On a walk at the reservoir, I came upon this tree decorated in the woods hung with bird feeders and ornaments with the names of loved ones, including pets. A woman came by and I asked if she knew about the tree. She said it was the third year that people have spontaneously done this. She hung an ornament for her Mom and we stood for many moments watching little birds feeding. This is why we are on this planet. To feed each other.

 

 

Lafayette Reservoir, Lafayette CA 

NOW REPORTING FROM THE WEST COAST!

I thought it coincidental to see that one year ago today was the last time I posted! I am now "conneCTing" on new terrain...farewell CT and hello CA!

 

 

 

THROUGH THE WINDOW: Haiku

In the First Frosty Dawn I Lie

Birdsong prevails, but.....
separate (by pane and sash)
- the windows! - all shut.

FIELD NOTES: In search of good views...

...on an October day in Litchfield County...

...finding a few nuts in the woods,

getting a little tangled up on the trails...

but finding a new home,

that fits ME!

then getting back to where I still need to be...

while finding a few funny critters along the way...

and some that turn their backsides to me, too!...

while leading me back to a favorite place...

ah, nostalgic New England...and the beginning is the same as the end...

....Lover's Leap State Park.

FIELD NOTES: When you feel like walking away from everything...

...first, you buy good boots...

...and it doesn't hurt to buy matching shades to walk into the sunset...

FIELD NOTES: I needed a sanctuary....

Stone Church, Dover Plains NY

 

This is what I see above me....

...and behind me.

...

I am inside the stone church...womb-like...

FIELD NOTES: I see myself...

What Next? Haiku

I can scale walls, but
I sometimes tire looking for
the next toehold. Rest?

Good Morning, New Neighbor!

Lived here since 1993. First time I've seen a fox sitting in my backyard...

...guess it's not very interesting here.

FIELD NOTES: Haiku

Spring White

Vernal equinox?
Celebrate spring's arrival:
dismiss school early.

FIELD NOTES: Give me a break....

WHAAATTT???? 
 

....snow day number seven???

FIELD NOTES: Through the Window

Listening to the wind...

...On an average Sunday morning, I might put light jazz on Pandora. Today, some might describe the wind as howling, but it is not howling. It is continuously crashing over the house like an ocean of wind, surging up the snow - bone dry from the extreme cold - like a sand storm and reminding the window frames of where their cracks are. So I need to be quiet….and write. The sun is in its usual place, but odd white clouds and snow dust wrap around it like a mummy’s cloth. It is blindfolded, beaming without the benefit of sight, using the branches on the towering locust trees like long bony fingers groping for something to hold on to. A few birds make a run at the feeder, perching on the railing, taking off like skilled fighter jets when the time is right. How are they out there? If it were me, just wearing feathers, I would die! But out there they are…and with plenty of company. The snow cover is not pristine; it is crisscrossed with a collection of tracks like Grand Central Station. There is a raccoon living on a shelf in the shed. A woodpecker flew out of a hole in the side of the house. I sometimes hear scratching in the attic from mice. I am a reluctant Dr. Doolittle. The violence of nature often draws me in, like a voyeur, but only when I know I am safe. I like to press my palm against a cold window and feel how thin it is. Right now….I see my whitened landscape as the direct opposite of desert on the other side of the world. Could I just flip it like an hourglass? I suddenly feel as dry as the desert – the furnace keeps running after escaped heat, the indoor air is static, my plants are brittle, my throat is dry, my skin is dry, my muscles cramp because in the absence of heat, we have all forgotten to drink! I listen to the wind unceremoniously taking down the things I once meticulously set up and I can’t do anything about it. I am physically apart from much of what I want, but I have sensed that the universe in general is through testing my patience and is stirring, preparing to reintegrate into something extraordinary.

FIELD NOTES: Heart transplant...

My daughter got married in Seattle today...

FIELD NOTES: What a difference a day makes in CT...

Storm David

Friday

Saturday

FIELD NOTES: Of a different sort....

