Ukraine. Russian invasion. Wintery Mix followed by freezing rain. 28° F, feels like 18° F. Best to just stay in bed, and ride it out.
Photo: DK @ Cove Island Park. Friday, Feb 25, 2022. 6:06 a.m. More photos from this morning here.
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.
Saturday Morning
December 18, 2021 by 17 Comments
Brian Wilson went to bed for three years. Jean-Michel Basquiat would spend all day in bed. Monica Ali, Charles Bukowski, Marcel Proust, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tracey Emin, Emily Dickinson, Edith Sitwell, Frida Kahlo, William Wordsworth, René Descartes, Mark Twain, Henri Matisse, Kathy Acker, Derek Jarman and Patti Smith all worked or work from bed and they’re productive people. (Am I protesting too much?) Humans take to their beds for all sorts of reasons: because they’re overwhelmed by life, need to rest, think, recover from illness and trauma, because they’re cold, lonely, scared, depressed – sometimes I lie in bed for weeks with a puddle of depression in my sternum – to work, even to protest (Emily Dickinson, John and Yoko). Polar bears spend six months of the year sleeping, dormice too. Half their lives are spent asleep, no one calls them lazy. There’s a region in the South of France, near the Alps, where whole villages used to sleep through the seven months of winter – I might be descended from them. And in 1900, it was recorded that peasants from Pskov in northwest Russia would fall into a deep winter sleep called lotska for half the year: ‘for six whole months out of the twelve to be in the state of Nirvana longed for by Eastern sages, free from the stress of life, from the need to labour, from the multitudinous burdens, anxieties, and vexations of existence’.
— Viv Albertine, To Throw Away Unopened: A Memoir (Faber & Faber Social; May 8, 2018)
Notes: Photo via S L @ gingermias @ Unsplash. Quote via neverneverland
Walking. With Billy Summers. (2)
August 14, 2021 by 41 Comments
77° F. 5:05 a.m. Morning Walk @ Cove Island Park. 466 consecutive days. Like in a Row.
Another sh*t night of no-to-restless sleep. Another, like in a row. I’m tired. I look up ‘irascible’ when I get home, because that’s a word that Lori would use. I am Irascible. I-R-A-S-C-I-B-L-E. Oxford defines it as quick-tempered. Yes, with a capital “I”.
I pull into the parking lot. ‘My’ parking spot is taken. I park in the same spot each morning. There has to be 300 open spots, and someone had to choose mine. ‘Mine.’
I get out of the car, grab my camera gear from the back seat, and walk. It’s twilight, aka near dark. I fail to see the curb next to the car. My right toe slams into the concrete curb. I somehow manage not to take a header. F*cking curb. What is that doing here!*!$ The rest of the morning, my right toe tingles.
I note that there’s an unusually large number of cars at daybreak. And a large number of middle aged women mingling in front of the gate. [Don’t start slinging unfriendly fire at me Followers — I said ‘large number’, not ‘Large.’] They are blocking the first entrance to the park, requiring me to walk 50 feet down the line to the second entry. I mean really? Do you all need to congregate in front of the gate chitter-chattering at 5:10 a.m. What could there possibly be so important to talk about.
My rhythm is disrupted. I have a routine here, people. 466 days of it. And here you come with your, what, yoga group? Meditation sutras? Keep clear.
Air is thick, heavy. I need to wear long pants and a long sweat shirt as armor from the gnats and mosquitos. It’s 5:25 a.m, it’s hot and I haven’t even gotten started. Leather straps from the backpack bite into my shoulder. Camera straps pinch my neck. And that swish swish of the backpack pulls on the straps which dig and then cut skin. Latin: Irascibillis.
The scene reminds me of a line in Stephen King’s new book which is being pumped by Audible into my airpods: Billy Summers: “When things go wrong, they don’t waste time.” [Read more…]
Insomnia
July 27, 2021 by 19 Comments
All over the world people can’t sleep.
In different times zones they’re lying awake
Bodies still, minds trudging along…
some are too cold, some too hot…
Some under bridges…
some hungry, some in pain…
Some get up
Others stay in bed
They eat oreos, or drink wine
Or both
Many read…
Some check their email
They try sleep tapes, hypnosis, drugs
They listen to their clocks tick…
hoping to catch a ride on the steady sleep breath of the other
to be carried like a seed on the body of one who is able.
Right now in Japan dawn is coming, and everyone who’s been up all night is relieved;
they can stop trying In Guatemala though the insomniacs are just getting started
and have the whole night ahead of them.
It’s like a wave at the baseball stadium,
hands around the world.
So here’s a prayer for the wakeful
The souls who can’t rest
as you lie with your eyes open
or closed
May something comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze,
the smell of crushed mint
rain on the roof,
Chopin’s Nocturnes
your child’s birth
a kiss,
or even me—in my chilly kitchen
with my coat on—thinking of you
~Ellen Bass, from “Insomnia” in Mules of Love
Photo: “Insomnia” by Alice Rose Photography. Poem, thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels)
Saturday Afternoon
January 30, 2021 by 63 Comments
Sully visiting this weekend. (Feels like 10° F outside)
Saturday Morning
December 5, 2020 by 44 Comments
Daybreak. December 5, 2020. 7:30 am. 41° F. Heavy Rain. Cove Island Park, Stamford CT
Truth
July 14, 2020 by 23 Comments
Source: Hartley Lin (formerly known by the pseudonym Ethan Rilly) is a cartoonist based in Montreal, Canada. Young Frances, the first collection from his ongoing comic book Pope Hats, won the 2019 Doug Wright Award for Best Book. He has drawn for The New Yorker, The Hollywood Reporter, Slate, Taddle Creek and HarperCollins. (via thisisn’thappiness)
Lightly Child, Lightly.
July 9, 2020 by 41 Comments
“1 a.m.: Lie here then. Just lie here. What of it? It’s just lying here. Think of good things… Try to calm the banging heart.”
— Samantha Harvey, The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping (Grove Press; May 12, 2020)
Notes:
- Photo: Katia Chausheva (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) with Ariel amoureuse (via Mennyfox55)
- 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.”
‘Feel’ This
July 3, 2020 by 28 Comments
(He) said that happiness is what happens when you go to bed on the hottest night of the summer, a night so hot you can’t even wear a tee-shirt and you sleep on top of the sheets instead of under them, although try to sleep is probably more accurate. And then at some point late, late, late at night, say just a bit before dawn, the heat finally breaks and the night turns into cool and when you briefly wake up, you notice that you’re almost chilly, and in your groggy, half-consciousness, you reach over and pull the sheet around you and just that flimsy sheet makes it warm enough and you drift back off into a deep sleep. And it’s that reaching, that gesture, that reflex we have to pull what’s warm – whether it’s something or someone – toward us, that feeling we get when we do that, that feeling of being sad in the world and ready for sleep, that’s happiness.
— Paul Schmidtberger, Design Flaws of the Human Condition
Notes: Quote: from liquidlightandrunningtrees via Last Tambourine. Photo: forward to forget
Saturday Morning
May 16, 2020 by 13 Comments
Silence can also be a friend. A comfort and a source of deeper riches. In The Silence That Follows, the poet Rolf Jacobsen wrote:
The silence that lives in the grass
on the underside of each blade
and in the blue space between the stones.
The silence that rests like a young bird in your palms. It is easy to see oneself in Rolf Jacobsen’s experience. Alone out on the ocean, you can hear the water; in the forest, a babbling brook or else branches swaying in the wind; on the mountain, tiny movements between stones and moss. These are times when silence is reassuring. I look for that within myself.
— Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise
Notes: Photo by Chris Jones with Blades of Grass. Prior Erling Kagge posts here.
Saturday Morning
April 25, 2020 by 28 Comments
The silence I have in mind may be found wherever you are, if you pay attention, inside your mind, and is without cost. You don’t have to go to Sri Lanka: you can experience it in your bathtub. — I discover silence when I stay five extra minutes in bed at home.
— Erling Kagge, Silence: In the Age of Noise
Walking Downtown. With Air to be reckoned with.
January 27, 2020 by 53 Comments
Jenny Offill describes her mood…”she’s tired all the time now…she can feel how slow she is walking, as if the air itself is something to be reckoned with.” I read the passage a week ago. And Mind keeps flipping it back.
Sleep app congratulates me this morning on seven consecutive days of hitting sleep targets. Grooving a routine. And it’s working. I’m sleeping.
But, tired all the time.
Lower Manhattan this morning.
40+ F, but don’t get caught out without a coat. Frigid winds blow through the tunnels between the hulking skyscrapers.
Colleagues take the subway to a client meeting: It’s only two stops!
I let them go. I need to walk. Shoulder stiff. Neck aches. Need to be alone.
A lifetime, swift walker. But not lately. Like a glider banking energy, I’m waiting for a tail wind, or even a gust.
Not my photo above, I couldn’t muster up my own shot. I pause to watch the tourists take their shots with the Bull. In all the years, this is the first time you’ve stopped (paused) to admire him. You are a beaut Mr. Bull.
Bullfighter or the Bull? Red cape, the muleta. God Save the Bull.
Three minutes to destination.
I take a take breath and step into the building.
Game time.
Photo: Alexander Nilssen, Bull of Wall Street
Saturday Morning
January 11, 2020 by 29 Comments
One’s very own room, ventilated to please one’s self, furnished just as one wishes, with one’s pet belongings arranged to suit one’s own tastes; an entire bed in which one may pitch and toss, stretch and yawn, without the consciousness that another would-be sleeper is being annoyed – all of these are aids to happiness.
– Virginia Terhune Van de Water, “From Kitchen to Garret,” (Published in 1910)
Notes: Quote via Schonwieder. Photo via Sabon Home
Saturday Morning
October 5, 2019 by 10 Comments
I sat on my patio, wrapped in a blanket…when I noticed that my room was not on the ground floor but on the subfloor beneath, making it closer to the edge where the beach began…I turned on the radio and Nina Simone was singing I Put a Spell on You. The seals were silent, and I could hear the waves in the distance, winter on the West Coast. I sank into bed and slept heavily.
~ Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey (Alfred A. Knopf, September 24, 2019)
Photo: Dream Inn Santa Cruz, CA by Angelo DeSantis
Waiting. At The Star Market. Trying to Bend the Image.
August 16, 2019 by 66 Comments
7:05 am. Stamford station.
I’m waiting for the 2151 Acela to Baltimore. Overhead board flashes On Time, Track 2.
There are two empty seats adjacent to a scruffy, long bearded old man. He’s wearing a heavy jacket, way too heavy for August. A rollerboard stands to his right. His head bowed, sleeping. You’re asking for trouble. Find another seat. I look around, and can’t find another seat. I catch others watching me, judging, ‘The Suit won’t come near That.’
And Mind, ever so efficient, calls up a Marie Howe poem, The Star Market:
“The people Jesus loved were shopping at the Star Market yesterday. An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps. Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them: shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay..Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself…stumbling among the people who would have been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands and knees begging for mercy. If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought, could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?”
He lifts his head, turns towards me and stares. I freeze. The Others are now watching. I pause, and make my move.
I take the seat next to Him.
Others watch for a moment, eyebrows raised, and then go back to their smartphones. Did you do it because you wanted a seat? Or because others would think less of You, or that you didn’t want this Suit to meet their expectations? Or because you didn’t want Him to think you thought any less of Him?
There’s one empty seat between us. But there’s tension in the gap. He turns to look at me, I can feel his eyes on me. Here it comes, Can you help me out with a few bucks, Sir?”
He sits silently. [Read more…]
Flying AA1011 N.W. With Miracles?
August 9, 2019 by 38 Comments
6 a.m. this morning.
7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. WTH is that?
Dallas, TX. Hotel check-out.
This Hotel, a fine property.
Receptionist punches my room number into the system and then quickly lifts her head, and makes eye contact.
She pauses. And looks back down, reading. And that ain’t no coincidence.
The hotel record has to be Red Flagged with an Alert. Has to be.
“Be damn careful here. That gnarly look is squarely aligned with his disposition. Man has been a patron here for 3 years. Many (MANY) nights. We’ve had a string of 5 straight stays of really bad luck.
- #1 & #2: A/C out 2 nights.
- #3: Party next door and in hallway from 1:30 am to 3:30 am. (He typically wakes at 4am. He doesn’t Party.)
- #4: Room Service delivered meal to the wrong room, and he had to wait another hour.
- #5: The pièce de résistance. Room Service barreled through his locked door (the wrong door) at 2 a.m. Yes, he was sleeping. But not any longer.
He’s advised the Hotel Manager that he’s a Simple Man. He’s not interested in fresh towels (he reuses his), he’s not interested in turn down service, or mint chocolate squares on his pillow, or a Shoe Shine. He’s not interested in a coupon for a free dessert, and not interested in you walking around the counter to hand him his key. He wants his key (fast), he wants a Quiet room, he wants working AC and he would like his order for room service to be delivered within the hour. [Read more…]
(Sleep) Walking. Into Saturday Morning.
July 6, 2019 by 45 Comments
Friday night. Netflix movie. Two handfuls of shelled pistachios. Heaping bowl of Nacho Cheese Doritos. 3 scoops of The Fixer, Talenti’s Mint-Chocolate Chip gelato.
Full shot? Or half shot? After effects: Groggy to semi-groggy. I bite down on the smooth, egg shell blue Tylenol PM pill, snap it in half. Toss one half back and place the other half on my tongue. I cup hand under the running water, scoop it into my mouth, throw my head back, and chase it down. Do your thing Girl, do your thing.
I flip through blog feeds, Apple News Feed, Google News feed and RSS feeds. A quick peek at work emails. And then on to Kindle. I wade through the last two chapters of A. K. Benjamin’s Let Me Not Be Mad: My Story of Unraveling Mind. Turn the last page of the book, and pause. Why this book, this title, at this time, out of the millions of Kindle options. Benjamin’s words: “Words never surpass the bliss of breathing. Place hand through head: no brain, no mind, no hand” and “I could walk over London Bridge in rush hour, faces thronging around me, and diagnose each one in an instant: Psychosis … Depression … Lewy bodies … Panic … Depression … Sociopathy … OCD … Cynophobia … Panic … Guam’s … Everybody has something.”
Everybody has something…
Just give me 7 hours, 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
And then this somebody will deal with that something, and that everything.
Notes:
- Inspired by: Michael Wade in his post: “The Day” …”Firm Ground Rule: Do Everything Slowly.
- Inspired by: “Recreation, love, spirituality—each turned into work: This is how we cope …A current darling of neuroscience research—the cultivation of default-mode networks—indicates that our brains need mindlessness, unemployment, f*$king about, eating mental crisps, in order to thrive. ~ A. K. Benjamin, Let Me Not Be Mad: My Story of Unraveling Mind (Dutton, June 11, 2019)
- Photo: Wes Sumner (San Francisco, CA) (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
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