Upside Down Kris

Blank Curtains   The shimmery curtain sashayed its stuff, swaying evocatively on the light breeze whispering from the window. It swishes, then delicately folds again, dancing with feminine movements that her partner lacks. The other half of the curtain is stuck in the corner, standing stagnantly by the closed side of a window. Morning and noon are juxtaposing each other, fusing their essence together in the lazy beginning of afternoon. Murmurings from outside filter through the thin, gauzy drapes dropped in front of a thin slit in the window's rib. Where does Sunday go–this Sunday and all the others with little (or too much) to do? They get sucked into the fan in front of us, new or not. The day goes 'round and 'round on the gray propellers. They go slow enough that I become entranced by the rhythm, yet they are a blur, just like the other Sundays of this month.  I get pulled in by pure fascination of its movements, but let's not forget the fan provides coolness, a resp...

Who's Got Mail? "Letters are tumbling into her wide bag," I hear my brain comment.  Wait a minute! What was she doing with that cascade of envelopes?  I stop in my tracks, my shopping bag slopping from my shoulder and onto my forearm.  "She is a postwoman collecting mail from the mailbox," my brain explains.  I had never noticed that box before: or rather, I had seen the royal blue rectangles around the city but had never recognized the symbol on the front that stood for post (a crown over what looks like Aladdin's lamp).   I had never really paid attention although I pass one almost every day. Isn't it interesting that something may be there all the time, but we don't see it? Maybe even more fascinating is the day we notice it. What makes us finally focus our attention on the something? Or clears away whatever was blocking our vision? Or makes us look up, opposite to what we normally did at that point in the street/country/ city? It was the movement...

Feed the Birds "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag..." Do you remember that poignant scene from Mary Poppins in which the elderly woman is feeding the birds in front of the cathedral? Sometimes when I see a flock of pigeons in the square that scene pops into my brain.  It was no different this morning. "Feed the birds..." was playing in my head as if I were watching the movie again. Only the main character was a man, one with dark skin. He was sitting on a bench in front of the cathedral, reaching inside a plastic bag for birdseed. (It actually looked a lot like dry oatmeal. Maybe it was.) Pigeons–gray, blue, light brown–flocked around him and landed on the bench behind him or beside him. Immediately , my eyes welled up. Was it because the scene reminded me of my favorite childhood movie? Maybe. But there was more to it. There was something pure, something genuine in the feeding of the birds that Mary Poppins had understood. And the fact that this man–like the bird woma...