Thunderstorms

"And the thunder rolls."

-- Garth Brooks

Blackbirds and storm clouds 4-30-14

"We pledge to fight 'blue-sky' thinking wherever we find it.

Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day."

-- Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter's Guide

"Take long walks in stormy weather ... if you would keep your spirits up."

-- Henry David Thoreau,

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

"Tut, Tut, looks like rain."

-- A.A. Milne

My grandma was seriously afraid of thunderstorms.

She'd get all panicky and crawl under the kitchen table to wait them out, usually dragging her Schnauzer, Peppy, and my little sisters along to hide out with her.

 But she couldn't convince me to hide.

 Hell, no.

I was at the picture window or out on her front porch watching the show.

I love thunderstorms.

I love watching them.

I love smelling them.

I love hearing them.

I especially love the sound of thunder, which is why spring storm season is one of my favorite times of the year.

Thunderstorm season.

I kind of forget about them all winter, and then I hear that first low, dull, trembling roll of one approaching from the distance and I remember. I remember how hungry I am for a good thunderstorm.

We had about six different types of weather yesterday. I liked the stormy bits best. 

There is something decidedly primal and powerful and bad ass about thunderstorms. 

When the National Weather Service announces a severe storm warning, I dig it. When they show a map of where the worst part of a thunderstorm will be, I secretly hope that our little town will be smack in the middle, that we'll be the deep red smear at its rough, tough center.

I don't even mind getting caught out in a storm. It's happened to me plenty often when I'm out for a long run or on my bike, miles from home, with no other choice but to head right into it. I love driving into a thunderstorm. Because northern Ohio is so endlessly flat, the view of lighting at night spreads across the horizon like a laser-light show in the dark sky. It's better than any fireworks display.

One of my all-time favorite things is falling asleep to the sounds of a good thunderstorm. Big and bad and thunder-y and lightning-y. To me, it's better than any lullaby. 

I'm always a little disappointed and frustrated when I hear a storm coming and all the indicators look promising that it'll hit us, and then it peters out. 

Fizzles. 

Bummer.

But when one rolls in and parks itself for a while ... that's the stuff I like. It's satisfying. It's like Nature is getting some serious shit off her chest and having a good thorough emotional purge.

Some people are uncomfortable in the presence of a storm like that.

Not me. 

Maybe it's because I know the feeling.

So you'll never hear me telling a storm to stop.

I'll be the one saying "Go ahead, Honey. Let it out."

Just The Two Of Us

"We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. 

We were just there together. 

And that was enough."

-- Steven Chbosky, The Perks of Being A Wallflower

u and i,  4-29-14

"We go together,

Like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong

Remembered forever

As shoobop sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom

Chang chang changitty chang shoobop

That's the way it should be, wha ooohhhh, yeah."

-- "We Go Together," Grease

My husband and I went on a movie date last night. 

Just the two of us.

We were eating dinner, just the two of us, and he said he didn't bring home a movie rental.

The baseball game wasn't coming on until later.

Leo was out for the evening.

So I was like, "We could go out to a movie."

So that's what we did. We went to the movies.

Just the two of us.

The movie itself was "eh."

But being there together felt like old times, back when we did stuff together just because we could, for the simple reason that we had each other to do stuff with. 

I mean, we watch movies all the time. And we do stuff together, but lots of times we have one or both of our kids along with us, or sometimes friends.

But this time it was just us two. 

Two is good.

A Chip Off The Old Block

"There are certain traits that God puts in each one of us.

There's no escaping them."

-- Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle

Old cement block, chip, hammer and chisel 4-28-14 

"You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about.

You inherit your identity, your history,

like a birthmark that you can't wash off."

-- Hugo Hamilton, The Sailor in the Wardrobe

Whenever I witness one of my less-than-desirable traits emerging in one of my sons, I cringe.

Be it my anxious mind, my irritable bowel, my twitchy face, my acne-prone skin, my shitty housekeeping skills, my emotional volatility, my food sensitivities -- when I see any one of those little bastards coming down the genetic shit-chute I want to shut it down, stuff it back in the tube, throw a wrench in the works and scream "No no no no no! Not that one!".

And yet for all the crappy traits I wish they didn't get, there are a few gems I don't mind seeing, and am even happy to watch develop and grow as my two boys make them their very own.

