Image: From Dark Sky app. Post title: Thank you Yvonne for March Madness. And Fresh Hell via Marion Meade
Walking. Tilting towards Spring.
February 12, 2022 by 31 Comments
5:50 a.m.
Dark Sky read out: 40° F. 82% cloud cover.
40° F? Come again? I close app, and re-open.
40° F? This is after two days of high’s in the 50’s. This being Feb 12. Not even mid-Feb.
I sit on the stoop, and lace up my boots.
“Something ineffable has tilted toward spring. There’s a promise of warmth beneath the cold, a releasing of winter’s grip on the land. You can feel it.” (Katrina Kenison)
Sun rises, temperature warms rapidly.
The park begins to fill. [Read more…]
Miracle. All of it. (Take 2)
January 11, 2022 by 37 Comments
…and there she sleeps this morning. No mate. Frozen ice surrounds her, and she rests undisturbed. At Peace.
I’m looking out at her. Mr. Canadian Tough-Guy. Wearing T-shirt – – Sweater over T-Shirt – – Hoodie over Sweater – – Northface Down Parka jacket over Hoodie – – Hood up – – Snowpants – – Long johns – – Sweatpants – – Smart Wool Socks – – Sorel Boots – – Smart Wool Gloves.
And I’m still shivering, yearning to get back in the car. A car that’s running, heater blowing.
How all this works?
Beyond my comprehension.
Miracle. All of it.
6:55 a.m. 15° F (- 9° C), feels like 1° F (- 17° C), wind gusts up to 28 mph. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Post title Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.
Walking. In Sacred Time.
March 2, 2021 by 66 Comments
5:15 a.m. Woozy from sleep meds.
Trudge to bathroom. Empty tank. Strip down for morning weigh-in. Pause. Step over to toilet. Spit. I silently thank Anneli (again) for her tip, every ounce counts. Weigh-in outcome? Flat to yesterday. Could be worse.
Forecast, 19° F. But hold on. With wind chill: 4° F, wind gusts up to 39 mph. Oooooooh.
Body yearns for the warmth of the comforter and the bed. Sean Patrick Mulroy: “Here is what I love about the brain: How it remembers. How it sews what soft it can into a blanket for the nights when I am cold...”
301 consecutive days. Like in a row. Cove Island Park morning walk @ daybreak. Gotta keep the streak alive.
I suit up. In this order. Underwear. White cotton t-shirt. Wool socks. Another pair of wool socks over top. Gym shorts over underwear. Fleece lined sweatpants over gym shorts. Fleece lined snow pants over the fleece lined sweatpants. Turtleneck over t-shirt. Sweatshirt with hoodie over Turtleneck. Goose down jacket. Another goose down jacket over top of the first. Tuk pulled tight over the ears. (Pronounced Tuuuuuuuk.) Hoodie overtop of the tuk. Hiking boots. Thinsulate gloves (to work the camera dials). Done! Ready! I pause to catch my breath, I’m overheating. Wow. I’m coming unglued here. This is Darien, CT for God sakes. Not the Vostok Research Station in Antarctica.
I step out the door. Come on. Hit me. Give me your best shot. [Read more…]
Walking. With Breath-Cloud.
December 19, 2020 by 82 Comments
6:00 am.
I’m layered up. From bottom and working up: Wool socks. (2 pair). Long johns. Sweat pants. Snow pants. T-shirt. Long sleeved turtle neck. North Face hoodie. North Face jacket. Tuk, pulled down firmly over the ears. Fur-lined Sorel Boots. Gloves.
And the gear. Air pods. iPhone. Car Keys. Camera bag. Camera(s). Len(s). Memory card. Extra battery. Monopod. Wallet. And a Sling to hold it all.
This ensemble, embarrassing really, for a Canadian, who went to school in Northern Michigan. Man-up has an entirely new convention at middle-age — this not being a trek to the top of the Himalayas.
18° F this morning, wind gusts up to 20 mph. Feels like? 8° F. Pretty Damn Cold.
I step out of the car at Cove Island Park, and a wind gust delivers its wake-up call. Eyes water. 228 consecutive days on this morning walk. But this one feels like a test. Body doesn’t want any part of this…
“Hey Siri. What time does the sun rise today?” Siri (perky): “Good Morning David. The Sun will rise at 7:14 am today.” She remembered my name! (Blush)
45 minutes until Sunrise. 45 minutes. Wow.
I walk.
Not a single soul out. I tromp out with my snow boots on the uncleared path, taking firm, deliberate, heavy steps, careful not to hit black ice.
Triple layers. All the gear. Anxiety over taking a tumble head first, and the ever-present risk of camera flying into a snow bank. God, I’m tired, and I couldn’t have walked 1/2 mile. [Read more…]
Sunday Morning (Feels like 21° F)
February 16, 2020 by 16 Comments
Q: How is the goodness of God manifested even in the clothing of birds and beasts?
A: Small birds, which are the most delicate, have more feathers than those that are hardier. Beasts that live in the icy regions have thicker, coarser coats than those that dwell in the tropical heat.
~ Jenny Offill, Weather: A Novel (Knopf, February 11, 2020)
Photo: European Starling by Ostdrossel
Flying AA 5240. With Grace.
November 9, 2019 by 41 Comments
It’s a head cold that won’t release. Thurs, last week, I wake with a scratchy throat, a cough, and a certainty that this, this thing is sliding, and sliding fast. And it does. And it did. And it’s still here.
I take inventory.
Air travel. Hands laid down on arm rests, where hundreds of others set down exactly in the same spot. American’s Clean-up crew, not enough of them, mop up major spills. Most arm rests sit untouched by the cleaning rags, or maybe they are touched, with the same rag passing from one arm rest to the other to the other. Petri dishes, waiting.
Airline club. I brush away crumbs of food on the seat and the arm rest. Coffee cups, soiled napkins, all sit stacked on the side table. One cup, 3/4s full, has a lipstick tattoo, and a fingerprint, a thin film from hand lotion leaving traces of her DNA. I shift in my seat, the freshly painted Quiet room can’t hide its fatigue from the thousands that pass through the day. It groans, Give me your Tired, Your Hungry, Your Rich, all sequestered in this Oasis a few minutes before boarding. Passing our crumbs, paying it forward.
Long term rehab facility. Walking down the hall. Avoiding a stare in each room. Ventilators pumping oxygen. 24×7. Pumping. Pumping. Why is she here? Why is he here? Does she ever get out of bed? How does she not get bed sores? I turn the corner to my Brother’s room. A roll of the dice and he’s here. Here. Inside. I’m Outside. His roommate. A Veteran. (?) Amputee. It’s Veteran’s Day on Monday. Our eyes connect. Good morning I offer. He never responds. He has no bowel control. The Help pulls the thin curtain. It’s OK Sir. No problem. Just turn a little to the left. The smell of disinfectant fills the room, and burns its tracks. On the flight home, someone has passed gas, the smell detonates in the cabin, the young lady in the seat next to me buries her head in her sweater and whispers: “Disgusting.” I’m brought back to Rehab. Just turn a little to the left Sir.
It starts in the head, the slow drip of fatigue slides like lava and builds, from sinuses down to the toes. DayQuil every 4 hours. NyQuil before bed. Bed. Sleep. Work. Bed. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
This morning. I flip open the smartphone. 26° F, feels like 22°. And it arrives. Why now, I can’t explain. Anne Lamott’s ‘mystery of Grace.’ Mucous secretions streaming. This air I breathe. This thick comforter, and the warmth that it offers. This miracle of being here, in this moment, in all of its fog. I’m Grateful. For all of it.
And, I’m not moving, not from here. Not from this spot. Not today. Not until noon.
Photo: (via Endless Summer)
Lightly Child, Lightly.
March 28, 2019 by 20 Comments
This is how you live when you have a cold heart.
As I do: in shadows, trailing over cool rock,
under the great maple trees.
The sun hardly touches me.
Sometimes I see it in early spring, rising very far away.
Then leaves grow over it, completely hiding it. I feel it
glinting through the leaves, erratic,
like someone hitting the side of a glass with a metal spoon.
Living things don’t all require
light in the same degree. Some of us
make our own light: a silver leaf
like a path no one can use, a shallow
lake of silver in the darkness under the great maples.
But you know this already.
You and the others who think
you live for truth and, by extension, love
all that is cold.
– Louise Glück, from “Lamium” in Poems 1962-2012
Notes:
- Glück won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for her collection The Wild Iris. Glück is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award (Triumph of Achilles), the Academy of American Poet’s Prize (Firstborn), as well as numerous Guggenheim fellowships.
- Portrait of Louise Glück by neh.gov. Poem via misguided ghosts
- 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.”
32° F (Feels like 26° F)
February 18, 2019 by 26 Comments
Silence…
thrilling cold —
so much beauty.
Like breathing pure oxygen.
~ Susan Sontag, from “As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980“
Notes:
- Inspired by: “The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is – and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue.” ~ Mark Helprin, Winter’s Tale (via beyondthefieldsweknow.org)
- Photo Source: Your Eyes Blaze Out
Miracle. All of it.
February 10, 2019 by 39 Comments
The Great Cold Snap of 2019 has given us a ton of terms we didn’t know we needed: Frost quakes. Snow squalls. Steam fog. Now we can add another one to the list: ghost apples. Andrew Sietsema was pruning apple trees in an icy orchard in western Michigan when he came across some. “I guess it was just cold enough that the ice covering the apple hadn’t melted yet, but it was warm enough that the apple inside turned to complete mush (apples have a lower freezing point than water),” Sietsema told CNN. “And when I pruned a tree it would be shaken in the process, and the mush would slip out of the bottom of the ‘ghost apple.'”…
~ Doug Criss & Gianluca Mezzofiore, Another byproduct of this extreme cold: ghost apples (CNN, February 8, 2019)
- Related Posts: Miracle. All of it.
- Inspiration: Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Monday Morning
January 14, 2019 by 20 Comments
january wakes up with the first light of dawn. swings his feet out from beneath the blankets to touch a cold floor. the air around his is quiet and crisp. today starts a new day. a day to be kinder. a day to be braver. a day to be more.
~ Kelsey Danielle, @ Misguided Ghosts
Photo Credit
Elle est bonne
August 26, 2017 by 7 Comments
On the Mediterranean beaches of France, in summer, you hear one cry repeated endlessly: Elle est bonne. That is, It’s good. Meaning the seawater. Cautious, modern inhabitants of cities thus assure one another that it’s safe to go in the water, they won’t be stunned by its arctic cold. But in its essence this cry affirms the world, nature. Elle est bonne.
~ Adam Zagajewski, Slight Exaggeration: An Essay (April 4, 2017)
Photo: South of France via Oliver’s Travels. Related Posts: Adam Zagajewski
Walking Cross-Town. Teetering on myself.
February 4, 2017 by 31 Comments
Day 0: Friday morning, not yesterday, a week ago. Flying down I-95, light traffic. I’m lip syncing America’s Ventura Highway: “Chewing on a piece of grass…Walking down the road…Cause the free wind is blowin’ through your hair.” I flick through the day’s calendar as I pull into the parking garage. Light. Nice ramp into the weekend. What Bliss is This?
By day’s end, Bliss is way amiss. Whether from a hand shake, or splashed in the air from a cough or a sneeze, or from an infected keyboard at a guest office, the virus is planted in the eye, it spreads to the tear duct and then to the nose – and we jackknife from Bliss to → Far-From-Bliss-Miserable-Son-of-A-Bitch.
Patience, a short string on sunny days, is a gator snapping. Sick man, with head cold, brooding.
The nasal secretion flows uninterrupted. I roll the smooth, orange-crush colored LiquiCaps in the palm of my hand. Marbles! Days are measured by DayQuil feedings, ingested at 4 hour intervals and then relieved at bedtime by NyQuil. The Vick’s team is on the field 24 x 7.
I’m squinting at the DayQuil packaging. Multi-Symptom Relief. I flip it over, and the font shrinks to something less than 5 point. What a**hole at Vick’s thinks I can read this sh*t? A commercial conspiracy I’m sure, to disguise dosage levels to keep juicing. [Read more…]
Miracle. All of it.
January 14, 2017 by 24 Comments
A small child next to us looked down at her snow-covered boots, then pointed to a duck that stood on the ice on the bank and asked her mother an extremely good question: “Why don’t his feet get cold?”…
It’s this: The bigger the temperature difference between two objects when they touch, the faster heat will flow from one to the other. Another way of putting that is to say that the more similar the temperatures of the two objects are, the more slowly heat will flow from one to the other. And that’s what really helps the ducks. As all that frantic paddling was going on, warm blood was flowing down the arteries of each duck’s legs. But those arteries were right next to the veins carrying blood back from the feet. The blood in the veins was cool. So the molecules in the warm blood jostled the blood vessel walls, which then jostled the cooler blood. The warm blood going to the feet got a bit cooler, and the blood going back into the body was warmed up a bit. Slightly farther down the duck’s leg, the arteries and the veins are both cooler overall, but the arteries are still warmer. So heat flows across from the arteries to the veins. All the way down the duck’s legs, heat that came from the duck’s body is being transferred to the blood that’s going back the other way, without going near the duck’s feet. But the blood itself goes all the way around. By the time the duck’s blood reaches its webbed feet, it’s pretty much the same temperature as the water. Because its feet aren’t much hotter than the water, they lose very little heat. And then as the blood travels back up toward the middle of the duck, it gets heated up by the blood coming down. This is called a countercurrent heat exchanger, and it’s a fantastically ingenious way of avoiding heat loss. If the duck can make sure that the heat doesn’t get to its feet, it has almost eliminated the possibility of losing energy that way.
So ducks can happily stand on the ice precisely because their feet are cold. And they don’t care.
~ Helen Czerski, from “Why Ducks Don’t Get Cold Feet” in Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life
Notes:
- Image Credit: wsj.com – Agence France Presse / Getty Images
- Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
- Related Posts: Miracle. All of it.
Inside my fires are freezing, my heart is pumping spurts of ice
December 10, 2016 by 18 Comments
A winter swimmer swims after breaking the ice on a frozen lake at a park in Shenyang, China. (wsj.com: Sheng Li, Reuters). Post title by Hélène Cixous, from Inside.
Walking Cross-Town. With a Tin Cup.
November 27, 2016 by 55 Comments
The moment, seconds really, should have degraded into an inkblot, edges fraying, burrowing to lose itself among the billions of other moments, stored for retrieval at a later date when a similar moment showed up. Aha, I remember that.
But No.
This one Rises, floats on Top, bobbing up and down, making sure it isn’t lost. Remember this, it seems to say. Don’t forget this, it needs to say.
I’m walking Cross-Town on 47th. It’s dark. It’s early, 6:23 am. And, it’s Cold – sub 35° F, with winds gusting. Feels like 26° F. Biting.
I’m wearing a trench coat, knee length, its heavy lining leaning in on my shoulders. It’s zipped to the throat.
The fur lined leather gloves keep the hands and fingers toasty. I grip my case with one, and swing the other, the motion pulling me forward, the pace quick, the blood and bones warming from the movement.
And there he was.
Alone. [Read more…]
Live & Learn 