Laine's Blog, Thinking Out Loud

Insist...

 

At the risk of repeating myself,

we really do live in a beautiful world.

 

Nature persists.

In spite of what men do to each other and to the planet

to distract us,

Nature persists.

 

There is beauty and diversity and wonder

all around us.

 

And we,

who are a part of that wonder,

must insist on PEACE.

 

We must revel in the beauty and the possibility of Peace

in our hearts and in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunrise, Vilano Beach September, 2023

2 different days!

 

 

 

Last Chance...

A Last Time For Everything...

 

Last call, last chance
Last song, last dance
Sometimes you just don't know when that's gonna be
Hold me baby, give me a kiss
Like tonight is all there is
Cause there's a last time for everything

 

It's a Brad Paisley song that someone mentioned in a piece I found somewhere,

and it stuck with me.

Can we really cherish our days and nights like it's the last time?

Why not?

This is our life, our time, our blessings,

why not cherish them always?

 

 

"Last Time For Everything", by Brad Paisley.

Sunrise at Vilano Beach, St. Augustine.

Republished from LainesBlog, June 2017

©LaineQuinn2023

Last call, last chance
Last song, last dance
Sometimes you just don't know when that's gonna be
Hold me baby, give me a kiss
Like tonight is all there is
Cause there's a last time for everything

 

It's a Brad Paisley song that someone mentioned in a piece I found somewhere,

and it stuck with me.

Can we really cherish our days and nights like it's the last time?

Why not?

This is our life, our time, our blessings,

why not cherish them always?

 

 

"Last Time For Everything", by Brad Paisley.

Sunrise at Vilano Beach, St. Augustine.

Republished from LainesBlog, June 2017

©LaineQuinn2023

Yesterday...

 

The beauty around us 

No matter where you are

 There is beauty around you!

 

 

 

 

The Inlet St. Augustine

©LaineQuinn 2022

That Light...

 

 

The way the light catches the sails

at a certain time of day...

it's irresistible,

delicious,

wonderful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Schooner Freedom returning to safe harbor.

©LaineQuinn 2022

 

 

 

Boogie Boarding!

 

 

Sea oats in the breeze

Sun getting ready to set

One more wave - no two!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vilano Beach, July 2022

©2022 LaineQuinn 

 

 

Setting Sun...

 

 

The sun sets on another day

another week

another year.

 

 

 

 

 

©2021 Laine Quinn

Inlet, Vilano Beach

 

What I know...

 

What I know - what I know is -

Love will find a way.

 

Conflict in your life?

Say this -

Love will find a way.

 

Anxious?

Say this in your heart and mind -

Love will find a way.

 

It does.

It will.

 

 

Somehow it opens your heart and reminds you of the love there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a song that goes like the first line of this post but I can't find it!

But there are 2 others with the title of "Love Will Find a Way" by Pablo Cruise and Lionel Ritchie.

In any event, Love will find a way!

©Laine Quinn 2021 Photo of sunrise with steady waves, one after the other, 09/08/2021

Yes and Yes...

 

Can you be stressed and joyful at the same time?

Worried and happy at the same time?

Yes

and

Yes!

 

It takes some living and loving and forgiving

to arrive at a time in your life

when your emotions balance

without effort.

 

Joy and happiness can rise to the top like bubbles in water.

 

Stress is still stress and worry is still worried,

but they're paired with your innate joy

and they don't eat away your minutes and hours-

your days and nights.

 

The edges are smoothed and softened.

You can still find gladness in the little things

and laugh at your clumsy self.

 

 

 

 

©Laine Quinn 2021, Vilano Beach July 2021.

 

Sometimes...

 

 

Sometimes when I am standing at the water's edge,

looking out over the waves,

I think that I should be having some profound thought

or insight into my life or life in general.

But, I never do.

 

Sometimes I am worried about something.

Sometimes I am not worried!

 

 

Standing there or walking,

loving the wind on my face and the waves bumping into each other

and the low ceiling of clouds moving overhead -

it is enough -

more than enough.

 

Just being there!

Yes,

it is plenty!

 

 

 

 

©LaineQuinn 2020

Waves at Vilano Beach, Egrets and Pelicans and Gulls in the distance and Dolphins and fish swimming below!

 

How Are You Doing?

 

 

It's that time of year -

in a very odd year _

when emotions are raw and memories haunt you.

 

 

 

Riding waves of feelings,

not knowing where they come from,

or why,

or how long,

you hang on.

 

 Storms come and they go,

and you hang on.

You hang on.

 

 

 

 

And they go.

 

 

Life is still life -

imperfectly perfect.

 

Stay safe,

and patient

and perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

©2020 Laine Quinn

Yikes Stripes!

 

Driving over the bridge to the beach the other night

the sky was strikingly -

 

 

striped!

 

 

 

 

From West to East -

stripes!

 

A pending cold front,

I was informed

and sure enough -

that night was our first cold one - dipping into the 30's.

 

Quite a beautiful, remarkable sight!

 

 

 

 

Vilano Beach, St. Augustine, ©2020 LaineQuinn

 

A Gift!

 

 

Out of nowhere

nature paints a rainbow

coming out of the horizon

and it's just sitting there!

 

I see a guy

coming along in the distance,

too far to shout out

but somehow I get his attention

and point to the rainbow

and he

excitedly

gives me a thumbs up!

 

He saw it too!

 

And

then the little rainbow

just

disappeared!

 

 

 

 

 

Vilano Beach, 11/20/2020

©2020 LaineQuinn

 

 

Everyday...

 

Everyday - at least once a day -

Picture your perfect world.

At least once, for a few minutes or more!

Everyday.

 

 

 

 

 

Vilano Beach Reflection, © 2020 Laine Quinn

Change...

 

 

Change is in the air.

Compassion and righteous anger are walking the streets of America with Lady Justice.

There will be no turning back these pages of history ourstory -

no matter what the impeached president says or does.

 

Change is in the air.

This isn't 2 dozen people with automatic weapons

standing on the capitol steps

protesting the lock down because of covid-19.

This is thousands and thousands of peaceful Americans

supporting one another and walking together

to protest the racial inequality that permeates our society.

Protesting militant police who murder innocent people for sport.

 

Change is in the air

and it's not going away.

Police are on notice.

States Attorneys are on notice.

We are watching now.

And we are many.

 

Change is in the air.

Stay vigilant.

Stay safe.

Stay together.

 

 

In 1953, Rachel Carson penned this...

 

"It is one of the ironies of our time that,

while concentrating on the defense of our country against enemies from without,

we should be so heedless of those who would destroy it from within."

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

©Laine Quinn 2020

In Praise of the Ocean...

 

 

"The shore means many things to many people. Of its varied moods

the one usually considered typical is not so at all.

The true spirit does not reside in the gentle surf that laps

a sun drenched bathing beach on a summer day.

Instead, it is on a lonely shore at dawn or twilight,

or in storm or midnight darkness that we sense a mysterious something

that we recognize as the the reality of the sea.

 

 

For the ocean has nothing to do with humanity.

It is supremely unaware of man..."

 

And the ocean was there at the beginnings of life on earth,

spawning all that we know and recognize as our world,

over many many millions of years.

 

 

"Everything in that scene caused me to feel apart,

remembering that the relation of birds to the sea

is rooted in millions of years,

that man came but yesterday."

 

 

 

 

 

Rachel Carson, quoted from the book LOST WOODS The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, edited by Linda Lear.

 

Photos Credit, © Laine Quinn White Crest, Wellfleet Mass.

and Dark Sky, Herring Cove, Provincetown Mass.

and Black Skimmers, Vilano Beach, St. Augustine Fl.

 

 

Trust Your Feelings...

 

(Sea gull wondering if it is safe to join the others...)

 

*"If social distancing needs to be extended long term,

scientists recommend forming an inner circle of uninfected friends and family

that you can rely on

to maintain social bonds..."

 

Some others call this a pod -

forming a pod of trusted friends and family.

 

But when can we do that?

When is it safe -

when the very best thing we can do is to isolate?

 

Listen to your heart...

when it feels okay,

then wait another week!

If it still feels okay,

take small steps.

Go slowly.

Be sure.

 

Trust your feelings.

 

 

 

 

*Quoted from a CNN article by Ryan Prior.

© 2020 Laine Quinn St. Augustine inlet with the Schooner, Freedom and a gaggle of gulls. Or should I say a pod?

 

We Must...

 

It might happen to you,

like it did to me -

when you're singing along to an old sad song

trying to hold it together -

that's when it might hit you -

or in the middle of nowhere

talking to your friend, husband or wife -

it might boil over the top

and then you're crying-

trying not to cry

because you are safe -

you are home.

 

But you cry because others aren't safe

or home -

but are in harm's way -

in the path of an invisible tsunami.

 

 

We must be safe.

We must take care of each other even from a distance.

And we must find ways to release the pressure valve from time to time

and cry if we can.

 

We are all in this together.

For the long haul.

We must be patient.

We must take good care.

We must.

We must.

 

 

 

 

For all of the people on the front lines risking it all to take care of us.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

 

Laine

 

 

 

Waves on the Horizon, © Laine Quinn2019

There Is Hope...

 

There is an interview with the Four Women of "The Squad" on Democracy Now.

After reading the transcript of these four diverse women,

at a time when I was getting very disheartened about the state of the country and the world,

I found HOPE!

 

They are, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,

Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts,

Rashida Tlaib of Michigan

and

Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

These women are on the front lines and they are passionate and positive

and Hopeful!

 

 

So, whatever you do, don't lose Hope.

Hope will get us through.

Love and compassion

and passion for the things we love -

will get us through.

 

 

 

©2020 Laine Quinn, Wild Waves

One of These Days...

 

I'm going to learn to fish!

 

 

Not like the patient and swift Egret, or the people who go out to sea,

no matter the weather.

No, more like the folks standing on the shore patiently casting and reeling in.

 

 

 

But, I never could stomach putting a live worm on a hook

or removing the hook from a struggling fish,

and the thought of killing a living thing - sure a mosquito- but a beautiful fish?

 

No, better that I plant some winter greens and then harvest from the earth in my own backyard.

 

Yes, that sounds more probable.

Yes.

 

 

 

Fishers, at the inlet. © Laine Quinn 2019

Good-bye 2019!

 

Grateful...

 

From the book of poems, BLUE HORSES by Mary Oliver

 

...Bless the words with which I try to say

what I see, think, or feel.

With gratitude for the grace of the earth.

The expected and the exception, both.

For all the hours I have been given to

be in this world.

 

The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird,

the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the

otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And

on and on. It must be a great disappointment

to God if we are not dazzled at least ten

times a day.

...

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

 

 

From the poem Good morning

Egret at the inlet taking flight! ©2019 Laine Quinn

 

St. Augustine Weather...

 

 

Hot and humid one day, foggy the next, rain and then cold after that...

That's our winter,

here in St. Augustine,

warm again now,

in the 70's all week!

 

Not too shabby!

 

 

 

Porpoise Point, Vilano Beach, December 30th, 2018.

©Laine Quinn

 

 

Labor Day at the Beach...

 

 

A Beautiful sunny holiday.

Lots of families out to enjoy the beach,

playing, fishing, reading in the sun.

 

An overheard conversation about Hurricane Harvey -

on people's minds -

and another Hurricane barrelling toward the islands.

 

But life must go on, if we are to make sense of any of it.

Compassion and worry are alive, but so are joy and happiness.

 

Enjoy the moments!

 

 

Labor Day, Porpoise Point, St. Augustine, Florida, 2017

 

A Last Time For Everything...

 

 

Last call, last chance
Last song, last dance
Sometimes you just don't know when that's gonna be
Hold me baby, give me a kiss
Like tonight is all there is
Cause there's a last time for everything

 

It's a Brad Paisley  song that someone mentioned in a piece I found somewhere,

and it stuck with me.

Can we really cherish our days and nights like it's the last time?

 

Why not?

This is our life, our time, our blessings,

why not cherish them always?

 

 

 

"Last Time For Everything", by Brad Paisley.

Sunrise at Vilano Beach, St. Augustine.

 

 

 

Good Morning!

 

 

Good Morning!

Actually,

this was a good night!

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset at The St. Augustine inlet.

Surf's Up...

 

Some really good surfers out this morning,

riding the incoming tide.

 

 

 

 

 

Vilano Beach, 1/12/17.

A New Year

 

Anything can happen!

And hopefully we will all be here at the end of it!

 

Throw caution to the wind?

Why not?

It might just be the thing to do.

 

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset, Porpoise Point, St. Augustine, 2016.

 

 

Winter Solstice

 

 

 

The longest night,

the shortest day,

the light returns,

slowly,

but it returns!

 

Celebrate the dark,

Celebrate the light!

 

Happy Winter Solstice!

 

 

 

 

 

Rolling In...

 

 

Christmas day is almost upon us in much the same way as a beautiful fog bank on the shore.

Sneaking up on some of us,

while others have seen it coming for months.

 

Oh, well, it will burn off before you know it

and all will be well.

 

 

 

 

Just a little bah humbug to go with the fog bank engulfing Vilano Beach this morning!! Happy Holidays!

 

 

 

Egret

 

 

Let the beauty that you love,

be what you do.

 

                                 Rumi

 

 

 

Birds of a Feather...

 

Fish together!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vilano Beach, this morning!

Human, Stork, Egrets.

 

 

Sunset

 

 

Anchored driftwood-

the top completes the bottom

on reflection.

 

 

Yesterday's sunset, yesteryear's tree...St. Augustine Inlet, Vilano Beach.