It's never seen the sun, it only comes up when the moon is on the run

I was just reading in Martha Stewart's delicious holiday issue all about amaryllis flowers, and now Park Seed has more than a dozen different varieties on their site . . . I think I've fallen in love with their Cherry Nymph.

Another day, another sunset.

You'd think I'd get tired of the same exact view and capturing it with the tiniest, most subtle variations of color and tone. But somehow, I don't.

Sunset the other night.

Lone walker on the lake

A shot from the lake shortly before I left Michigan.

I had thought all these shots got lost from my card; I was so delighted to find it was hiding out somewhere in the recesses.

Laura and I took Mancho out to Point Isabel today. It wasn't quite as stunning as usual given the overcast weather and the narrow path flanked by a chain-link fence protecting the newly seeded grass on one side and the caution tape preventing access to the polluted water on the other, due to the recent oil spill. It was the regular dog-fest, though, and we were particularly struck by a trio of incredibly massive dogs that probably came up to our bustlines, or perhaps just our waists. But anyway, they were the kind of dogs that sort of take your breath away. Two were silver-gray, one was brown. I don't know my breeds well enough to say what they were.

We talked about going dancing at Cocomo tonight, and I was planning on joining Brian in The City first and meeting his girlfriend Alison and joining them for a learning with the Mission Minion, but I think I'm in for the night. I picked up a bit of a cold in the chaos of the end of the semester and the travel and debauchery here, and now I just need to rest to get over my sore throat.

Family readers, I have posted new Christmas photos on Flickr. If you don't have an account, it's free and easy to create one so you can view them. Just write me a note so I know who you are :)

wordpainting

These things I see, I could not create if I tried . . .

A gruff man in a cowboy hat with a lit cigarette hanging in his mouth, sitting with the engine running in his tan metallic long-bed Ford pickup truck with a full load of firewood dusted with snow, waiting outside the cable company . . .

The golden stubs of a corn field poking their stalky fingers out of the thick blanket of white, against the fading pale pink horizon. . .

A weathered red barn, the wood in danger of collapse at any moment, against the stark winter landscape. . .

A tiny round bird resting beside a tuft of snow in the bare stalks of the hedge in my front yard . . .

The morning sight of a lone figure making his way on cross-country skis across the lake . . .

In the afternoon, another with a device like a massive corkscrew, shuffling on foot back from a center point where he has drilled, presumably to test the ice thickness for its readiness to hold the ice fishermen . . .

And then the narrow glimmering fingernail of moon rising in the pale blue arc of the sky at sunset over the cottage when I arrive home.

They are things I drink in every day, images I think I will carry in my heart for life. It is so very beautiful out here.

(Despite the 40 minutes of shoveling the driveway this morning . . .)

The thin ice of modern life

So, after my walk today, I was 100% convinced that it was time to buy a thing I heard about from a hard-core runner from the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for those of you who aren't Michiganders) in one of my MSW classes: Yaktrax. Why is this so important? Well, the driveway to my cottage is so thoroughly glazed with ice, I almost did a full slide down it when I got to the top of the hill, found myself sliding, and had to move with hands AND feet toward the side of the road to avoid falling completely. A neighbor on her way into the subdivision in her car seemed to be having a good laugh at me. I was a little irked.

Well, I've started salting the driveway, I've been parking at my neighbor's for the past few days, and I've ordered my Yaktrax over the internet. Now, it's time to see about getting snow tires. As a Californian, I'm a bit clueless about this stuff. Smart Michigan friends, do you have any suggestions?

waiting for persephone (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens)

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I run into David in the entryway of the Social Work building and he tells me he is writing villanelles, and I am reminded of the artistry of Sylvia Plath, and her Mad Girl's Love Song.

. . .

It's hard to convey the import of the gift of a blue sky to those who see one daily.

The light is so unexpected, it makes the world look iridescent.


Still, it doesn't exorcise the sense of abandonment here, like a resort emptied of its vacationers.





I feel oddly drawn to the desolate beauty anyway, the vastness of the space of silence, the heavy linger of death, or hibernation.




somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence. . .
(e.e. cummings)

remember me to one who lives there

My hardy little survivors in the herb garden. They are an inspiration, really.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Still so very grey. The fog brings snow, then ice, then pure rain that melts away the ice from the lake's surface. And just this weekend, I saw the little kiddies out there playing hockey on the ice. And wondered at the daring of their parents, to let them out there so shortly after the surface had hardened.

I have to search to find color in the surroundings, when the lovely birds have finished pecking at the trees outside my living room windows. But there is beauty all around, and with a little patience, I see the colors through the gray.

another snowfall . . .

But all we can confess of what we are
Has in it the defeat of isolation--
If not our own, then someone's, anyway.
-- Adrienne Rich, Stepping Backward

I am overwhelmed sometimes by the beauty of the world around me.

And there are days, like today, when I am reminded of the meaning and purpose of my presence here. And these times, I feel so very much gratitude for everything and everyone that has contributed to my being right here, right now, in this moment, in this space. Even this landscape that I discover anew each day, so brand new to me, is one I see with lenses thick with memories, and everyone I have ever known is somehow here with me in this vision of the world, even as I experience isolation . . .

and it retreats again

ice spreads its wings across the surface at dawn

I had wondered and wondered what it might look like when the lake started to freeze over. Surely it wouldn't happen overnight, I thought, but in a process; but what would the process be like? When we were still seeing raspberries at the farmers' markets in late October, I wondered if it would even truly happen. But the time of winter has come, and I am burrowing delicately into the new world I find myself surrounded by, furnishing my inner world with words and soundscapes new or dusty from disuse, and polishing them to match the startling gray that is emerging all around.

What is that like, you wonder? Here I have created a less than perfect panorama, but a panorama nonetheless. (I would love to take a course to improve my digital photography skills in shooting and editing . . . and also to buy a camera that gives me more flexibility. But for the moment, I have what I have.) Click it to see the full view. (Click the little tiny box that isn't loading below for the huge version.)

Turn bleak December once more into May . . .

(Snow like stars over the lake's edge. The surface started freezing over last night.)

We had ample warning for the storm, so I canceled my plans to go dancing at Papi O's with Alice tonight, and my meeting with my undergraduate honors mentee to talk about her thesis, and instead spent the day getting everything set up for me to hide away until Monday (or longer!) if need be. There's something about living in such a quiet spot in the country that makes you feel in tune with (and at the mercy of) nature in ways I just don't in the city. Since the summer storm that knocked out my power and thus my water supply (since I'm on a well) for three days running, I have not taken the weather lightly.



My tree looks rather different in this light. It reminds me of my brother's college class in which he had a journal he maintained for a tree for a period of a semester.

So, this morning, I got showered and made my way down to Ann Arbor right after waking to take care of errands so I would be sure to be back in the country by late afternoon. I picked up my students' essays, then bought an ungodly amount of groceries at Trader Joe's, which was filled almost to capacity, with cars struggling to move in the parking lot, and grocery carts getting caught in gridlock in the aisles. I stopped at Busch's too, when I got back to the country, so I could get rid of more of my recycling, and get even more groceries.

By the time the snow started falling, I was tucked away in my cozy cottage, with a huge pot full of sumptuously delicious grown-up macaroni and cheese I couldn't help but eat out of the pot with a wooden spoon, and my absolutely massive enamel stock pot bubbling away with fresh stock in the works. In fact, I didn't even realize the storm had finally arrived, until I went out with my flashlight and kitchen shears to clip some fresh thyme and sage from the garden plot, and I saw everything covered with white.

My little path to the water has all but disappeared in just an hour's snowfall.

The house smells heavenly, of herbs and vegetables, and is toasty warm. I am drinking O'Douls and feel a little like a child in a playhouse. A Californian in the snow. I don't think I'll ever get over the magic of it, the mystical quiet that settles in all around when the ground is padded with tiny crystals everywhere.

Naturally I couldn't resist taking some photos. Tomorrow I'll see if I can get out to explore the villages, if the conditions aren't too rough for driving a few miles.

For those of you wondering about the title of this post, it is from the ever-so-beautiful song Trees on the Mountains from the opera Susannah by Carlisle Floyd (libretto also by the same):

The trees on the mountain are cold and bare
The summer just vanished and left them there
like a false-hearted lover just like my own
who made me love him, then left me alone
Come back, young lover
Come back, blue flame
My heart wants warming, my baby a name
Come back young lover, if just for a day
Turn bleak December once more into May

If you're interested, here's an interview of Floyd. The opera isn't popular with everybody. I've never seen it live. But I still get the songs in my head, especially this one and Ain't It a Pretty Night, which I heard my fellow singers working on in vocal repertory classes back in Santa Cruz. And yes, Miss Robin, that means you. :)

Thursday's sunset. I was writing writing writing. But guess what? I finished my Qualitative Methods paper!