Winter Solstice
...is what it says on my Old Farmer’s Almanac gardening calendar today. Small comfort when outside my window our second dose of snow falls. First it was Austin and now it is Brooke laying a blanket of snow. Sheets of snow thud from the trees like miniature avalanches. On Friday, the stores were bereft of bread and milk, as if we would never get out again. Instead of a walk, there will be shoveling and scraping. I hear the voices of the neighbor boys, the voices that aren’t concerned with ramifications and exhaustion other than how long they can romp outside before they have to go to the bathroom - a play-consuming effort best avoided. I still remember that ‘oh, goody’ feeling of seeing the snow piling up and school cancellations. Here in Connecticut we used to have a showing of ‘Snowbound Theater’ that featured some old black and white movie (like “Heidi” with Shirley Temple) to keep us amused while Mother worked around the house. That was in the days before cable television and videos, Velcro and lightweight polar fleece, microwave popcorn and Cream of Wheat in a pouch. In some ways winter was heavier then…but lighter in our hearts…
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
FIELD NOTES: Hey, that can in the woods looks familiar!
Through the kitchen window
...it’s the one that I keep on the deck, handle locked and bungee corded! It’s still lightweight because I haven’t filled it up yet with a fresh forty pounds of black oil sunflower seeds…and someone just couldn’t wait. The wild ones have carted it off and made fun with the lid like kids in a cookie jar. The first snowstorm is predicted today – a BIG one – possibly followed by another, so I should haul the can back, clean off the dirt clods, load the feeder and hang the suet cage as soon as I can. When the snow does come, I will be entertained by the chickadee and cardinal, nuthatch and tufted titmouse, junco and wren, sparrow and yes…even the blue jay…and woodpecker…and squirrel. There is no point in being angry with instincts and clever survival skills…after all, if you open up a “soup kitchen”, they will come. I verbally fuss about the deck being a mess with excrement and shells...but I think what I am more annoyed about, is that I failed to wake up to the racket and gypped myself out of watching their antics…
...it’s the one that I keep on the deck, handle locked and bungee corded! It’s still lightweight because I haven’t filled it up yet with a fresh forty pounds of black oil sunflower seeds…and someone just couldn’t wait. The wild ones have carted it off and made fun with the lid like kids in a cookie jar. The first snowstorm is predicted today – a BIG one – possibly followed by another, so I should haul the can back, clean off the dirt clods, load the feeder and hang the suet cage as soon as I can. When the snow does come, I will be entertained by the chickadee and cardinal, nuthatch and tufted titmouse, junco and wren, sparrow and yes…even the blue jay…and woodpecker…and squirrel. There is no point in being angry with instincts and clever survival skills…after all, if you open up a “soup kitchen”, they will come. I verbally fuss about the deck being a mess with excrement and shells...but I think what I am more annoyed about, is that I failed to wake up to the racket and gypped myself out of watching their antics…
Sunday, December 7, 2008
FIELD NOTES: When I heard the snowplow in the early morning...
Afternoon, top of December
...I thought about being able to take my first snowy walk of the season, easy to think of in a warm, cozy bed on a Sunday morning. But when I do get to Harrybrooke at three with the temp on the dashboard reading 33, I am surprised by a powerful slap of wind and consider turning back. Not wanting to be a fair weather friend, I think “maybe, just once around” and doesn’t the ice trimming the waters’ edge look beautiful…like white lace? Then my stiffened cheeks mound up at the sight of a tiny snowman atop the post that holds up a small metal trash can. There is playfulness in winter, though the brisk wind continues to test my friendship as the huge white pines swoop down to flap at me like some fraternity initiation. The wind sounds vast and hollow and searching. The earth has turned one cheek away from the sun. Through cold-induced tears, I blink up at the sun that is no longer a radiant sunflower yellow, but so pale that if a sunbeam were to reach me, it would break over my head like a thin pane of ice. Over the river and through the bare trees, the flags on the golf course still standing in their holes bring soldiers to mind – so incredibly dutiful in their discomfort. I pass a few hearty souls…women walking…the passing greetings are less warm and more earnest, mostly an acknowledgment of what we must continue to do. I walk by a pair of lanky, layered, knit-capped figures blending in with the tree trunks…except for the cigarette and cell phone. A different purpose. After one mile around the park, the wind calms for a moment and, as if I have proven my mettle, Harrybrooke grasps me with steely arms, acknowledging my admiration, my respect and…that I am still here. My fingertips are warm now; the blood circulates under my frozen outer core like the mud of hibernating ponds. I feel as if I have been swallowed into the warm belly of a beast, welcomed now, although my body’s survival strategies are not nearly as ingenious as the frog’s with its antifreeze and adaptable metabolism that allows it to sleep winter away. The only sound today is a rhythmic whacking – firewood being split? In the periphery I see the movement of two sweatshirt hooded figures on a back deck. I guess it’s the whack of a staple gun installing Christmas lights – more dutiful discomfort. I have to watch my step on the way out; the wet pavement is icing up before me. Returned to my car, I find I don’t really need to crank up the heat because, except for my exposed face feeling like a drawstring is tightening around it, in the warmer interior there is enough contrast to feel the comfort. I am a lucky one; I can choose to survive this climate, I can choose to challenge myself in the cold because…I am not homeless, because there is certain warmth awaiting me. Really, I am only toying with survival …at least for today….
...I thought about being able to take my first snowy walk of the season, easy to think of in a warm, cozy bed on a Sunday morning. But when I do get to Harrybrooke at three with the temp on the dashboard reading 33, I am surprised by a powerful slap of wind and consider turning back. Not wanting to be a fair weather friend, I think “maybe, just once around” and doesn’t the ice trimming the waters’ edge look beautiful…like white lace? Then my stiffened cheeks mound up at the sight of a tiny snowman atop the post that holds up a small metal trash can. There is playfulness in winter, though the brisk wind continues to test my friendship as the huge white pines swoop down to flap at me like some fraternity initiation. The wind sounds vast and hollow and searching. The earth has turned one cheek away from the sun. Through cold-induced tears, I blink up at the sun that is no longer a radiant sunflower yellow, but so pale that if a sunbeam were to reach me, it would break over my head like a thin pane of ice. Over the river and through the bare trees, the flags on the golf course still standing in their holes bring soldiers to mind – so incredibly dutiful in their discomfort. I pass a few hearty souls…women walking…the passing greetings are less warm and more earnest, mostly an acknowledgment of what we must continue to do. I walk by a pair of lanky, layered, knit-capped figures blending in with the tree trunks…except for the cigarette and cell phone. A different purpose. After one mile around the park, the wind calms for a moment and, as if I have proven my mettle, Harrybrooke grasps me with steely arms, acknowledging my admiration, my respect and…that I am still here. My fingertips are warm now; the blood circulates under my frozen outer core like the mud of hibernating ponds. I feel as if I have been swallowed into the warm belly of a beast, welcomed now, although my body’s survival strategies are not nearly as ingenious as the frog’s with its antifreeze and adaptable metabolism that allows it to sleep winter away. The only sound today is a rhythmic whacking – firewood being split? In the periphery I see the movement of two sweatshirt hooded figures on a back deck. I guess it’s the whack of a staple gun installing Christmas lights – more dutiful discomfort. I have to watch my step on the way out; the wet pavement is icing up before me. Returned to my car, I find I don’t really need to crank up the heat because, except for my exposed face feeling like a drawstring is tightening around it, in the warmer interior there is enough contrast to feel the comfort. I am a lucky one; I can choose to survive this climate, I can choose to challenge myself in the cold because…I am not homeless, because there is certain warmth awaiting me. Really, I am only toying with survival …at least for today….
Thursday, November 27, 2008
FIELD NOTES: Maybe it is a feeling of history repeating itself...
Thanksgiving, 2008
...the dizziness of bobble-heads with lessons not remembered wobbling around Wall St. and beyond, that it has occurred to me for the first time in my fifty years to ask how my grandparents celebrated Thanksgiving when their children were young, when there was the Great Depression. But my grandparents are all dead. I find that my parents and their remaining siblings do not remember celebrating Thanksgiving as children. President Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1863, but it was only randomly celebrated until FDR fixed it at the fourth Thursday of November in a controversial move to create more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I see commercialism has been around for a long time, the economy being at the heart of everything – that is, the heart of the machinery - the “everything” that keeps the manmade world in the constant motion of production, decline and redevelopment. Thanksgiving up until now has had no beginning and no end for me. It always was…and now I find…it wasn’t always. My grandmother was fond of repeating her favorite advice to “not get old” but I try to counter that with words from one of my favorite James Taylor songs “the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” I step outside to fill the birdfeeder with black oil sunflower seeds and look up at the sky – yup, still there.…a constant in the heavens and constant thanksgiving…
...the dizziness of bobble-heads with lessons not remembered wobbling around Wall St. and beyond, that it has occurred to me for the first time in my fifty years to ask how my grandparents celebrated Thanksgiving when their children were young, when there was the Great Depression. But my grandparents are all dead. I find that my parents and their remaining siblings do not remember celebrating Thanksgiving as children. President Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1863, but it was only randomly celebrated until FDR fixed it at the fourth Thursday of November in a controversial move to create more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I see commercialism has been around for a long time, the economy being at the heart of everything – that is, the heart of the machinery - the “everything” that keeps the manmade world in the constant motion of production, decline and redevelopment. Thanksgiving up until now has had no beginning and no end for me. It always was…and now I find…it wasn’t always. My grandmother was fond of repeating her favorite advice to “not get old” but I try to counter that with words from one of my favorite James Taylor songs “the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.” I step outside to fill the birdfeeder with black oil sunflower seeds and look up at the sky – yup, still there.…a constant in the heavens and constant thanksgiving…
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
FIELD NOTES: From a distance, they look like broken eggshells...
After school
...the brown and beige and brittle oval leaves on the pavement scattered in the pattern that their tree chose to let them go in. With childish curiosity, I purposely walk on them to test their strength, to see if I can crush them, make them crunch, but their lifecycle complete, they seem to be apathetic to my footsteps. Some of Harrybrooke’s privacy has disappeared with the leaves; I feel as if I am in the shower tub with no curtains or standing by a bare window, exposed as the early dusk descends. The skeleton that supported the body of summer is now forced to show itself. I still find beauty, albeit coarse and gray and dry. It’s different and takes the sophistication of the senses to appreciate. Bony fingers try to point it out, but passersby linger less and find it necessary to keep warm with rapid movement. I read the Lake Lillinonah announcement of the annual draw down for seasonal service and dam maintenance, but nevertheless it is disappointing to find the Still River wizened. I sense an omnipresent dryness in the air and smell wood fires burning, feel my ears pinched and notice my nostrils dripping. I hear a far-off leaf blower and suppose there is a man at the end of it, earnest in his belief that he can control nature, at least a little part of it, at least for a little part of a day, at least from a distance...
...the brown and beige and brittle oval leaves on the pavement scattered in the pattern that their tree chose to let them go in. With childish curiosity, I purposely walk on them to test their strength, to see if I can crush them, make them crunch, but their lifecycle complete, they seem to be apathetic to my footsteps. Some of Harrybrooke’s privacy has disappeared with the leaves; I feel as if I am in the shower tub with no curtains or standing by a bare window, exposed as the early dusk descends. The skeleton that supported the body of summer is now forced to show itself. I still find beauty, albeit coarse and gray and dry. It’s different and takes the sophistication of the senses to appreciate. Bony fingers try to point it out, but passersby linger less and find it necessary to keep warm with rapid movement. I read the Lake Lillinonah announcement of the annual draw down for seasonal service and dam maintenance, but nevertheless it is disappointing to find the Still River wizened. I sense an omnipresent dryness in the air and smell wood fires burning, feel my ears pinched and notice my nostrils dripping. I hear a far-off leaf blower and suppose there is a man at the end of it, earnest in his belief that he can control nature, at least a little part of it, at least for a little part of a day, at least from a distance...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
FIELD NOTES: Just for the record, I voted today...
Election Day
...as I always do. But I don’t always get to vote for hope. Or change. Or for a man of black ancestry. I voted for history. I voted for the next generation that includes my own children. I don’t usually mix politics with my field notes, but in a way politics is always underfoot because in some way I talk about it daily, because I notice when it gets stuck to my shoe or obstructs my path. Because when it gets me discouraged, frustrated, confused or weary I take a walk. Because I find clarity in nature, in motion, in feeling my heart pump blood through my veins, in making my lungs expand to take that glorious breath of fresh air. Because "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world” as John Muir said so insightfully many years ago. Just for the record, I admit I voted for Barack Obama today, knowing it will be for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and knowing that, I did not vote for perfection, but for transparency and compassion that extends beyond personal ambition…I at least voted for the hope of all that…
...as I always do. But I don’t always get to vote for hope. Or change. Or for a man of black ancestry. I voted for history. I voted for the next generation that includes my own children. I don’t usually mix politics with my field notes, but in a way politics is always underfoot because in some way I talk about it daily, because I notice when it gets stuck to my shoe or obstructs my path. Because when it gets me discouraged, frustrated, confused or weary I take a walk. Because I find clarity in nature, in motion, in feeling my heart pump blood through my veins, in making my lungs expand to take that glorious breath of fresh air. Because "When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world” as John Muir said so insightfully many years ago. Just for the record, I admit I voted for Barack Obama today, knowing it will be for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and knowing that, I did not vote for perfection, but for transparency and compassion that extends beyond personal ambition…I at least voted for the hope of all that…
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