mums for the outside.  The mums were striking:  burgundy on the outside of the petal, yellow towards the middle.  They were $8.99 a pot, which is about what I spent on flowers for last year's porch decorating project.  I decided to splurge.

The pots that I got on Memorial Day week-end are flush with flowers too.  I suspect it's their last hurrah as annuals.  But I'll enjoy it now.  I have an arch of summer flowers and one of autumnal blooms.  It makes me happy all out of proportion.

I'm also feeling gratitude for that happiness, in addition to feeling gratitude for all the glories of creation.  Great show, God!

*I'm indebted to the (now-grown) children of my friend and mentor from my undergraduate years, the first person who paid me for my writing when she hired me to write PR pieces.  She told me about the habit that she and her children had of shouting "Great show, God!"  They'd shout this out when they saw a great sunset or some other part of nature that inspired awe.  Sometimes, riders in the minivan would be startled by the children's shout.  I was charmed.