Tag: Beauty

Good (?) Sunday afternoon.

Live & Learn40 Comments

Good (?) Sunday afternoon.

Those of you who follow along with me on this wildly spasmodic blog, you will understand that this Swan couple have become a fixture here (obsession, maybe?). This couple and their cygnets have been a profound source of joy for the neighborhood (and esp. for me).

Swans typically mate for life. They generally return to the same nesting spot year after year. And this pair built their giant nest along the break wall on Weed Avenue again this year. The nest was stood up sometime in mid to late April. (Photo: 5:50 am. May 9, 2026)

So, each morning, I drive down Weed Avenue in anticipation of seeing my friends, and wondering if the cygnets have arrived. And for those of you who are counting, it’s been 2,210 consecutive (almost) days on this morning walk at Cove Island Park, like in a row.

Well….

Continue reading “Good (?) Sunday afternoon.” →

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Live & Learn23 Comments

Neuroscientists tell us that awareness of beauty in one’s environment for a long time, reduces stress, can have physiological benefits, perhaps even longevity,” he explained. “And I realized that there’s not a day of my life that I didn’t see something beautiful.” He said some days he’s captivated by the way a stream of sunlight hits the wood paneling. Other days, he said, he sits enthralled watching the leaves dance in the wind through the windows. After more than seven decades, he’s convinced. “That’s my explanation. That’s the secret.”

— Vanessa Romo, who interviewed Roland Reisley (101 years old at the time) about his experience living for over 70 years in the “Reisley House, a home in the Usonia Historic District of Pleasantville, NY, designed for him by Frank Lloyd Wright. for over 70 years in 101 years of age who live in his house. (July 16, 2025, NPR Interview)

DK Photo taken at 11:18 a.m. on Nov 29 2024 as the late morning light streamed into our living room. One of those Roland Reisley moments I’ll never forget.

Sunday Morning

Live & Learn26 Comments

For the past three decades, I have covered the dehumanizing cauldron that is our current politics, and the last decade has been particularly soul-crushing. I begin today a new column dedicated to reclaiming the humanity we are losing to the savagery of politics, the toxicity of social media and the amorality of artificial intelligence. One of the keys to that recovery is nurturing our innate sense of awe, the feeling we get when we contemplate something so vast and mysterious that it quiets our anxieties and ambitions and puts our differences and disagreements into perspective.

Continue reading “Sunday Morning” →

Saturday morning…

Live & Learn11 Comments

But none of that matters now. I look out at the hills and the lake again. I’ve been driving along these roads for nine decades, but I’m still struck by just how beautiful it is, and I never want to leave.

— Lisa Ridzén, When the Cranes Fly South: A Novel. Alice Menzies (Translator) (Vintage, 8/19/2025)

Notes:

You believe there is something?

Live & Learn17 Comments

You believe there is something? she asks. I try to, yeah, Ivan answers. Some kind of order in the universe, at least. I do feel that sometimes. Listening to certain music, or looking at art. Even playing chess, although that might sound weird. It’s like the order is so deep, and it’s so beautiful, I feel there must be something underneath it all. And at other times, I think it’s just chaos, and there’s nothing. Maybe the whole idea of order just comes from some evolutionary advantage, whatever it is. We recognise patterns when there are no patterns. I don’t know. I’m not explaining myself very well. But when I experience that sense of beauty, it does make me believe in God. Like there’s a meaning behind everything.

— Sally Rooney, Intermezzo: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 24, 2024)