From my good stuff, Sam got my quick wit, my biting, sardonic sense of humor, my love of coffee, and my jawline. (Apparently everything else in his packaging came from my husband.)

Leo got my love of exercise and pushing my body to its limits. He got my athletic intensity (which can be a good or a bad thing, depending how you slice it.) 

Leo also got my hunger for reading --  he's a teen boy who actually loves books and asks me for recommendations. [Applause!] I've passed along some of my favorites, books like A Prayer for Owen Meany, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Catcher in the Rye. He gobbles them up and then feels the same heavy sadness I do when a good book ends and he doesn't get to commune with its characters anymore. Love that.

He also got my hunger for art. He draws and paints and likes to meander around the art supplies store looking for possibilities, just like me.  He's a dreamer, just like me. He likes to visit the art museum, just like me. (For a while the screensaver on his iPhone is his favorite Karl Schmidt-Rottluff painting.) He'll roam around the woods with me, camera in hand, just to see what we can see.

Leo also likes to paint birds, just like me. He can get lost in his room for hours, just like me, listening to music and painting, say, a teeny tiny duck on a little block of wood. 

Just like me.

I've been drawing/painting/photographing birds my whole life. The first frame-worthy, rudimentary bird rendering I did at age 10 (of a robin on her nest) hung on the wall in my grandparents' den for years.

And yesterday, Leo's painting of a pair of Cedar Waxwings won honorable mention in an Earth Day student art contest sponsored by our local MetroParks division.

I guess he's a chip off the old block.

And that is just fine with me, aka the Old Block. In fact, it's more than fine. It's really good.

As flashier, trendier distractions vie for my son's attention, I hope Leo never loses his appetite for creating and making and escaping into art. It is a trait that has served me well my whole life long. It's a good thing that I am more than happy to pass along to my child.

Um, sorry about all the other shit, buddy.

A Strong Tailwind

"For I would ride with you upon the wind ..."

-- W.B. Yeats, The Land of Heart's Desire

Pinwheel  toy 4-27-14

"The wind envelops you with a certain purpose in mind ..."

-- Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

"Air, I should explain, becomes wind when it is agitated."

-- Lucretious, On The Nature of Things

Cycling into a strong wind makes cycling feel a lot like hard work.

But thankfully, for every headwind there is an equal and opposite tailwind.

Turning the corner and riding a long stretch of smooth road with the wind at my back makes all the hard work worth it. This the part of the ride I live for -- the warm, gooey center. 

It's like dragging your sled up a huge snowy hill just so you can whiz down and feel the speed and freedom of fast. I'll gladly endure the burn in my legs and plow into a headwind or grapple with a crosswind for the sweet, exhilarating reward of being carried along by a strong tailwind. 

Headwind, bad.

Tailwind, good.

Artificial Tears

"But a mermaid has no tears, 

and therefore she suffers so much more."

-- Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

Self portrait (eye) 4-26-14

"This pure little drop from a pure little source was too sweet ..."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Villette

I have this condition called "chronic dry eye."

What it means is my eyes don't make enough tears to clean and lubricate my eyes.

You know how when your car runs out of windshield washer fluid, and you try to use the wipers anyway, but they just smear and spread the gunk and eventually stick to the glass and make the dirty windshield worse and worse? 

Essentially, that's what's going on with my eyeballs.

Without tears, my eyelids just grind the grit and pollen and dust and bacteria and pollutants of daily living deeper into the surface of my eyes. They hurt.They itch. They're red. They're puffy. It sucks.

And so I am super grateful for a magic elixir called artificial tears. I squirt the contents of tiny little tubes into my thirsty, thirsty eyes all day long. I carry them in my pockets, I keep them by my bed and all over the house, in a continuous and ongoing effort to rinse away the grime and keep my peepers happy and healthy.

It's a good thing they make this stuff for eyes like mine.

The better to see you with, my dear. 

Listening To A Game On The Radio

"I watch a lot of baseball on the radio."

-- Gerald Ford

Garage radio 4-25-14

"I would get a pillow and I would crawl under the radio, 

so that the loudspeaker and the roar of the crowd would wash all over me, 

and I would just get goose bumps like you can't believe. 