Shutting Out Joy Prolongs Despair 

     Singular snowflakes fell in playful flurry, red cardinals fluffed up at the feeder and the school hallways smelled cookie-sweet. It had happened to Scrooge and George Bailey and The Grinch. No matter how they tried to suppress, ignore or squelch goodwill, it still came back to the surface.
     Although I have always been able to find roses among thorns, it has been more challenging here, near Newtown, Connecticut, being a teacher of young children. Just before Christmas break, the Mayan calendar threatened and closed school a day too early. We were cheated further. And we continue to cheat ourselves.  
     I recently had to call a neighbor and because my number was unknown to their caller ID, the phone was answered with a relay of whispered “who-is-its?” It struck me. Is this a side effect of technology? Are we now conditioned to be suspicious of any ringing phone or doorbell because it must be pre-screened? I am not criticizing. I am in the mix. I am Pavlov’s dog. 
     It is no longer possible to walk into work and exchange pleasantries or selectively share information because thanks to social media, we all know what we’ve been doing on the weekend. It is deflating to regularly be answered with ‘yeah, I already know that’. Are we evolving into people with strong fingers, but weak voices? Do we constantly want the ‘next big thing’ because we cheat ourselves out of those small, daily discoveries? Do we have so much information about each other that we really don’t know ourselves at all? Have we turned into the ubiquitous car alarm that is so commonplace no one pays attention to it anymore?
     In fact, after Newtown, I can’t walk into my workplace any more. I arrived early for a staff security meeting with officials from the town police department to which I had been invited, but since I am employed by an outside education agency, I cannot be issued a key card. There is a buzzer and a security camera. I buzzed three times. I knocked. I watched other school employees proceed to the library for the meeting, but they weren’t authorized to let me in even though I have been affiliated with the school in some manner since 1993. I understood, but it also struck me that if I had anger issues…or an undetected mental condition…or a sledge hammer or…a gun…on that day…I still could have gotten in quicker.
    I’ll absorb as much technology as my aging brain can handle. I wouldn’t go back to my days of pounding a Smith-Corona, toting around a hefty dictionary and getting paper cuts in the library card catalogs. That was the ‘old normal’. But the ‘new normal’ needs more than the random acts of kindness that most editors and commentators have been wishing us for the New Year. I am not a fan of that catchphrase, though I appreciate its sentiment, because I should like to see it refined. As most people around here, I have been asking myself why. Not only why do bad things happen, but why do good things happen, too. What motivates my kindness?
     It has been acknowledged that giving makes us feel good about ourselves. Nothing wrong with that. They need. We give. They get. We glow. A happy cycle revolves. But I have been wondering about more. It’s almost time for Turbo Tax. What happens when I check off that I donated to NPR, the local emergency services, the library and Goodwill, among others? Should acts of kindness be random? I won’t take up space with a recitation from Dictionary.com on the many uses of the word random, but the Slang section is food for thought if you’re interested. My wish for the New Year and beyond, are the dictionary antonyms for random: constant and conscious.
     By profession, I am a teacher, but I write more as a student than as an educator because I am grateful for what I have learned from those I have met along the way. In one of my early office jobs, I thought one woman aggressive, overtly ambitious and curt. When I learned she had a non-life-threatening medical condition that was inconvenient and sometimes painful, it improved my demeanor and hers as well. I never pre-judged again. As a young working wife and mother, I did a lot of housekeeping and anticipated compliments. You can guess that did not happen, but when I looked at it differently, my satisfaction improved. I take my shoes off when I walk in the door and enjoy clean floors for yoga and large art projects, so I reasoned to take pleasure in cleaning the floor for me. If there were residual benefits for my family, then all the better. I was no longer doing it for them, I was doing it for us. My mood lightened, as it does to this day, when I mop.
    Yes, conscious acts of kindness. Conscious that I am doing it for the greater good and for unanticipated return. And I do mean unanticipated, from me to you to the guy next door to the cable company to Congress. No tax deduction, no cup of coffee, no name in the church bulletin or on a plaque, no brownie points, no votes, no pork, no dividends or personal profits, not even so much as a thank you from my spouse. I may in fact get all these things – they are pretty little trimmings that do make life more pleasant - but do not let that be my unconscious motivation or cause for my disappointment or my deposit of guilt. And the nastier someone is to me, I will be all the kinder back. Maybe they are having a bad day. Maybe they will pay it forward. Maybe they have a gun.

FIELD NOTES: Goodbye to summer friends...

...Sunday morning at the flea market...backyard at the grill...a glass of evening wine with jazz at the bistro set on the deck outside the kitchen...or...just keepin' cool around the house...& garden...snipping chives & mint...during one-too-humid-summer-spent-waiting-for-a-breath-of-fresh-air...

FIELD NOTES: On the last Blue Moon...

...on the eve of 2010...I sorted decades of fabric leftovers into swatches, promising that perhaps I would turn the scraps into a work of art on the next Blue Moon...nice idea, but it came on Friday night...at an inconvenient convergence: the end overlapping the beginning...summer/fall/last month bills/next month bills/school/work...as difficult to sort as the last Blue Moon's bin of remnants...a lean summer equals too much month at the end of the money...head to table...and then I remembered the moon...I positioned the summer's lounge to face the blue light, scooped up the sleeping bag cast aside on the basement couch, grabbed my bed pillow and gloriously mooned until midnight...I didn't want to give in to inside slumber...why hadn't I planned a party?...the next Blue Moon won't be until 2015...plenty of notice to plan that party now...and you are invited!

Web photos from around the world.

FIELD NOTES: Terrifyingly beautiful...

A perfect 10 day...no one available...or awake!...so jumped in the car myself...went to my favorite nearby beach...Silver Sands State Park...80 degrees on sand/in surf...low tide...full sandbar out to Charles Island...treasure hunters on a Sunday afternoon...all before the opening of a new school year...teachers, coaches, grandparents surround me...a coconut-scented breeze swirls their memoirs and hopes around me...anniversary of strong woman names Katrina/Irene/Victoria(my mother's death)...the summer day I have been wanting?...and...the last?...or...full circle...

HAIKU: Bee-sotted at sunrise...

                   Vine jiggles! I dash -

                   get paper - make coffee. He

                   ...sating......self.........proper.

GOT A CAPTION?

FIELD NOTES: Between a rock & a hard place...

...or a post & a shingle... A sound had puzzled us for days...not only was it a high-pitched whirl that was loud for small, backyard nature, but we couldn't figure out where it was coming from...Chip is known to scurry around the back patio, under the deck and in between the planters, but this trill was high up...yet not avian...I couldn't see anyone on the roof, so it was someone small enough to hide in plain sight...I wondered if a chipmunk was capable of 'throwing' his voice like a ventriloquist?...I settled on that thin hypothesis only because I needed a reason to quell my curiosity. One noonday I lunched at my bistro and in my daydream, the answer caught my eye! There was a mottled gray lump wedged between the deck post and the house...it had a inflated throat which I later Googled to find was a vocal sac that acts like the hollow wood on a guitar amplifying the sound of the strings, or the sound of an echo in a large cave, projecting it across long distances! It's satisfying to solve a mystery... Read more: How Does a Toad Croak?

Listen to a toad!