The Cure for Anything

The wind had been blowing through me, and the sun shining in me.  What a glorious weekend this has been. My favorite day of the year, the summer solstice, was yesterday. I soaked up every wonderful moment of sunlight. I love these long summer days. They make me ridiculously happy. The sky seems bluer, the foliage green, the clouds puffier.

It was a beautiful night last night to hear the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra play Gershwin. I’m looking forward to several of their performances this year, including the Glen Miller Orchestra night. My beloved grandma used to play big band music for me.  She had this beautiful mid-century console stereo record player that was bigger than a sofa. The scratch of the needle on a record can still take me back to Saturday evenings at her house. She’d play Tommy Dorsey’s Green Eyes for me.

My maternal grandparents, circa 1937. My grandfather died a year after I was born. I think he was such a dapper looking man. Dapper. We don’t use that word much anymore, but it probably doesn’t apply to many men anymore.

I don’t have many photos of him because he was always behind the camera, not in front of it. That’s a Brownie camera in his hand in this photo. I like to hope that I got some of my love of photography and passion for life from him. I like to think that I got some of her fierceness, her ability to love deeply, and her strong independence.