Red Light - Green Light

When I was a young woman I visited my parent's house one summer, my two little girls with me. It was a cottage home, small, but cute. It rested within a beach front community in Youngstown, New York, located at the mouth of the Niagara River where it joins Lake Ontario. The beach sat down below a cliff, which we had access by stairs.

In the daytime, we could look across a great expanse of shimmering water. It felt so peaceful. Sometimes there were sailboats afloat. Occasionally, if we looked out far enough, we could see an occasional freighter ship running through the middle of the lake on it's way out to the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean.

On a clear night my girls and I could sit at the edge of the cliff on the top step of the stairs, and view the black velvet water, thousands of stars sprinkled across it like sparkles glued upon a Halloween costume.

Without binoculars, straight across from us, about 40 miles away, we could see the lights of the city of Toronto, Canada. We often sat there lulled by the quietness of the starlight, the lapping of the water upon the shore, and the light breeze rustling the leaves on the huge oak tree in the back yard.

We could have lined a string directly across the lake to the brightly lit traffic signal that reliably changed every few minutes from green to red to yellow to green. It was hypnotic.



Photo of Toronto at Night by Richard Almasi

Defining Meanderings

Meandering along the misty shore, my mind wanders, my body leading.

I think meanderings is a good description of how my mind works, and how my life has occurred.

I googled
Define: Meanderings

and these were the definitions of meandering on the Web:

* meandering(a): of a path e.g.; "meandering streams"; "rambling forest paths"; "the river followed its wandering course"; "a winding country road"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* An instance or period or roaming; winding or rambling
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meandering

* meander - a bend or curve, as in a stream or river
* meander - weave: to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course; "the river winds through the hills"; "the path meanders through the vineyards"; "sometimes, the gout wanders through the entire body"
* meander - ramble: an aimless amble on a winding course
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* Meanders - A meander in general is a bend in a sinuous watercourse. A meander is formed when the moving water in a river erodes the outer banks and widens ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanders

* Meander - In mathematics, a meander or closed meander is a self-avoiding closed curve which intersects a line a number of times. Intuitively, a meander can be viewed as a road crossing a river through a number of bridges.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meander_(mathematics)

* Meander or Maiandros is a river-god in Greek mythology, patron deity of the Meander river (modern Büyük Menderes River) in Caria, southern Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He is one of the sons of Oceanus and Tethys, and is the father of Cyanee, Samia and Kalamos.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meander_(mythology)

* Meander is Carbon Leaf's first album. It was released in 1995 by the band's own label, Constant Ivy Records.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meander_(album)

* Meander - In art and architecture, a meander is a decorative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated motif. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meander_(art)

* meander - A winding, crooked, or involved course; as, the meanders of an old river; A tortuous or intricate movement; Fretwork; To wind, turn, or twist; to ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Meander

* Greek Maiandrosz, now Menderes, winding river on the west coast of Asia Minor Vigorous river bend, firstly as a result of the sidling erosion.
twisterrob.uw.hu/peq/eng/szoj.htm

* meander - "with the meanders of the stream" means the survey line follows the twists and turns of the stream.
www.directlinesoftware.com/survey.htm

* following a winding or intricate course
www.windowsintowonderland.org/wolves2/glossary.shtml

* meander - a turn or winding area of a stream
montereybay.noaa.gov/educate/teachercurriculum/glossary.html

Though these definitions describe many kinds of meandering. I thought it interesting that the way the ocean kisses the shore was not a part of the definitions.