And I knew that of all the things in this world that I wanted, 

I wanted to be that fella saying, whatever, home run, or touchdown. 

It just really got to me."

-- Vin Scully, aka The voice of the Dodgers

"Part of the ineffable radio experience is the pace of baseball,

fraught with its pauses and ellipses.

The flights of memory and wit that fill these gaps are why baseball's

great radio voices are also master storytellers."

--  Bruce Dowbiggin, "What's Better Than a Road Trip 

With a Baseball Game On The Radio?" The Globe and Mail

Our TV was on the blink for a couple of days -- something went funky with the cable or something. It would only stay on for 15 seconds or so before the screen went blank.

Which is a problem when the game is on.

So I went Old School for the last two Indians/Royals games and listened to them on the radio.

Sure, I listen to games on the radio from time to time, if I'm working outside in the garden, or on a project that keeps me upstairs in my workspace, or if I'm in the car. But this time I didn't even try multitask. I just stretched out on the floor under a blanket and listened to the radio voices tell me pitch by pitch, hit by hit, out by out, play-by-play, inning by inning, exactly what was happening on the diamond at Progressive Field.

And you know what? I didn't miss the visuals at all, because the familiar voices of Cleveland's ace broadcasters Tom Hamilton and Jon Rosenhaus expertly painted in all of the colors and shapes and details and atmosphere for me, while my very own imagination supplied all of the imagery.

And because there weren't a dozen little icons constantly reminding me of strike counts, and pitch counts, or how many outs there were, or what inning it was, or who was at bat, or where the base runners were, or the arc of the ball or the location of the pitch etc., I had to think a little bit and stay in it and pay attention.

It was like listening to a really great story where I had to remember what happened earlier, and didn't know what would happen next, and couldn't wait to find out. It was like reading the book instead of taking the easy way out and watching the movie instead.

The TV is fixed. Which is a good thing. I guess.

A Hot Bath

"There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure,

but I don't know many of them."

-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Wood mannequin soaking in a hot bath 4-24-14

"Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you."

-- Delmore Schwartz

"Calgon, take me away!"

-- '70s Calgon commercial

My mother used to lock herself in the bathroom and tell us kids not to bother her because she was going to take a "hot soaky".

A "hot soaky" was a long bath with a thick paperback. It was how she escaped the stress and exasperation of four demanding stair-step daughters nipping at her heels.

My mother isn't the light-candles-sip-champagne-lose-yourself-in-luxury-Calgon-bubble bath type. For her, plain hot water, a pack of Winstons and a cup of instant Maxwell House did the trick. (Although the coffee cup could very well have held a Beam and 7 -- with my mom it was entirely possible).

She almost always fell asleep (which reinforces my theory that it wasn't coffee in the cup), and didn't get out until the water had grown stone cold. Rusty-colored burns lined one edge of our tub from forgotten cigarette butts, and all of her paperbacks were swollen to twice their thickness from being dropped in the water.

I don't take hot baths to escape. I take them simply because they feel good.

I like my baths almost intolerably hot with Epsom salt and lavender oil.

Sometimes I read (not paperbacks, but my Kindle, Kindleezza, safely sealed into her ZipLock scuba suit.)

I don't light candles (or cigarettes).

I don't bring beverages.

I just sit and soak.

I took one yesterday.

It felt good.

Incentive

"What I need is someone who will make me do what I can."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Carrot and stick 4-23-14

"There is something very satisfying about being rewarded for something ...

We do very well with rewards, sometimes, it's tangible, like a free coffee

 and sometimes, its just our own sense of moving closer to something we value.

We benefit from encouragement as we work towards our goals."

-- Michael Kay, 

"The Reward of Rewards," Psychology Today

"We persevere because we believe rewards will come."

-- Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read

After a couple of days of perfect bike riding weather, the temperature dropped and a chill gusty wind blew in yesterday. 

I bundled up and ventured out anyway, but the changing weather definitely stole some of the fun out of it for me.

Leaning into a stout, harsh crosswind that stung my face as it gusted across the empty farm fields, I fought to stay upright, and motivated. I was cold. My eyes were watering. My legs burned. My shoulder ached. My nose ran.

