Deeanne Gist - www.deeannegist.com - Inspirational Romance Author

Monday, May 29, 2006

In The Eye of the Beholder

My local critique group calls themselves LiT: Life in Translation and I am the new kid on the block. They had been meeting for two years when I started attending this past September.

At that time, two of their four were moving--one to Dallas and another to Missouri. Now, a third member, Allison Smythe, is also moving, leaving me and Mark Bertrand--one of the original four. Thursday was Allison's last meeting and I will miss her so much. She is an incredible talent, poet and friend.

In anticipation of her move, Allison, Mark and I and our spouses went out for a night

of fun and fellowship. We started our sojourn at The Friends Meeting House, a quiet little building in the heart of Houston that opens up to the public once every week. They have a retractable section of their ceiling that they open at sunset. The visitors sit in wooden pews arranged in a square and watch as the sky turns from light-blue to royal-blue to midnight-blue to black.

What makes this experience so unique is that you are watching God's artwork through a frame. It's like hitting the zoom button on your computer and watching one little pixel of a gigantic film. Everything is magnified, intensified, enhanced: the nuances of a cloud as it moves and stretches across the sky, leaving tiny fragments of itself behind like puzzle pieces breaking away from the main picture. A single black bird winging past. A thin jet vapor far, far away slashing the atmosphere with its mark. The pink of the sunset gilding the western edges of the clouds.

But the most amazing thing was watching the sky darken one teeny shade at a time, until all was black. It was so magnificent. So beautiful. So awe-inspiring.

When it was time to head to dinner, we got into our separate cars. My heart was so full. My husband (the jock) shut my door, went around, got into the driver's seat and said, "I've done some stupid things in my life, but that's right up there at the top of the list."

I sat stunned for one horrified moment, before bursting into laughter. No matter how much I tried to explain to him the glory of what he had just witnessed, he would not be convinced.

He kept shaking his head. "Wait til I tell the boys at work about this."

Dinner with our friends was wonderful and included a piano man who asked for requests. And what does my jock request? Strangers in the Night. I started chuckling and the piano man asked me why I laughed. I confessed that Greg often sings it to me, but he does it in a goofy way that always makes me laugh.

So, in the middle of the song, he hollers to my husband: "Sing it to her!"

The problem is ... he only knows the first stanza. All the others, he makes up. So, he sang his two lines and then had to do the la-la-la-la thing. Mark & Laurie, Allison & Wayne were no help at all. They totally left him hanging. After some good natured ribbing, the piano man gave up on us.

It was one of those nights that resonates and is kept tucked in one's memory for safe keeping. The company was great, the conversation fun, the food yummy.

Goodbye, Allison. We shall miss you. Thank the Lord that you will only be a "mouse click" away.

posted by Deeanne at 9:21 AM

4 Comments:

Barb said...: Ha! Leave it to Mr Greg to keep things lite! Did he ever go for his pedicure? Can he dance while he sings?
Deeanne said...: He did go for the pedicure we gave him for his birthday. He waited until the week the gift certificate expired, then told me he'd pay me to go with him. Ha! How could I refuse? So, we got his and hers pedicures.

He thinks he can dance ... just like he thinks he can sing. ;-)
Barb said...: Wonder if he'll do the pedicure thing again? Wonder if he's reading your blog today???
Tiff/Amber Miller said...: Heehee, your dh sounds like the two older of my 3 brothers. I'm sandwiched right in the middle of them. Something like that would bore them to tears. Now, the baby brother? He'd like it and talk about how "cool" it was. He's the artist in the family.