art--pushing the boundaries

"Life can seem mundane or even boring as we trudge through our daily routines. To me, art provides a way to push beyond the boundaries of the ordinary and find new ways to view life as the grand, unlikely spectacle that it is." Ben Tolman, in a statement accompanying his ink portrait of his wife, Jana, in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009.

wonder

Here's a loooong quotation from Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. It captures something of the value of escaping the mundane. While Pollan's focus is marijuana, I seek the same sense of wonder in simple show-stopping moments like this weekend's snowstorm
"I'm not prepared to concede that these epiphanies [being high] are as empy or false as they usually appear in the cold light of the next day....We simply don't have the words to convey the force of these perceptions to our straight selves, perhaps because they are the kinds of perceptions that precede words. They many be banal, but that doesn't mean they aren't also at the same time profound.
Marijuana dissolves this apparent contradiction, and it does so by making us temporarily forget most of the baggage we usually bring to our perception..., our acquired sense of its familiarity and banality. For what is a sense of the banality of something if not a defense against the overwhelming (or at least whelming) power of that thing experienced freshly? Banality depends on memory, as do irony and abstraction and boredom, three other defenses the educated mind deploys against experience so that it can get through the day without being continually, exhaustingly astonished.
It is by temporarily mislaying much of what we already know (or think we know) that cannabis restores a kind of innocence to our perceptions of the world, and innocence in adults will always flirt with embarrassment....By the grace of this forgetting, we temporarily shelve our inheritied ways of looking and see things as if for the first time....
There is another word for this extremist noticing--this sense of first sight unencumbered by knowingness, by the already-been-theres and seen-thats of the adult mind--and that word, of course, is wonder.

Aramis, in buddha pose.
How could I not smile?

foxy marauders

Our niece and family live across the street from an iris farm in Boulder, CO, where we recently visited. We wandered through the fields, with the glorious Flatirons in the background, to catch the last blooms. I noticed: a child's pink Croc in a furrow; a fencepost with a runningshoe; another; a clothesline with a row of gloves dangling from it; more fenceposts with assorted shoes and gloves. What gives?
Amanda explained a family of foxes had denned under one of the outbuildings, and each night roamed through north Boulder gathering these human artifacts from yards and porches; as folks walked through the gardens, they put them wherever they could off the ground--fence posts, shelves, tree branches.
I retraced my steps a few mornings later and found a pile of fresh bounty--shoes of every color and size--in front of the den's entrance; as I watched, a fox trotted out, but turned tail when he saw me. I retreated and watched from a distance as he came out, grabbed a Nike, and carried it back to the den.
Are they running a thrift store? playing dressup? insulating the den for winter?

romance

After the old bird box, made by my uncle, fell apart, I did nothing for a few years. I had labeled it the House of Death after a black snake raided the wrens, dropping the dead chicks to the ground as it dangled like a necklace from the box.

This year, I realized how much I missed the nesting birds and so mounted a new box. The first brooders ignored it; I figured it might need a year to season before they deemed it worthy. Soon, however, these chickadees began their inspecting, building, brooding, and hatching. Here, one passes food to the other to feed the chicks. I am so joyfully entranced to watch them in their purposeful business.
A few mornings after this interchange, I was out early, chasing a rabbit who was wistfully gazing through my barricades at the lettuce. On my way, I noticed something strange on the chickadee box, thought it possibly a wasp nest, and circled back to check it out after the rabbit was successfully shooed. Approaching from the other side, I could identify the coiled checkered snake easily, lumped on top of the box.
While I am one with the wonders of nature, understand the natural balance of things, yadayada, no one messes with my chickadees. A 12' pole and a husband with a hammer later, that danger was dispensed with.
Three days later, soft down is protruding from the box. Another marauder? The flight of the chicks and the next tenants moving in? Were my gestures futile? Ephemeral? Wistful?

Day fades to twilight.
Nighthawk veers across the sky,
first one of the year.

tall grass prairie

big sky
white straw grass, just beginning to green
solitary twiggy twisted trees
copses tucked into the indentation of the hills
wind
birds of the grasses--meadowlarks, kildeer, blackbirds, and then a totally unexpected wonder, foot-long tail, vivid salmon shoulder pads, a scissor-tailed flycatcher.

leaving home

Blasting out of the ordinary is easier when I travel. Unless it's to a very familiar place, I'm surrounded by the new--not always positive or enchanting, but able to raise my level of being aware, outside of my self.
We're traveling though parts of the South we've missed before, filling up on new sounds, sights, and oh my goodness tastes. Routines are abandoned, miles on the road dissolve, as we wend our way from the Tall Grass Prairie of Oklahoma through the Ozarks--both far more beautiful than anticipated.
Today: Little Rock, and then on to Memphis.

sleepless night

A sleepless night. Sitting at the computer, with a cup of tea, while it's still pitch black out as far as I can tell, I hear the softest song:
http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=12
It's a sound that speaks Spring to me. This chickadee and his mate have moved into the nesting box I've hung just outside the window, and his melody, murmured to his mate, notes the onset of the day.

after a rain

Almost April, and it's raining. On our last March walk, the river was the lowest I have ever seen, roots exposed in sinewy twists down to rocks along the channels. But then a soft rain began, continued for several days, and is returning.

mid-march canal

These tiny eraser-sized flowers turn a field into a blue haze. Only laying on my belly can I see the singular delicate regularity of each blossom.

Native witchhazel, the demure forerunner of the showy hybridized models in the market, invokes an olfactory memory of walks in the woods with my father when I was a little child: a broken twig, a pleasantly fresh, just-shy-of-linament aroma.