But I kept pedaling. Because I had a secret weapon. I had motivation. There was a carrot on the end of the stick I was chasing that was going to be so worth it when I finally caught up to it.

I had a massage scheduled later in the day.

So the colder, sorer and tired-er I got, the more I focused on how good it was going to feel when I finally stretched out on the heated massage table under the soft warmth of  heated blankets, soothed by the dim lights, the quiet music, the aroma of scented oil and sandalwood. I thought of smooth, warm hands working smooth, warm oil into my aching muscles, untying my knots and kneading me out while I drifted away for an hour in La La Land.

I'd have had the massage whether I rode or not. It was already on the calendar. But somehow, a tough ride in tough conditions made the hard-earned prize at the end feel all the better. It felt like a reward.

I guess you do what you have to do to keep going. On your bike. At your job. In your life.

Because nobody likes doing something for nothing. It's why dogs get treats when they sit and stay. It's why little kids get candy or stickers when they poop on the potty. It's why people get paychecks for doing 40 hours of whatever people do.

We all like being rewarded for our hard work, even if we have to give ourselves our own incentives and rewards and hang our own carrot on our own stick. It's how we're wired.

It's a good thing I like carrots. And massages.

A Free Air Show

"True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings."

-- William Shakespeare

Tree Swallow 4-22-14

"The swallow is come!

The swallow is come!

O, fair are the seasons, and light

Are the days that she brings, 

With her dusky wings,

And her bosom snowy white!"

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion

Pair of Tree Swallows 4-22-14

"Off we go into the wild blue yonder,

Climbing high into the sun."

-- "Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder"

(The Air Force Song)

Tree Swallow at rest on wire 4-22-14

Tree Swallows are like the tiny jet fighters of the bird world, Nature's Air Force -- deft little aerialists with streamlined, pointed, steely blue wings on which they perform quicker than quick acrobatic twists and turns.

There are a couple of nearby marshes and meadows that I like to visit in the summertime just so I can watch the Tree Swallows dip and dive and swoop and soar. It's like an air show in miniature.

To me, Tree Swallows look like they're flying just because they can, for nothing but the sheer fun and rapturous freedom of it. I know these quick, agile little fliers are up there chasing after insects. But to me, the flight of Tree Swallows looks nothing like work.

It looks like pure joy.

It seems like they never come in for a landing. But they do. They will stop flying from time to time. But be quick about it if you want to snap a picture, because they don't rest long before launching back out into the wild blue yonder.

And they have no qualms about buzz-bombing you if you get too close to their homes.

Note to self: buy a longer telephoto lens.

I spent quite a while yesterday afternoon watching the Tree Swallows perform their stunts and maneuvers in a private aerial show just for me, their audience of one.

(It's a good thing they perform for free, because I left my wallet at home.)

If you want to learn about these amazing little birds, click here!

A Beer At The Ball Game

"Beer needs baseball, 

and baseball needs beer --

it has always been thus."

-- Peter Richmond

Beer bottle caps 4-214

" ... there is only one game at the heart of America and that is baseball,

and only one beverage to be found sloshing at the depth of our national soul and that is beer."

-- Peter Richmond

Beer and opener 4-21-14

Ray Kinsella:

"So what do you want?"

Terence Mann:

"I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again,
write again, be a leader.

I want them to start thinking for themselves.
I want my privacy."

Ray Kinsella:

"No, I mean, what do you WANT?"

(gestures to the concession stand)

Terence Mann:

"Oh. Dog and a beer."

-- Field of Dreams

I've been seriously trying to curb my alcohol consumption. I'm doing it for a number of reasons, but primarily because alcohol seriously fucks with my sleep.

After a long, drawn-out, desperately-hard-fought battle with insomnia, trust me, a solid night's sleep is a lot more satisfying than a drink.

But what is a recovering insomniac girl to do when she's at a baseball game on a perfectly sunny day and she wants to enjoy the pure, simple pleasure of a cold beer? Every baseball fans knows beer and baseball just go together. It's a no-brainer, one of those unwritten laws of humanity, and baseball.

So you feel kind of left out when you're at the game and everyone around you is slurping a foamy, amber, cold one and you're, well, not. 

