In Leaf
Nature, at her very best.
This entry was posted in Beauty, creative writing, grace, Gratitude, humanity, inspiration, nature, New York City, words, writing and tagged Mother nature, New York Architecture, Prewar Buildings, The Upper East Side of New York. Bookmark the permalink.
Aww, Susannah. The beauty of this post brought tears to my eyes. Pookie wanted to know what was wrong. I love how tuned in you are to your surroundings.
I’ve read every Agatha Christie novel at least four or five times and never came across the phrase ‘in leaf’. Or if I did, glossed over it. So simple, yet so perfect.
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I’ve been reading Nancy Mitford, now on my 5th novel, and she uses it. it’s lovely, isn’t it?
Don’t cry Skinny. Pookie won’t let you read me anymore, and where would I be, without the Skinny. 🙂
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You touch people’s lives when just walking down the street! I’m glad he appreciated the golden moment.
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He was young and leggy, like a deer striding down the street. Imagine Bambi, in a turban. 🙂
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That would take a lot of imagination.
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I just meant, there was a naturalness to him, how he looked and moved. Like wildlife.
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He must have been stunning.
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He was, like a young maharajah.
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Loved the flow of this story. Thanks for sharing Susannah!
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Isn’t it a pretty phrase? In leaf. We can be in leaf. 🙂
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This is a play it forward, O’Henry, In Leaf story. Let’s hope the young man presents that leaf to someone and in doing so makes their day. Thanks for sharing a peaceful story, Susannah.
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He was so pleased. Imagine, a leaf. Humbling, to say the least.
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I’ll tell you what. If a thin, attractive, Audrey Hepburn looking, woman in a mask handed me a leaf I would sure do the same. Who know might have been an angel. 😊
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An angel in baggy running shorts whose wings could use an oil change. 🙂
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A reality spin on the fact that he still took the leaf. Angel is as angel does. 😁
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I’m more an urban angel I guess, at least at that hour. 🙂
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Urban guerilla angel. 😁
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I like that. I remember when Fredrick Law Olmstead put up what he called, a peasant angel, atop Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. New Yorkers had a fit, because she wasn’t your standard model, and now, she’s a showstopper…the belle of the Park, with wings. 🙂
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Designed by Emma Stebbins, the first woman to have a major commission in New York.
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I didn’t know that. Thanks. What a great sounding name. Emma Stebbins.
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I know right. Sounds like someone who would be wearing spurs.
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It rolls right off your tongue, doesn’t it?
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“Howdy son. The name’s Stebbens. Emma Stebbens. I’m looking for the sheriff. Where’d he git to?”
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She has a Miss Kitty hairdo and a hitch in her gidd-along…to quote Tennessee Ernie Ford, on I Love Lucy.
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Don’t forget the .44 hanging on her hip.
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And that money tucked in her rather ample …dress…
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And the flask in her garter.
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And those short calve length boots, you could hear clickin on the saloon floor, despite the sawdust.
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By golly I think we have a western.
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John, I just saw you swaggering out that saloon door.
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Well, it is high noon after all. 😊
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And you were accompanied by Gary. 🙂
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And the theme music 🎶 Do not forsake me oh my darling on this our wedding day.🎶
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Will someone play it on a banjo ya think?
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Yes and a guitar as accompanyment. Here you go https://youtu.be/5sLwPziSznU
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You’re a riot.
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😁
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What a wonderful share, Susannah. He definitely saw what you saw and, as John said, maybe he will do the same for someone else.
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It’s what you see, each and every time, you stop to take a photograph.
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You know… this is rather true. Now what am I going to share tomorrow?
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I’m looking forward to whatever it is. 🙂
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😊
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We must remember to look around us, to see the beauty of the ever changing landscapes in which we find ourselves. Cities and countryside have beauty within them. The beauty may be different, and seen differently, but it remains beauty nonetheless. The number of people who travel to the city and stare at their feet, or worse still, at their mobile is saddening. Look up, look around see the things that make, shake and break the city.
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And the phone shall inherit the earth. SIGH
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Sadly I believe it already both inherits and rules the earth. So much beauty, and most of it isnt contained in a screen measuring 4″ x 5″ or so.
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I’m always alarmed when I see kids with phones, even very young ones. Where’s Babar these days, and the Hardy Boys? Imagine growing up with Twitter but not Huckleberry Finn? Makes me very sad for them.
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SB
This story is brimming with symbolism, of a most hopeful hue. I love his reaction to your gift of the leaf. Now you take a simple exchange such as this and you multiply it an eighth of the world’s population and that HAS to engender some positive echos, wouldn’t you just think?
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Yes, I would think. He was so gentle, the way he responded. It resonated, into words. 🙂
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It DOES resonate. And now the Melville Files has another one . . resonate
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That is a nice word, isn’t it. Evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions, according to Webster. 🙂
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Peaceful beauty, like this essay of yours
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You’re makin me swoon Mr. Imma…or are the rising temps, tempting me to do so. 🙂
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That’s what happens when moon meets croon . . and the rising temps play ride along.
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Now you’re writing jazzy poetry.
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It’s the only kind of poetry I can get away with. 🙂
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Bebop…scat…Ella and Billy, Cab , Mr. Armstrong .and Mr. Imma. 🙂
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I so enjoyed that. It was like flowers I didn’t expect. A bouquet of horns.
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It’s always nice to be surprised.
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Have you ever read, Why Sinatra Matters, by Pete Hamill? If you haven’t, I’m pretty sure you’d love it. So would Midget. It opens at P.J Clarkes Saloon. Sinatra is holding court in the back room, while he croons on the jukebox, told in that inimitable, Hamill way…shades of Runyon streaking across the page. 🙂
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I have. And for that very reason, as I read about it, I think in the Times way back when. PJ Clarkes was the center of the whos NY universe.
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It’s still there, like a little jewel box sitting on a corner.
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The stories that joint could tell
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If those bar stools could talk.
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They’d be cashing in on a big advance . . .
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They’d take their show on the road.
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And then there’d be the movie rights . . .
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and we’d see them on Late Night.
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No doubt
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Thanks for sharing your moment with the leaves. It makes me want to take a walk outside.
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They’re so perfectly made…even on all sides. the stems, long with just the right amount of sway. I remember as a kid, putting them between wax paper, and passing an iron over them, to keep. A New England thing, I guess.
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We did it as well on the west coast.
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I remember it fondly. A kids thing. 🙂
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I hope he saw your heart of gold.
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Now I’m humming that Neil Young. 🙂
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Beauty hides in the obscure. Trees are habitat, fractal, filter, primordial, musical.
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Nicely put. 🙂
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I imagine that leaf being Hope, just taking a rest on the stoop while waiting patiently to be lifted and carried on.
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That’s a pretty statement, if I’ve ever heard one.
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