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My destination is a twenty-minute walk when you walk briskly, and the trip navigates some unsavory and unattractive areas. So one does walk briskly, which makes it difficult to note carefully the landmarks that will be needed to assure return home, especially when walking at the same brisk pace. I have been told, repeatedly andContinue reading “Ecuador”

Daylight savings time has me sleeping odd hours in these transitions days when we have returned to early dark, with street lights ablaze by 7 p.m. What an odd, disorienting, unnatural feeling to awaken at 7:30 a.m. , to have slept through those lovely, near-still, silent productive hours of the morning before the animals beginContinue reading “Down-fluff Bundles”

I tried my hand at drawing and then watercolor yesterday in an attempt to capture the sparse beauty of these woods. The thin, almost fragile, trees stand far apart without a lot of scrub or underbrush. The floor as far as the eye can see is carpeted in small twigs, rotting leaves, and a smatteringContinue reading “A Whole Lotta Water”

The act of writing, as opposed to weeks of not writing, is significant even if what I write is worthless. Holding my fountain pen in hand and watching it scratch across line after line, filling the page without my censorship, is interesting even when, as now, it has absolutely nothing to do with ‘saying’ anything.Continue reading “Markings”

Thinking back on those first explorations of the cabin property, it’s the wildlife–the turkeys and stellar jays, the chickadees and the moose–and the quiet that struck me, the calm restorative rhythm of sunrise to sunset and the constellations moving ’round the cabin like the hands of a clock. That first really cold night, when IContinue reading “The Cabin”

It’s 2 a.m. and the wind is raising a ruckus, and the moon and stars are flickering behind fast-scudding clouds like a 1920s silent film. The clouds are flying east, over the ridge. Note to self: Hiroshima is not good bedtime reading for a solid night of sleep. Its calm, unadorned style, its attention toContinue reading “In the Trees”

Last night I sat beneath a cloudy sky wrapped in a snug blanket until my nose got too cold. I’ve been working on material about my dad’s family, compiling quite a lot of detail to verify when I get to New York. I want to go back to a website I found to do someContinue reading “Clattering”

It’s mid-July, and the cherries are finally coming ripe, but the sweet ones taste like pie cherries right now. The peas are lavish, prolific, and the strawberries promise a huge harvest in a few weeks, as do the pear, apples and plum. But the deer devoured my petunias, my rhubarb, and many of my vegetables.Continue reading “Stripes and Shadows”

Someone has dug a big burrow beneath one of the large trees down the drive from the small pond. It’s sizable, maybe a foot or so across at the mouth and eight inches high, and tidily built, with the earth packed tight into the slight rise at the lower lip, with walls packed smooth, andContinue reading “Visitors”

I can feel it, though it is only marginally true, that the days grow longer. It is 6:45 and already the sky is brightening even through screens of clotted clouds stumbling eastward in a stiff wind like sodden branches tugged by a sluggish stream. The trees sway and jerk in uncoordinated individual response to itsContinue reading “Marginal Truth”