We spent Easter day at the Indians vs. Blue Jays game (Tribe won 6 to 4). The beer yearning started on the drive over, and then intensified sharply as we walked to our seats (which were awesome, by the way), and past every single beer vendor on the concourse. And this is Cleveland, people. Cleveland is a beer town. So the beer choices at Progressive Field are vast and wide, including everything from from the typical big name stuff, to a huge and lovely selection of little-known craft beers and local brews, offered every which way -- in cans, in bottles, on tap. I've heard that they even tweak their beer selections throughout the year to appeal to fans of the visiting clubs. And we were playing a team from Canada, for fuck's sake.

I was a sitting duck.

But I had a strategy.

At home, I've become quite the connoisseur of non-alcoholic beers. Don't judge. Some of them are pretty damned tasty if you give them a chance, and if you aren't in it for the beer buzz. My favorites are a German one (Kaliber, by Guinness) and a Canadian one (Labatt's, by duh Labatt's). Coors is a close third. Sharp's and O'Doul's are at the bottom of the beer barrel.

Anyway, I figured that any baseball stadium offering Spotted Cow Ale had to serve at least one n/a brew. 

My dear and persistent husband asked at almost every beer stand we passed. The concessionaires all shook their heads. Some referred us vaguely to a restaurant way back and up one level at the far stadium entrance that might have it, but they weren't sure.

Leo was getting a little impatient with the search.

Him: "Why don't you just get a Bud Light? It's the same thing."

Me: "I am not going off the wagon for a Bud Light."

Then we struck gold. Or amber. Or, well, watery amber, but still, it was better than nothing.

The last place we passed before our section had O'Doul's.

It took a while to get it, because the clerk couldn't find the button for it on her register, because there wasn't one. She said we were the first people to ask for it all season. She wasn't even sure how much to charge for it. My husband convinced her to charge me the soft drink price (since there's no booze in it), and he even finagled me a souvenir drink cup. (It helps to have a really cute husband in situations like this).

Clutching my hard-won prize, we made it to our seats and I took my first long sip. Yes, it was a little watery. Yes, the flavor was a little thin. But it was cold and foamy and fizzy.

Licking the foam from my lips, I didn't feel left out. I felt like part of the crowd.

It was a little thing, but a good thing.

Best of all, it was beer. 

And even better than that -- I slept like a baby.

Easter At The Ball Park

"God what an outfield,' he says. 'What a left field.'

He looks up at me, and I look down at him.

'This must be heaven,' he says."

-- W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe

Egg-dyed baseballs and glove 4-20-14

"Baseball? It's just a game -- as simple as a ball and a bat.

Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes.

It's a sport, business -- and sometimes even religion."

-- Ernie Harwell, "The Game for All America"

"Baseball is like church.

Many attend, few understand."

-- Leo Durocher

I asked the Easter Bunny to skip the damn basket full of jellybeans and please bring me tickets to today's baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and the Toronto Blue Jays.

He hit a home run.

So instead of making myself sick on candy, cooking a lame-o ham, and nodding through a long, boring sermon, I'll be worshiping at a church of a different color, noshing on ball park snacks, reaching for foul balls, and root, root, rooting for the home team.

I love watching baseball. I love listening to it. So for me, spending a day at the ball park is one of the very best ways to spend a day. (On the day my son Sam was due to be born I was at Jacob's Field enjoying 13 innings of the Indians vs. the Twins.)

Like, I totally get it in that movie City Slickers, when Billy Crystal's character "Mitch" nostalgically describes his best day:

"Seven years old and my dad takes me to Yankee Stadium, my first game. 

We're going in this long dark tunnel under the stands and I'm holding his hand, 

and we come out of the tunnel into the light. It's huge, how green the grass was, brown dirt ... 

We had a black and white TV, so this was the first game I ever saw in color.

I sat through the whole game next to my dad. He taught me how me to keep score. Mickey hit one out.

I still have the program."

Best Easter ever.

Go Tribe!

Clearing Away The Rust

"If you find the mirror of the heart dull,

the rust has not been cleared from its face."

-- Rumi

Rust, Old Woman Creek 4-19-14

"Negligence is the rust of the soul,

that corrodes through all her best resolves."

-- Owen Feltham

Rust (2), Old Woman Creek 4-19-14

"And I was standing over there,

rusting for the longest time."

-- Tin Woodsman, The Wizard of Oz

Rust (3), Old Woman Creek 4-19-14

I took my new camera out for a walk at the Old Woman Creek nature reserve yesterday.

Inside the woods, away from the wind, it felt like being inside an incubator -- warm and sheltered and gentle and protected -- teeming with new life.

Thick patches of moss were turning lush and luminous. A little spider was spinning a silky shroud to encase a winter-dried thistle. A bee worked industriously to harvest what pollen it could from the few tiny, early wildflowers pressing bravely through the humus. A pair of raccoon tracks sank deep into the mud near the creek, its shallow stream no longer locked up in ice, but flowing freely.

At every turn, it seemed, there was evidence of the old was making way for the new.

Except around the final bend of the trail.

For all the years we've been exploring Old Woman Creek, the same jumble of ancient, rusted farm implements has sat in the exact same spot, slowly and continuously disintegrating into the ground. While the rest of the woods and marsh comes alive all around it, the heap of twisted, rusting iron just decays a little further -- crumbling to bits, day after day, year after year --sharp, jagged, broken, hard, rough.

I'll resist the urge to go all deep-and-meaningful about it. You can do that on your own time. It's just that the contrast seemed particularly stark to me on this late April afternoon, when rebirth seemed to be the theme of the day.

I exited the woods with a camera full of photographs, evidence of both the old and the new, of birth and death, of what was and what might be. I liked the other photographs too, but for today, on the tender front paws of Spring, it seemed like a good thing to clear away the rust.

A Rainy Day Project

"Save a boyfriend for a rainy day --

and another, in case it doesn't rain."

-- Mae West

Medusa, mixed media on canvas (detail) 4-18-14

My mom was fond of the saying "save it for a rainy day."

It could mean any of a number of things, but it usually didn't really have anything to do with rain. It was simply her way of saying "Put it off, Kid. Procrastinate. There'll be plenty of dark, dreary days in life. Learn to have fun while the sun's shining."

Or it could mean "Think it over. Be certain. Don't blow through that birthday cash until you know for sure what you want to spend it on."

Or it could mean, "I don't want to hear you complaining that there's nothing to do. Save it for a rainy day, so next time you're bitching about how bored you are you'll have options."

For me, artistically speaking, a rainy day project is usually something that requires multi-day patience, like glue or paint that needs drying time. It's usually something that can't be rushed, that I can leave and come back to and leave and come back to in between other projects -- that I can only do so much of before it has to rest. It could be a collage, or a painting, or a sculpture, or a  paper mache mask, or, in today's case, a mixed-media piece.

Medusa, mixed media on canvas 4-18-14

I've been poking and picking at this mixed media Medusa for several weeks. It was a way to use up a whole bunch of random, leftover art and craft supplies, like paper flowers, little plastic snakes and skulls, glitter, felt letters, a paper butterfly, acrylic paint, spray paint, a mesh citrus bag, some stickers.

I have to say, I find all of these bits and pieces much more compelling now that they're freed from their drawer and assembled together. And I actually did have some rainy days to work on her. And some windy days. And some snowy days. And some windy/rainy/snowy days.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've made a Medusa.

It was good to see her face again.

Something To Keep Me From Totally Flipping My S#!T Because I'm Stuck Indoors

"To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence,

hollering, 'What's it for?'"

-- Robert Fulghum

Self portrait 4-17-14

"Human beings want to be free 

and however long they may agree to stay locked up, to stay oppressed, 

there will come a time when they say 'That's it.'

Suddenly they find themselves doing something 

that they never would have thought they would be doing,

simply because of the human instinct that makes them turn their face towards freedom."

-- Aung San Suu Kyi

It snowed, again and dropped into the low 20s, again.

Remember those lovely daffodils I talked about a couple of days ago? They're fucked.

After the rain beat the shit out of them, the show completely crushed them into the ground.

I tasted freedom during an all-too-brief weekend breakout, but then Winter threw me back in lockup and slammed the cell door.

I'm trapped inside looking out, again.

Yesterday I could be have used my time in solitary confinement (or as I like to think of it, "the hole") to get a jump on Spring cleaning the house -- the windows need washing, the carpets need sweeping, the furniture needs dusting, the grout needs scrubbing.

