Tag: Charlotte wood

Walking. God is not Dead!

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57° F. yesterday, Spring is in the air. I contemplate dragging out the outdoor furniture from the basement.

Then, this morning arrived. 20° F, feels like 3° F, winds up to 20 mph from the North. Brutal.

I walk, thinking about sitting on the outdoor furniture in the basement, reading a chapter or two — with a floor heater at my feet. Maybe the furniture goes out next month.

I walk. It’s been 1,762 consecutive (almost) days on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a Row.

The park, with its handful of regulars, has had a new entrant. Let’s call her Janet. Janet rolls into the park taking the same route each morning, skipping along the breakwall to the cliff, pausing for 5-10 minutes to belt out a tune at the top of her lungs, arms and hands clutching for the heavens. Unclear what she’s singing and why she needs to belt it out at earsplitting levels that can be heard at the far reaches of the Park.

So this morning, just another morning, here comes Janet. And there goes the Wildlife, DK and other park patrons quickly moving in the other direction.

Charlotte Wood: “The beauty of being here is largely the silence, after all.“

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Walking. With Night Moves…

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Working’ on our night moves…
In the summertime, Mmmmmmm
In the sweet summertime, summertime

Bob Seger croons Night Moves into my earbuds, and wistfully I drift off to summertime.

17° F, feels like 3° F. Winds gusting from the north up to 25 mph. Tariff some of that!

I walk.

I have four layers on, that is on top and bottom. That’s 4 on bottom: underwear, wool underwear, sweatpants and snow pants. And that’s 4 on top: Sweatshirt, hoodie, jacket with hood and North Face jacket with another hood.

And it’s still short of what’s needed.

I didn’t expect much this morning. High Tide. Few clouds. And bitter cold.

But The Cove failed to disappoint. Again. It’s been 1751 consecutive (almost) days. Like in a Row.

I reach the cliff, and look out to the horizon. The Last Quarter Moon with its moonlight glistens over Long Island Sound.

“Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: ‘Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream?‘” (Ansel Adams)

I’m stirred, the cold falls away, I take the shot. And pause to express my gratitude, for whatever is responsible for the will to get me out of bed this morning, and for whatever granted me the physical ability to make it to this exact spot (and thanking this same Power source in advance to grant me another 1751 days), and for whatever Power put this moon and this moonlight in front of me free of cloud cover at exactly this moment.

I get blessed with this day’s astonishment, I turn back, and head home.

I’m going to remember this.

“God, give us a long winter and quiet music, and patient mouths, and a little pride — before our age ends. Give us astonishment and a flame, high and bright.” (Adam Zagajewski, A Flame)

Notes:

  • More pictures from this morning’s walk here.
  • Post inspired by Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional: “I once felt a kind of inhabiting presence in myself…something took up space inside me and spread along my shoulders and down my arms, into my fingertips. It was a sensation of heat…This is either a ghost, or it is God…If I had not resisted it, if I had welcomed the heat – even the burning – what might have happened?“

Sunday Morning

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‘We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will…Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. If we turn our mind towards the good, it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.’ Simone Weil.

Our Simone once took me to task over my ‘sneering’ about prayer. My notion of prayer was juvenile: forget this telephone line to God bullshit, she snapped, hot with impatience. It wasn’t even about God, she said, which I thought must surely be blasphemous. Praying was a way to interrupt your own habitual thinking, she told me. It’s admitting yourself into otherness, cracking open your prejudices. It’s not chitchat; it’s hard labour. She spoke as if all this were obvious. I longed to understand her. It feels always that I am on the edge of some comprehension here but never breaking through to the other side.

At night, just before sleep, is when I am closest to reaching it. In the morning, when the birds start, belief is as thin as the light.

— Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional (Riverhead Books, February 11, 2025)

Notes:

Recommended.

Book Reviews:

Walking. No, it’s not a mirage.

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Wow, let’s give DK an attaboy for showing up on his own blog? An unscheduled sabbatical, like forever. MIA without notice.

Let’s give Anneli credit for my return, this being a far less ambitious adaption of her February effort, but hey, it’s Something.

The mood has been shifting anxiously between Renkl: “often it feels like the only thing left to do is rage against the dying of the light” and Murakami: “All that remained now was a sort of quiet resignation” and my recent fan boy affection for Charlotte Wood: “The beauty of being here is largely the silence, after all. Not having to explain, or endlessly converse.” 

The Cove Island morning walks continue, despite the bitter cold. If I was counting, it would be 1,746 consecutive (almost) mornings. Like in a row. But who’s counting?!

It’s early morning Feb 10th, I’m heading to the cliff at The Cove. I’m standing in the spot taking the shot above, fingers numb from the cold, winds gusting up to 30 mph.

You Blue DK?

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