In a damp expanse of grasses, still not sprung, the marsh marigolds shine out, waxy, reflective of the late afternoon sun.

the pace picks up

By mid-March, things in the garden start moving. Every day, there's a new delight, whether violas that followed us home from the nursery or Costco, or iris reticulata mimicking butterflies at the foot of the mailbox, or a perfect hellebore rising above its winter-burnt leaves

forcing

Forcing. It's an odd verb when applied to cherry blossoms, implying coercion or a breaking of will. I'm innocent! I bring a branch indoors, out of the 30's and into the 60's, merely providing a nudge.

lettuce

The lettuce we planted last week is up! Last summer, we harvested the assortment of greens from April till the end of June--tender, flavorful, a bowlful of a spectrum of greens and reds, with edges lobed, jagged, smooth--and we're hoping for a repeat this year.
I feel an irrational exuberance at the sight. Emerging life presents itself in so many ways: sweetly and oh-so-gradually swelling like the pussywillow, tender greening like the willow strands, or suddenly appearing in tiny green glory like the lettuces.

planting peas

On St. Patrick's Day, my father would plant peas. Together, in that brief period when I was interested before adolescence turned me decidedly in other directions, we would turn over the winter garden with a pitchfork. Startled worms would wriggle away, as robins watched with interest from the nearby hemlocks, biding their time. We broke up the clods of the rich Connecticut soil, and then raked an even surface. With a corner of the rake, he would carve a furrow along the side of the bed, and we would drop the pea seeds evenly down the row.
I don't remember harvesting or eating the peas; I don't recall if my father stopped planting once I drifted away. I do know that, by the time I married Bill, that vegetable garden had returned to grass. Since I've married, every year I begin to peer at our vegetable plot in February with rising eagerness. Bill and I turn it over with our pitchfork and shovel as soon as the earth thaws, enriching it with the winter's compost, waiting for the date. I push the calendar, adjusting for climate change and 300 more southerly miles, and get them in by the second week of March. We harvest and eat every single pea.

crocus

Who couldn't smile? Dainty to the point of fragility--at least in appearance--crocus shout out across the yard, striking against the otherwise subtle brown-sepia-russet backdrop.

confessions of a serial orchid killer

I am a serial orchid killer. As soon as they enter my house, orchids enter a wretched decline, yellowing, withering, despite or because of my attentiveness, wringing of hands, and intermittent neglect. Sometimes, I hand them off to more skilled guardians; sometimes, I forget.
This little champion, however, has not only survived, but rebloomed--a daily source of amazement and delight.

snow, at last

After posting the driest February on record, our area begins March with the first significant snowfall of the year. Light, clingy, glowing as the sun struggles through the gray sky, the snow slows everything down so we can take a collective breath or two. As the sky blues, ice on the window provides a new lens and shortens my depth of field.

waiting for flying squirrels

We sat in the woods in the February twilight as the naturalist ran the feeder down and up a tree, trying to lure flying squirrels from their nests with the pulley squeak. Nothing. The cold nosed about, finding every seam on my coat, squirming its way in. The wind picked up. Again, the feeder flew down and up the tree. Unlikely they'd appear tonight, inhibited by the sound of the wind which masks the noise of predators. Mauve clouds slid across the graying sky, still a stark backdrop to the swaying trees, the rush of wind, and the moment came clear, alive. Breathing, relaxing into the cold, the night. A final feeder squeak, this time a successful lure, and the night gliders appeared.

Spring advances

The singleton aconite has turned into a field of them. They've spread down the gully with the runoff, providing a splash of vivid yellow visible from the upstairs window.

window seat quilt

Inspired by some batik that Bill brought back from Indonesia, this quilt fills a windowseat that we pass several times each day. The craft of the handmade--interplay of shape, color, design, rhythm that results from an artist's interaction with materials and the world--is fundamentally pleasing, and adding my own interpretive layer is immensely satisfying.

riverducks

February 14, 2009

Translucent leaves clinging to the beech all winter are ghosts of the summer, beckoning through the woods. They bridge the seasons, reminders, as the pussywillows announce what's ahead.

An uncomplicated relationship

My husband's aunt, a survivor of both breast cancer and an anxious past, was open, gregarious, and a lover of laughter by the time I met her. Family, yet apart enough to avoid the layers, tangles, and history of those relationships, we could just be, in a constant state of enjoyment. As is too often the case, the final two years of her life were beset with ailments, hospital stays, pain, and, finally, unbearable fatigue as she relinquished her fierce will. During one stint of confinement, her sister sent this azalea. It survives them both. Not hardy, it winters in the house, summers on the decaying deck, and, every February, warms me with memories of my showy, elegant friend.

At my desk

Proximity to the C&O Canal is a gift. Today was quiet, but for the helicopter patrolling the river: heron's squawk, water seeping through the lock, mallards muttering to one another, and greetings of the very occasional passersby.

Iceland pebbles

We picked these stones from a beach near Grundarfjordur, Iceland, and keep them on a tiny plate; emblematic of the island, they are dramatic, scoured, volcanic.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Inspired by the buttermilk in the fridge. Recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook:
2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 c well-shaken buttermilk, plus additional for brushing

Sift together dry ingredients. Blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add buttermilk and stir just until a dough forms. Gather dough into a ball, and gently knead 6 times on a floured surface. Pat into a 1/2-inch thick round; cut out biscuits. Brush tops with buttermilk and bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
I realized 1/2 way through that we didn't have enough baking powder, so the end result didn't rise up. Very flaky, though; despite our critique, we ate them all.
When the kids were little, biscuits were a regular on our breakfast menu--Bisquik, rolled, sandwiching sausage or bacon. Warm kitchen, smells of baking.

February 8

snowdrops, winter aconite, hydrangea's hinting buds--these little glimmers birth an unreasonable excitement, requiring, as they do, a hunt, increased attention, a return