The no-man’s land, between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning…

There are a few hours each year that belong to no day. The no-man’s land, between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning…

Morning kneels quietly at our feet, opening its pale palms out to us.

Merry Christmas, lovely, he says, so gently…

Look outside! The daughter is practically screaming. During the no-man’s hours, it has snowed. It is not that thick, muzzle-clean snow, but it is enough to glaze the landscape with a pure sheet of ivory light. Enough to give us all the sense that time has paused, just for today. We decide that seeing something for the first time is much the same as seeing it for the last.

Let it snow

Let it snow

Let it snow

— Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Picador; March 31, 2022)


Portrait of Maddie Mortimer from The Times

Wally’s Great Adventures (20)

hello peeps, wally here. Laila, love her name, suggested that we re-name my handle to “Wally The Adventure Doggo.” i like it, a lot, and this is coming from a PhD student who reads Dostoevsky and Woolf in her spare time, and is way smarter than dad, so i pay attention, i’m noodling it.

anyhoo, re: video. volume up and stick to the end. mom said that its holiday baking time, so i helped her bake oatmeal cookies…she said that i must keep my little tongue in my mouth as i cant drool in the mixing bowl. dad said i cant talk about mom in my posts because she’s banned from limiting free speech.

oh, there’s more. rachel says i look like a large baked potato. name calling like that, that’s just not right. dad said she keeps it up, she’ll be on the banned list too.

i helped dad unwrap, yes, you heard it right, unwrap eric’s xmas present, because dad couldn’t wait, yes, dad couldn’t wait to open eric’s xmas present. mom yelled at dad calling him a man-child. oops, now dad is yelling at me because mom is banned from mention on this site.

finally, i am very good at finding sunlight on the floor and then taking naps in it. that last shot is of me laying in what eric calls the sunbox. I love the sunbox, it is warm like mom. oops, there i go mentioning mom again, need to be careful or i could be banned too. it’s nap time. good night everyone. Wally.

Wally’s Great Adventures (19)

Wally’s Great Adventures (19). hello everyone, wally here. figured i had better report out as i may have to report dad to the authorities. i thought he loved me, yet he dragged me outside into the freezing cold and there was some kind of white ash falling from the sky, hopefully not the nuclear kind. help me god! i.did.not.like.this. just look at the 3rd photo. itchy girly jacket on top of falling ash and freezing cold – that is sheer terror you are staring at. I’m not sure that i will recover from this. nor did i like dad posting a picture of me peeing and then posting it globally (#2). i mean really dad, is there no red line? he said he warned me, that if i didn’t stand still for the shot, the pee pee shot was going up. no chance i was standing in all that falling radiation. And it’s not just me thats after dad. mom said that dad has been putting words in my mouth and making her look bad in these posts… Dad snapped back and said that she will no longer be mentioned as part of my stories – SHE’S OUT he said.. (i thought i decided that, but dad is king and has veto power.) then eric came home with his gr…grrrr….grrrrrrl friend, and he said that my last post was lame. LAME HE SAID?!? Then dad asked dana, eric’s gr…grrrr..grrrrrl friend, what she thought and she said ‘tame.’ TAME SHE SAID!? so dad said we’ll see tamo, lamo very soon and they’ll all be ducking for cover. when dad gets like this it is best to stay out of his way. Anyhoo, ive dried off now, warmed up from the nightmare a few minutes ago, and i’m ready for a nap. goodnight everyone. Wally.   

 

And then, there was Snow.

Come to my quietness I shall cover you with it,

like a white sheet that has blown all day in the sun,

like a mountain lake filled with spring,

it shall slip over you…

—  Diane di Prima, Selected Poems, 1956-1975


Notes:

  • Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 6:30 to 6:50 am, Feb 13, 2022. Snow & Snowing. 29° F, feels like 22° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.
  • Poem, Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels.

5″ snow. Feels like 1°. Wind gusts up to 43 mph.


Notes:

  • Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 5:55 a.m. January 29, 2022. 19° F, feels like 1° F. Snow, wind gusts up to 43 mph. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. Other photos from this morning here.
  • Snoopy via Mondoshop via thisisnthappiness

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

There is Something about being out and about and walking @ Daybreak as light snow falls.

And in a city of ~130,000, not a single set of tracks on any of the footpaths.

Just fresh fallen snow, silence, and me.

The snow has quietness in it; no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.” (Anne Sexton, All My Pretty Ones.)


DK @ Daybreak. 6:32 am, January 24, 2022. 25° F, feels like 15° F. Light Snow. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More shots from this morning’s walk here.

Saturday Morning


DK @ Daybreak. 6:32 to 6:46 am, January 8, 2022. 19° F (-7 C), feels like 7° F (-14 C). Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

T.G.I.F.

