Notes:
- Photo: Saumalya Ghosh, Bari Basti, Pushkar, Rajasthan (via Instagram) Thank you Sawsan for sharing.
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.
Author: Live & Learn
Tuesday Morning Wake-Up Call
It’s no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change. It is no good anticipating regrets. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night (first published in 1942)
I called B.S. when I read this testimonial by Ernest Hemingway. And then I read it. Wow. What a writer. If you have an Audible membership, this book is free with the membership. In the must read category.
“…she has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer…she can write rings around all of us…I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book.” — Ernest Hemingway, in a letter to Maxwell Perkins”
Wait…
Sunday Morning
I caught my breath and walked on, with a rising sense that glory was all around me. Only at twilight can an ordinary mortal walk in light and dark at once—feet plodding through night, eyes turned up toward bright day. It is a glimpse into eternity, that bewildering notion of endless time, where light and dark exist simultaneously.
— Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss
Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 6:47 a.m., January 16, 2022. 9° F, feels like 0° F. Calf Pasture Beach, Norwalk, CT. More photos from this morning here.
Walking. As a floating, fluffy daisy seed.
6:25 am. 5° F, feels like Antarctica. Wind gusts up to 31 mph. Dorothy Parker’s: “What fresh hell is this?”
Cut me some slack people, I know that I’ve used her line many times in my posts, but it’s the only jingle that captures this moment. Many moments these days actually.
You know the drill. Cove Island Park morning walk. @ Daybreak.
I pull into the parking lot. And there I Sit, with the car running, the heater blowing.
I give myself a little pep talk. “Come on DK. Come on. A couple of snaps and back in the car. “ A wind gusts slam the car. I shift in my seat.
I see my middle-aged runner friend in the distance. She sees me in the car, and waves. Good God Man. Have you no pride? I yearn for those days when little would stop me.
I admire the 4’ Something Mighty-Mite, and her short choppy strides as she pushes her way against the polar wind.
And there’s me. 3/4s of the way through Highsmith’s Diary. “As Merely a floating, fluffy daisy seed. Now you have it, now you haven’t, now you have. No, it’s gone.”
I can’t get out. I just can’t.
I check my watch. 30 minutes to sunrise.
I pull out of the lot and drive to Calf Pasture Beach. Seeking inspiration.
And I find it.
I walk out to the end of the boardwalk.
The sun rises, urging the mist up over the water.
Frostbite circles my fingertips. And I snap, and snap and snap.
The floating, fluffy daisy seed. Now you have it. And it. And it. And it.
Hold that Moment.
Notes: