Posted by Jean on her site: https://beauvoirglass.blogspot.com/

Also - proof she's in the right place coming here ....

:) :) :)

A post by Jean

How many marbles
are we supposed to have?
A handful?
A headful?
A mouthful?
I can't find mine.
Anywhere.
Not in the closet.
Not under the bed.
Not out on the sidewalk
where I played with them last.
Did they roll away
or did you hide them?
It's your fault
I lost them.
It's your fault
I'm sad.
You don't have to admit it.
I know what I know.
Playtime is over.
You need to go.

Published by Jean July 18, 2025

but, wish I had.
Published by Jean August 6, 2007

Found it in a book called Kiss Me Like A Stranger by Gene Wilder.

"After A While" by Veronica A. Shoffstall

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn that
love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure,
that you really are strong
and you really do have worth.
and you learn
and you learn
with every good-bye you learn.

good stuff, eh?

Published by Jean Sat Oct 7, 2006

The summer after fifth grade, we moved from our house in Uniontown, Ohio to the farm in Portage County. It was shortly after that move that my mom found the church she wanted us to attend... St. Michael's Byzantine Catholic Church.
In Akron, twenty-five miles from the farm. No more than ten miles from Uniontown. Oh, well. Long drives to get where you needed/wanted to be were not uncommon for our family.

Mom was born in Czechoslovakia, when it was still known as Austria-Hungary.
In her eyes, the Roman Catholics just didn't do it right.
St. Michael's was the church where the four of us kids (the youngest having not yet been born) finally took our first communions. On the same day. After having completed catechism and learning to "go to confession".

St. Michael's had, among seemingly hundreds of other social events and celebrations, an annual church picnic. The church owned property at the edge of another town not far away. This piece of land was a hill, at the top of which was the church cemetery. At the bottom of the hill, in the back, was the pavilion for the picnics. The pavilion was a huge, roofed-over concrete slab with benches along the outer edges. I remember large trees surrounding the entire piece of property, so the pavilion was nicely shaded.

The first picnic we attended there, I remember sitting beside my dad on one of the benches, listening to a local polka band and watching people dance. Dad loved music, but his sense of rhythm... or more appropriately, his lack of... kept him off the dance floor most of the time. So, I kept him company while people whirled, twirled, glided and bounced past us.
Mom was one of the dancers.

I could see Dad following Mom with his eyes, watching her graceful movements as she and her dancing partner... an older woman from the church... circled 'round and 'round the dance floor. I could tell that he would have liked to have been her partner in the dance. His gaze never left her face.

After she passed us several times, smiling at us while she danced, I heard Dad let out a long sigh. I turned to look at him, and heard him say so very quietly, "Isn't she beautiful?"
That was the first time I saw love and passion reflected in a person's face.
In that moment, he saw only her. The love of his life.

Not long after that time, their marriage started to fall apart.
But they never divorced, and he took care of her as she was dying from cancer.
I like to think that he never stopped thinking she was beautiful.