Admiring Echinacea / Scruffy Little Bluebird

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tunes without the words -
And never stops - at all -
~ Emily Dickinson

It was a day of Boalsburg adventures. I was to meet some of my oldest and dearest friends at Angelo's restaurant for a couple of nice, big slices of pizza. After that, I'd bummed a ride from my friend Cindy to one of the largest and best graveyards I know of, by the two churches in Boalsburg. My husband would drop me off at Angelo's, go hiking up on Jo Hays Vista, and return to pick me up at the cemetery around 2:30.

Lunch was wonderful. The pizza was great, and wow, did we have a talk-fest. We caught up on each other's lives, and just about laughed ourselves into apoplexy over a story of Gina's horrible night's sleep, which concluded with a smoke detector that went off at 4 a.m. 

The detector makes alarming sounds coupled with different colored flashes of light. How to discern the meaning of the combo of those flashes and sounds is contained in a tiny booklet that came with the alarm, provided in itty bitty letters, and in four languages, no less! Poor Gina, bleary-eyed, trying to read those little words and decipher it all - and make that horrible sound STOP! - at 4 in the morning!

We tried not to spend too much time on the hot mess that is our government these days, and on the evil men and women who run it, providing sanctions to protect the ever increasing wealth of the millionaires and billionaires of America, while stripping health care from the poor. There seems no way to stop the endless propagation of evil, this descent into fascism, though good people keep on trying, as we MUST. For SHAME, America. Is this what you've become?

But we had a good time in spite of it all, because we were back together again, and somehow stronger, sitting or standing beside each other. And then Cindy and I piled into her vehicle, and we sang along to Beatles tunes on the radio as we rode down the highway. Isn't it good, Norwegian wood? She dropped me off between the two churches, and I checked out the Little Free Library, and the flowers around the churches, which are glorious, as you can see above. And then I walked the graveyard, and I visited the statue, Honor to the Fallen (here, here, and here).

I love cemeteries and old historical things, and this cemetery in Boalsburg is one of the very best. I strolled through it checking out the gravestones, and suddenly, as I watched, a small bird landed on a tombstone in front of me. I snapped a few pictures, and I noted that it seemed sort of scruffy: a juvenile bluebird, I'm guessing, in that sort of rumpled phase they go through when they're young. You may see a picture of my scruffy little bluebird in the extras.

So I present to you two photos for this day: one of beautiful flowers I saw, that were blooming their hearts out fiercely by the church, showing their true colors, celebrating the joys of summer. And a second shot, in the midst of our anxieties and our disappointments regarding what is going on in our country, I have somehow happened upon . . . a tiny, scruffy, little bluebird . . . of hope.

I've got two images and so here are two soundtrack songs. For my flower above, with its burning heart of flame, I've got Survivor, with Burning Heart. Some of its lyrics appear below. And for my scruffy little bluebird of hope in the extras, I've got Toni Childs, with House of Hope. Keep hoping, America, in spite of it all. Keep working on bringing back the dream.

Bravely we hope
Against all hope
There is so much at stake
Seems our freedom's up
Against the ropes