Photo Credit: Dr. T. Michael Maher

Welcome to Bienvenu, the Blogspot “room” for sherylcornett.com. Bienvenu, as I’m sure many know, is French for Welcome. So, entrée s’il vous plait, to this virtual living room.

During Covid-Tide, as it shall hereafter be called, my husband and I learned along with much of the world that, while we went long stretches without in-person visits, we could keep up virtually with beloved family, friends, professional and vocational communities, with our church and T-Mike’s Rotary Club.

These screen-side face-to-face gatherings are not the same as in-the-flesh, but they made such a difference in staying connected beyond the pandemic-cloistering, that it has become part of our new normal.

Now that we are in the habit of zoom visits and other “chat” formats, we keep up regularly with our adorable “grands” 1,000 miles away, and friends across the country and around the world.

With some loved ones we’ve kept in better touch than before Covid-Tide, because we’re all less busy-busy. That’s a note-to-self I’m keeping front and center.

My hope is that Bienvenu will keep us, readers, writers, foodies and friends in touch, however that might unfold. I’ll post regularly—as calendar and life allow—about recipes, gardens, forests, book reviews, adventures, and the joys and challenges of the natural world.

As I write this first Bienvenu in summertime, hurricane season is upon us in North Carolina and South Louisiana. This can mean power outages, roof damage, and much worse. With two deep freezers full of garden produce plus T-Mike’s Gulf of Mexico harvests of shrimp, fish, and crab this can be nerve-wracking. To say the least. Compared to losses suffered by so many, especially after 2020’s Hurricanes Laura and Delta, this freezer angst is small potatoes.  But it is a challenge of the natural world and considerable concern for our sustainable, self-sufficient life-design. We are doing our part for the environment, to be more producers than consumers, as the adage has it.

There is also the joy of nature’s abundant beauty, enfolding and uplifting us, for which I’m daily grateful. So, to close this first post of Bienvenu, I leave you with my poem “Cathedral,” an earlier version of which was published in May of 2021 in The Blue Heron Review. Merci Beaucoup to editor Cristina Norcross for selecting it!

Cathedral: Arc of the Covenant

After Rodin’s 1908 Sculpture on Exhibit at North Carolina Museum of Art

Like a Louisiana allée, live oaks’ twining fingers

Make a canopy of heart and hope. The work

Of human hands, yes, and also of

The intimacy in Natura Divina.

A sabbath of the earth, chapel

Of sky and sea, where waves call

To waves from the songs of the deep.

When two or more are gathered,

In breaking bread and conversation,

Sheltering in place near these tree-hands

of life and love, we become Kairos—

A cathedral in the presence of each other.