Snow had started falling from the Illinois sky, white crystallizations of water as pure as he felt… His thoughts had slowed to a happy medium, no slower than that, not yet. He stood for a moment on the sidewalk, amid the melting snowflakes, and wished the world could just stand still.

Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 5, 2021)


Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 6:15 to 6:435 am, January 7, 2022. 28° F, feels like 17° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. (More pictures from this morning here.)

Christmas Eve


First Snow @ Daybreak. 6:28 to 6:53 am, December 24, 2021. 29° F, feels like 24° F. (-2° C feels like -4° C). Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. (More shots from this morning @dkct25 on Instagram)

It’s been a long winter…


Hanover Bald Eagle Live Cams (Via Your Eyes Your Blaze Out)

Winter solitude – in a world of one color. The sound of wind.


Notes:

T.G.I.F.: It’s been a long week


Daybreak. Snow. 6:40 am, February 19, 2021. 29° F, feels like 19° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

Daybreak. The Day After…


Photo: DK. Daybreak. Light Rain. 6:15 am. to 7:00 am, February 2, 2021. 33° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Photos: DK @ Daybreak. Snow flurries. 6:05 am. to 6:28 am, February 1, 2021.  26° F, feels like 11° F, wind gusts up to 44 mph. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

Winter

 

 


Daybreak. December 17, 2020. 6:45 to 7:20 am. 24° F. Feels like 9° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford CT

how easy it can be to find your own quiet place

Q: Is the image based on something you saw? How did it come to you?

“More than being based on something I saw, I would say it comes from something I experience often. I was trying to capture the feeling of being immersed in a book to the exclusion of everything around you. I think my love for reading comes more from the need to connect with my inner reality than from the desire to escape the external one. Proust described it perfectly as “that fertile miracle of communication that takes effect in solitude.” …

My first time in New York was in 2010, when I spent three months there, during the winter. My most vivid memories are connected to that first stay. I remember big blue skies, ice-cold feet, hot black coffees, fresh bagels, and huge pizza slices.

The gif was animated by the talented Jose Lorenzo. I often collaborate with him—I love the way he brings my images to life. We didn’t want the image to be too frenetic. For me, it was important to maintain that feeling of peace and timelessness that happens when you’re reading. I also wanted to show how easy it can be to find your own quiet place in the city without having to go far out of your way.”

Anna Pariniin response a question from , on this week’s cover in The New Yorker, which shows a rare moment of calm amid the bustle of a new year.  Parini, who has contributed illustrations to the magazine since 2015, grew up in Milan but is now based in Barcelona. Mouly spoke to Parini about New York’s wintry charms and the process of creating an animated cover image.

(Source: Anna Parini’s “A New Leaf”, The New Yorker, January 7, 2019)

Christmas Eve (3:44 a.m) … and Magic

And Lindsay captures it wonderfully in her photo above and in her post titled “Snow Falling” – while I sit here in darkness, early this morning, watching snow fall on Christmas Eve:

“There is something absolutely magical about snow falling. I am always in awe of the eerie silence that falls around the house as it lightly touches down on our roof and the ground around us. I love how from somewhere it picks up little hints of light so it resembles glitter falling all around you…It was magnificent. It was glorious to be able to lean up against the window and just watch the big flakes fall luxuriously down around us. Something about snow makes me feel like a little kid all over again.”


Inspired by: “—light snow, silence, the empty streets, the fog, thrilling cold—so much beauty. Like breathing pure oxygen.” ~ Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980

 

Peaceful easy feeling

house-feb-2018

53° F on Friday.

39° on Saturday morning.

Spring!

So when it started at 7 pm last night, it felt anything but that.  A December feeling in February.

Large, wet flakes, falling softly.

I turn off the television. Enough Mueller, Trump, collusion, and spit from the talking heads on Cable. Dirty. Ugly.

Light from the street lamps paint the fresh snow with a soft amber glow. Magical. “This voice keeps whispering in my other ear…I get this peaceful easy feeling…”

I watch from the window inside.

Mother and Son build a snowman, Eric is days from his 24th birthday.  They’re giggling.

Flashbacks. Rosy cheeks. Over sized mittens. Snow pants swishing. Arms swinging up and down, angels in snow. What’s this portrait missing? Rachel who couldn’t make it home for the weekend. And Zeke. Yes, Zeke loved the snow. Snow flakes melting on his velvety reddish brown fur. Barking, and barking and barking at Dad who chases the kids and pelts them with snowballs. Who you protecting these days Bud? [Read more…]

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Let me seek then,
the gift of silence and solitude,
where everything I touch is turned into a prayer:
where the sky is my prayer,
the birds are my prayer,if
the wind in the trees is my prayer…

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude


Notes:

  • Quote: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photograph Gif: via Nini Poppins
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • 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.”

T.G.I.F.: Morning Swim (Post Grayson)


Source: Giphy.com

%d bloggers like this: