FIELD NOTES: Give me a break....

WHAAATTT???? 
 

....snow day number seven???

GOT A CAPTION?

FIELD NOTES: Everyone's talking about it....

...winter, that is…particularly this one…as if something ripped open the canopy we call sky at the start of the year and its contents has been hemorrhaging ever since. Going on history, this is usually followed by a rise in temperature and lots of rain. With no rest for the weary, we put down our shovels and took up our tools and machines to remove ice dams and uncover drains and although Mother Nature is still acting as strict as a British nanny, she has also shown temperance, rocking us back and forth between snow and sun, wind and warmth, sparing us the road-closing flooding. But I don’t mind a ‘good hunkering down’ as I did last Sunday night with Chinese take-out of hot & sour soup and vegetable lo-mein in front of PBS’s Nature episode of The Himalayas…spiritually sensual, beautiful, ancient and new, reflective, personal in interpretation, unique. In the act of creating - whether it be written, sung or performed - we strive to produce something unique, but sometimes finding a human collectiveness is just as heady. I noticed the snow level around my house going down, the tops of things vegetable and mineral reappearing, as well as newspapers and fast food containers along the road…and on last night’s Prairie Home Companion, so did Garrison Keillor make note of candy wrappers and trash, the snow shovel you’d thought you’d lost revealing itself on your neighbor’s lawn…we seem to all be finding sunken treasure…

PBS Nature: The Himalayas
Full Episode

FIELD NOTES: Crazy Winter Caption Contest

...can't think of a prize, but just for the fun of it....

Disclaimer: No squirrels were harmed in this photo. It's a plastic solar one from Home Depot that sits in my perennial garden atop a faux-bicycle plant stand.

FIELD NOTES: Speaking of backyard murder-mysteries...

June 23, 2008

...I buried my third squirrel this morning after nearly running over the corpse with the lawn mower. The neighbors must wonder what I keep yelping about because I just can’t help reacting loudly when discovering some sort of crime or violation. Not two weeks ago, I saw something white in the lengthening backyard grass. I wondered what it was; maybe a bag blown into our yard? Upon inspection, my son and daughter inside the house heard my yelping: AAAKH! Oh oh oh oh oh! AAAKH! The white was the underside of a squirrel belly-up on the lawn. My eyes trailed up the ancient oak trees where a labyrinth of dead and dying branches exists and I thought perhaps, like the first squirrel I think I wrote about some time ago, he had fallen from the weak canopy. So today, shovel in hand again, I went to dig a hole at the back of the lawn where brush and leaves are left to mulch naturally and discovered the grave of squirrel number two had been breached. Ah, the animal world, driven by a combination of self-preservation, compulsion, survival and instinct rather than morals. And yet, not always so very different from our own as my active mind raises its inner eyebrow…did these squirrels fall…or were they pushed??

FIELD NOTES

You glance out the window and see a squirrel; someone walks past you or stands next to you; you are waiting at the drive-thru in the rain; you are driving a long distance: a dialogue goes on in your head whether you are aware of it or not. If we are pre-conditioned about what is supposed to be 'important', it will leave our consciousness like sand through a sieve. But place a pan underneath the sieve (or a note pad in our hands) and we may find a treasure. Trying to capture that, I come to this place out of a sense of obligation; an obligation to record what I see (and sense), to translate into words and images what I believe is often missed in the otherwise ordinary passing of days. It is an obligation to notice what it is like to be alive at this very moment rather than being defined by how I choose (or am bound) to make ends meet every month and how impressive a resume I can build. According to averages (and genetics) this may be the second half of my life – more or less. For my purposes here, approaching each entry as just that - one entry – is a haven not only from deadlines, but expectations as well; it is a freedom that feels like doodling in the margins or drawing with sidewalk chalk. Each day I look forward to finding something to write down. My notes land here, for the most part, ‘as is’ - no plot or teacherly story web or writing diamond; they meander, they float, they drift, the only conclusion they will have will be themselves. As writing samples, they may be quirky, but perhaps quirks are the random breezes (the ones that move a wind chime, lift a wing or nod a sunflower's head) among the prescriptions, self-help and motivational ‘secrets’ that load store shelves. A good scientist goes into the field with hypotheses, not results. A good writer develops character before conclusion. A good artist observes before interpreting. Each day we are compelled to survive, we must forage, hunt, gather and defend, but that is not all that is striking, that is not all that is sensual or brilliant or unusual, that is not what I most need you to know about me. Pretend you have just seated yourself on a bench, next to me. If you don’t know me, then pretend you do. If you do know me, then pretend you don’t. Sit beside me without the urge to fill in the silences and wait, just wait. Maybe we’ll notice something. Together.