Lightly Child, Lightly.

~ Live & Learn

Sleep (way) short. Weight way up.  Coincidence?

4:43 a.m. Out the door. Day 43. Same 5-mile loop.

Cloud cover 91%.  Humidity 96%.  Heavens spitting rain.

I walk.

No sunrise.
No sign of swans sleeping.
No sign of mallards, and their brood.
No Cormorant fishing.
No loon call, breaking the silence.

Misty, foggy daybreak.

Blue.

I round the corner, and march down a side street. 10 minutes from home.  Emails. Conference calls. Zoom. Heaviness begins to settle in.

And then, there it is.

I see it ahead.

Colors. Chalk on pavement.

Heaviness lifts.

hopskotch

Lightly child, lightly.

Notes:

  • Photos: Daybreak. 4:58 & 5:48 am. June 17, 2020. 64° F. Misty morning. Humidity 96%. Wind: 4 mph. Gusts: 5 mph. Cloud Cover: 91%. Weed Ave & Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
  • Inspired by passages from Rebecca Solnit’s book: “Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir” – “Hopscotch: back up a little, cover the same ground again,” and “Perhaps you could tell a story the way children play hopscotch, returning to the beginning and going a little further each time, tossing your token into another square, covering the same ground in a slightly different pursuit each time. You can’t tell it all at once, but you can cover the same ground a few different ways, or trace one route through it.”
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

45 thoughts on “Lightly Child, Lightly.”

  1. Sorry you didn’t encounter your normal walking buddies this morning, DK, but the photo is lovely and the chalk drawing is certainly a redeeming element. Sometimes it just takes a single, simple encounter to turn an experience around. Reframing the way one looks at an experience, as the Stoics recommend, can change everything. You might find this book of interest….

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  2. My son just got to Alaska to work in the fishing industry. I have a cousin in Costa Rica that has worked a Sports Fishing boat for years.
    He said “That’s the great thing about being on the water. You never know what the day will bring.”

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  3. Me too, same
    as you… I hear it. I receive the notes. I am sorry. I am so sorry.
    I am no Icarus. I cannot fly. I am trying to run. I can no longer fly. My wings are clipped. II no longer have hollow bird bones…that was before, when I believed in my dreams.
    Now I only have ink. Blood. Guts. the ability, the courage
    to find you. to hear you. I am sorry. I am no Icarus. I have learned…I can still learn. Thank you. I can still live. Thank you.

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  4. I need to update my photo. IF I am going to stay visible. Online. I am more inclined to be invisible. Preferring not to advertise… I used to need the attention. I was never good at it. Regular blogs. Always trying to use a BLOG VOICE. What I thought was The Medium. I am no medium. Though mostly like mediocre. I am trying to be accepting. Even grateful… making my gratitude lists… my to do lists…today. I look a little different. Covid 19… I have madness hair — Einstein. I am NO Einstein…believe me. That my brother. The physicist. You are a photographer. I saw your self portrait? was it a self portrait?
    My photo is out dated. This is the problem with having blogs…keeping up the pace. I’m so tired of the internet. But alas…

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      1. I’m not sure about WORDPRESS…They seem to have these gateways…people have to make accounts to read my paltry blogs. Blessing
        in disguise, I like to THINK…that’s another problem of mine. I THINK in disguise because I am a playwright, making up stories and hearing and seeing them everywhere, especially during these “times.” If People read my “real stories? my raw, passion for deconstruction, for taking apart the words, down to the letters that live in my blood….Then I’m a perfect Target…and I already feel nervous just saying this to a total poet on the other side of the world, one I have hadn’t had in my life since he died of AIDS in1988, I tell you, you “perfect” stranger…that I am so so soooo NOT perfect…if they prick us, do we not bleed? I’m not even going to put quotations around that because I’d be accused of using Shakespeare as my protectorate…not these days! Don’t write, the world is telling me!
        Because you speak in crazy, twisted, witchy ways, like the mad women of the 19th Century and we already read those books…those are great pieces of literature from Virginia and company, Woolf, H.D. Djuna Barnes, the Bloomsbury Group…fucking white intellectuals, what do they know about anything, I mean, anything? So you better get with the program, if you’re a writer or artist in speak in CODED language…that’s what we fucking do to survive, because if we speak the truth to power…right now in 2020… we are the enemy, because we have no right to claim that position–I don’t — but I do — and if I say that… I could be hurt. Out there on the streets. The word is on the streets. And it marches in silence. (that’s from Antigone, referring to the imminent revolution) No need for quotes because it is part of me. Damn it. part of ME. and my sisters in our old fashioned struggle of wanting to be heard, of wanting to re-invent the oppression of the patriarchal construction of English. .,Isuch a fail at launching a blog that anyone gives a fuck about… that’s okay.. that’s the same same fucking cliche, woe-is-me-as-writer story, a fucking cliche man…and never never NEVER write woe is me stories.. especially today, Especially today when everyone’s looking at the internet for discover allies and enemies.
        and if you are a white male — let this be a metaphoric–coded I hope –warning: No one wants to hear about your little ditties… you are not part of our struggle, and so you can hold your tongue…. or pay the price. PUSH BACK.
        I got a major push back at my own fucking college! of course I did. They do the right thing. Yes, Spike I better mention your name and I do, truly respectfully.
        Women playwrights, white ones…we’re so fucking out we might as well wear corsets. Which the cute ones still do for sex play…feel free baby.
        I am being asked to be quiet…shhhhhhh don’t talk LePell…. you’re so weird,
        Some people, in fact about80 percent of the people I know are worried… I am worried. I might have to make another trip… this is not a vacation, this is involuntary. Don’t talk. Wear a Mask. Stay home. THose are my marching orders. Yesss sir. The army doctor tells me, “take your meds, don’t be stupid.” I’m not stupid doc…remember? But he has already gone off to the next crazy ass bitch waiting in line for her good drugs, the ones that keep her hush hush hushed up. Stop Talking. why do these old white btiches keep talking? can’t they fucking learn anything? shut the fuck up! I told my therapist this. He didn’t get the reference to the 19th Century Bloombury’s, but everyone knows that Virginia, my love Virginia…forgot to take the rocks out of her pockets. They want me to take drugs. Stay safe. Inside. I just don’t want that to be safe..in the hospital.
        I’ve already said too much…in public perhaps…but perhaps this is few random folks reading some random blogs and no one will spill the news… blow a horn too loud:
        “We caught one on the internet, trying to hide….we got another crazy bitch on our hands.”
        My college just ripped my heart out. Took a show right out from under my feet and gave it to a part time black woman …fair enough. I get it. I nod. I’m a good solider.
        But to say it’s not a HOT HOT button is not living on in the same climate. Climate change is on the back burner. That’s where I have to stay now. I get it, I get it. Just don’t slap a label on me for being angry. Okay, write the word “fuck” on the internet to a poet who has followers. Dangerous man…dangerous… I like to walk and run with torches and fires.
        But today, I cannot even run. Outside.
        It’s time to update my blog. But most likely delete the whole fucking thing. It’s too public.

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        1. To all readers of replies — caution tape: Sorry for all the words. I am a mad woman. A Mad Woman. A woman who likes to play with layers. with words. If that hurts you, please don’t read my responses to these beautiful posts. I know I’m a little scary. This is a disclaimer. A stupid apology in advance: sometimes I apologize…before the damage is done. It’s called The violence of articulation.
          Please don’t read my rants if you are inclined to labeling or naming things without disclaimers. (I hate disclaimers, but these are dangerous times for writers on line)
          I will likely hide my name and my photo IF I stay online at all. even in discussions, Yes, that’s a little paranoid of me — but maybe for today, my name is “caution tape,” not a Psychotic Break. Maybe my new internet name will just be “take a break.” light breezy. more marketable…

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  5. The birds, they all decided to sleep in today. And if it makes you feel any better, I fell asleep by 11 pm, and after 1 am I kept waking up every 10 minutes. I did the stupid thing of forcing myself back to sleep. I should have gotten up and immersed myself in something. Miserable morning here too.

    This Rebecca Solnit inspirational quote, need to tattoo that on my back, between my shoulders, wings.

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      1. Awww. Sorry to hear that, DK!
        I did that to myself. Dinner way later than usual, followed by black tea.
        Back on track today, running on 8.5 hours of sleep.

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  9. Drifting in sea of similar colors. The cormorants no longer sleeping on the cliff face. The falcons had made a nest and nervously, the amphibious birds sought new headquarters. The sea basically flat, as if the grey sky presses all the energy down to the depths. Morning. We start again.

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  12. I am loving your sojourns to Cove Island. My grandparents lived up the street on Dora for many, many years and I would spend summers there since I was a small child. Every day was a beach day. Many happy memories of the Cove and family. Enjoying your photos.

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  14. And here it is hotter than Hades. The sun is blazing but is heatstroke inducing (as happened to my sister yesterday). I have started working in a snack stand on a golf course – a happy medium of being with people but not BEING with people. Serving but not SERVING… I was not inclined to return to an office job so this was the best of two worlds… That said, it was 90 degrees IN the stand… Why can’t we sweat our fat through our pores?

    How is it with all your walking you are still gaining, DK? Put the Talenti away and keep looking for chalk drawings. And bloody hell, when you find the trick to sleeping, please share.

    That passage from Rebecca Solnit’s book is so good. So very, very good. Onto the pile it goes.

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      1. There is an A/C unit but it doesn’t provide… Two fans are set up to push the air so it is surprisingly endurable (barely). Yesterday there were supposed to install the fan above the steamers so I shall found out in the next 45 minutes. Fingers crossed.

        Oy. Hard to resist, I guess, eh?

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