Sun and Moon and Mirrors

We celebrated our first anniversary in our new home at the very end of June. It was the first year of our retirement. If the truth be told, I actually continued to work for the university in California by telecommuting and iSight technology, through the end of February 2005. I also crazily found a part-time job at the local wooden boatbuilding school, but that only lasted three months. When someone says I think you may be over-qualified for this job--believe them. Boredom kills the spirit.
So, retirement really began in March. That's when I started to slow down and look around. Seeing is a talent that must be nurtured. Hurrying makes a blur of everything. If I had to rise at 6:00 am to get to the office by 8:00, I would have missed the sunrise of the spring equinox as it poured through our east facing bedroom window and turned the white west wall gold and pink. We hung a mirror where the sun shone in and hoped to catch its actual rosy light in reflection. It worked, and we watched many spring sunrises from our bed, as it was reflected in the mirror. The sun makes a large arc up here in the northwest, so it moved quickly beyond our mirror tricks and headed toward the window where it shines directly through on summer solstice. I hadn't thought much about the mirror and the sun for a while, until the other night when something surprising and wonderful happened. The full moon leapt into the mirror and shone in on us. Now we're waiting for the harvest moon, to see if we can catch it looking at itself like Narcissus in his pond.