A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness…


Notes:

  • Daybreak. 36° F. 6:15 am. October 9, 2022. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.
  • Post Title: Charles Ives, “Essays Before a Sonata

Nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding / Than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.


Notes:

  • Post Title: From Mary Oliver’s “Terns” (Thank you Make Believe Boutique)
  • DK Photos: 6:15 to 6:40. 60° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.

A lovely September Day — tender —

 


Notes:

  • Photos: DK @ Daybreak, Cove Island Park. 6:00-6:15 a.m. on September 10, 2022.  More photos from a glorious morning here.
  • Post Title: Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary (Mariner Books; March 31, 2003)

Feeding on all of Earth’s beauty, making everything of its light*


Notes:

  • Post Title from: Maddie Mortimer’s Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Picador; March 31, 2022). * Modified from the original “Feeding on all of Earth’s beauty, making nothing of its light.”
  • Other photos from this morning’s walk here.

Walking. With Ennui.

5:25 a.m. Here we go again. 849 consecutive (almost) days on my Daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

I gather my camera gear, sleep walking through the ritual now. Insomnia rages, 6 days running. No, I haven’t taken your suggested witches’ potions — that is, banana before bed, tonic water, melatonin, magnesium, and all that other voodoo shit that I can’t seem to even try. What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same shit over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, here we are. On the 5:30 am Insanity Bus to Cove Island Park.

I get out of the car. I reposition the pack on my back, then the camera, all of it, heavy, unsettled, unsettling.

I walk.

I’m woozy, stewing in a brew of vertigo and fatigue. Brew…Brew…feelings brewing. I’m at the opening of Maddie Mortimer’s Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies: “Feeling brews itself in different locations, depending on the body. A man’s most honest impulses may begin in his hands or his heart, his toes, throat, fingers or thighs. Lia felt most things first in her stomach.” There’s nothing spectacular going on in this body right now. Spent immediately comes to mind. I slow my pace to get a grip.

I walk.

Mortimer goes on to use the word “ennui“, a Lori-word. I had to look it up…a feeling of utter weariness and discontent…world-weary sensation…soul-destroying fiend.”

I walk.

Adding to the ennui is an “off day” for photo taking. We’ve got the 3 impeding elements: (1) No cloud cover of any type. (2) High tide and (3) Humans. With sun rising later, the tourists are out. In force.

I walk.

I turn off the shoreline, finding nothing enlightening, and move to the walk path.

Man, tourist, adult, not a regular at Cheers here on the Daybreak walks, approaches. He’s shouting into the speaker of his smartphone. He’s FaceTiming. The participant on the other side of the call shouts back. And the back and forth continues, shattering the silence of daybreak.

I move left on the path directly in his lane, thinking this may jog him in lifting the receiver to his ear, or better yet, ending the call. No such thing happens. He shifts to the other side of the path to avoid me. I glare at him, he smiles back and continues his conversation. Idiot, oblivious to the world around him.

My irritation bleeds off, and I walk.

Continue reading “Walking. With Ennui.”