Instead, in a desperate act of survival, I spent the afternoon fighting back the crazy by making this self portrait of how I'm feeling right about now. I had to get it out of my system before I totally flipped my shit and started smashing stuff. It's a good thing, cuz I was about to start eating my own offspring.

The grout can fucking wait. I have more important things to do.

Soft Focus

Rita:

"I'd like to make her look a little more attractive.

How far can you pull back?"

Cameraman:

"How do you feel about Cleveland?"

-- Dorothy Michaels' screen test, Tootsie

Self portrait 4-16-14

I bought my new camera in part because of rave reviews about its crystal clear, laser sharp, high-resolution image quality.

Crystal clear, laser sharp image quality is a beautiful thing in a camera, especially when you're shooting, say, the stamens and pistils of flowers, or a bird on a faraway branch, or the delicate, flaky texture of a pastry. So far I've been very satisfied.

And then yesterday I turned New Camera's lens on myself to shoot my first self portraits with it. It had to happen sooner or later. Self portraits are my bread and butter. They're what I do most. I am my most often photographed subject by far -- and not in a duck-lipped, outstretched arm, "selfie"-crazed way -- but in a genuine, self-portraiture-as-genre way.

So I took a deep breath, set up the tripod, found New Camera's 10-second shutter delay, and went for it.

Yep. As advertised, the images were crystal clear.

Yep. As advertised, the details were laser sharp.

Yep. I was horrified.

I could see every pore. Every whisker. Every bump, lump, acne scar, flake of dry skin, errant eyelash, eyebrow, nose hair, sun spot, red patch, broken blood vessel, eye goober ... as advertised, in every brilliantly focused, crystal clear, laser sharp, pixel-packed, high resolution shot.

Holy fuckballs, Batman.

Situationally speaking, stellar image quality isn't always a desirable thing. Not when you're 46 and wearing no makeup and haven't exfoliated in, well ... ever, and wear all the sun damage from every long, un-sunscreened childhood summer at the lake and the accumulation of the ravages of life -- every hard blow, every sleepless night -- right there front and center.

Thankfully, New Camera understands. And tucked away in New Camera's "creative filters" features is a sweet little blessing called "soft focus." With the touch of a button, New Camera took the harsh edges off the images, gentling them ever so kindly, making them just a little easier to take.

Which led me to ask the question, is soft focus dishonest? Is soft focus cheating? Is soft focus a lie?

I've thought about it a lot and have decided that it isn't. I've decided that soft focus is simply a creative choice sitting there alongside the other creative choices like fish eye, and grainy black and white, and watercolor effect, and vivid color.

I won't always shoot my self portraits in soft focus. There'll be times when I want to show all the sharp, horrifying details. That's also a creative choice. But for the first time out, New Camera was kind enough to handle me gently. To ease me in.

So for today, soft focus isn't cheating. Soft focus is a good and useful thing.

I'm OK with my age, mostly. Sometimes I hate it. Just like I'm OK with/hate lots of other things about myself -- my hair, my boobs, my habits, my behaviors, my compulsions, my mistakes, the weird little bump on my chin that I'm pretty sure contains the teeth and spine of my unborn twin.

But love 'em or hate 'em, all added up they're what makes me me.

Each of them is part of who I am, but, thankfully, none of them is all of who I am.

Celebrating The Small Stuff

"Life is made up of small pleasures.

Happiness is made up of those tiny successes.

The big ones come too infrequently.

And if you don't collect all these tiny successes,

the big ones don't really mean anything."

--  Norman Lear

Daffodil blooms 4-15-14

"There was once a girl who observed the little things 

more than a normal person would do, rather, be capable of."

-- Addie S., a story about a girl and the little things

Daffodils 4-15-14

"It has long been an axiom of mine 

that the little things are infinitely the most important."

-- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoir of Sherlock Holmes

I spent yesterday morning in a fierce, hard wind and pelting rain chasing my neighbors' blowing trash all over the cul-de-sac. I felt like I was in one of those cash grab machines where the money just flies around and you have to bare-hand catch as many bills as you can.

Good times.

While I was out there I noticed my daffodils were getting pretty beat up. They'd only just opened a day or two ago, and already, most of them had been knocked flat against the mulch, down for the count after a few hard blows.

I rescued a fistful of those that were still standing and brought them indoors before they got pummeled too. Outside among their fallen comrades they'd looked pretty pathetic and rather raggedy. But safely tucked into their little vase, they looked altogether lovely.

Speaking of lovely, later in the day, my husband took me out for a really lovely dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. 

We often go out to dine with friends, but last night was just the two of us. We were celebrating my little victory of landing a role in a play for the upcoming summer. When I first got the news, his immediate reaction was "We should go out to dinner!" 

He's especially good at that -- making sure we intentionally pause to acknowledge the good things in our lives, even if (often especially if) those things are seemingly as ordinary as small role in a play, or a fistful of cold, bedraggled, rain-soaked daffodils. I really love that about him.

We "cheers'd" to my success -- he clinked his glass of Chardonnay against mine of club soda and lime. It was so nice to sit across from each other at our quiet table for two by the window, to look at each other, to see each other, to have a conversation about nothing special, but which felt special, because we weren't interrupted by anyone or anything except our waiter coming and going with plates of delicious food. 

If we let them, the good things in life could blow past like trash in a harsh wind. It'll smash your daffodils before you even get a chance to appreciate them. Or, it'll dump two inches of heavy, wet snow all over them and crush them completely, which is exactly what happened to mine this morning.

Except for the ones in the vase.

Sure, they're still small and ordinary. Daffodils are nothing special. Every house in the neighborhood has some. But we have a shared history now, this particular little bunch of flowers and me. We went through something together. We weathered a storm. 

It was a small thing, it was an ordinary thing, but it was a good thing.

And if you ask me, it was a thing worth celebrating.

  

Feeding My Family

"I still think that one of the pleasantest of all emotions is to know that I,

I with my brain and my hands, have nourished my beloved few,

that I have concocted a stew or a story, a rarity or a plain dish,

to sustain them truly against the hungers of the world."

-- M.F.K. Fisher

Robin with berries 4-14-14

"There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that

of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner

for someone she loves."

-- Thomas Wolfe

Riding My Two-Wheeler

"A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir to."

-- Dr.  K.K. Doty

Fat tire two wheeler with wire basket 4-13-14

"A bicycle ride is a flight from sadness."

-- James E. Starrs

"Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia."

-- H.G. Wells

They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle.

I'd argue that you also never forget the very first time you did it.

I must have been 4 or 5 when my dad took the training wheels off my little red and white Schwinn, trotted along beside wobbly me until I found my balance, and then finally let me go.

And even though I can't remember my exact age when it happened, I will never forget how it felt the very first time I rode a two-wheeler.

I only made it past a couple of mailboxes down our dirt road before crash-landing in the ditch (Lesson #2, Using the coaster brakes), but I'd done it. I'd tasted smooth, unbridled freedom. It was the best feeling in the world. 

I wanted to do it again. And again. And again.

I couldn't get enough.

I still can't.

And even though I've traded my little red Schwinn for an expensive, multi-geared, high-tech, feather-light, narrow-tired road machine, and my scuffed up Stride Rite sneakers for clip-on cycling cleats, and my Toughskins for aerodynamic padded Lycra tights, the feeling I get riding a two-wheeler hasn't changed a bit. 

Smooth, unbridled freedom tastes the same no matter how old you are or how fancy your stuff is.

If you have a bike and you haven't ridden it in a long time, why don't you dust it off, clean it up, grease your chain, pump up your tires and get out there. A bike doesn't have to be high-tech or look super-cool to feel great. So what if the baby seat is still attached and your baby is in college? A baby seat is just the right size and shape for a bag of groceries or a couple of six packs. Just remember to strap them in. I know a lady who takes her two elderly Dachshunds for rides in the pull-behind Burley bike trailer she bought for her grandkids. I see them cruising all over town, and it's pretty damned adorable. 

Sometimes I like to just go cruising on my heavy old retro "Susie one-speed" with her fat tires, wide springy seat and basket on the front.  

Anyhoo ...

This is all by way of saying that yesterday, after many winter months on the indoor trainer, I finally got back on the road. (I still ride a red and white bike. I guess that hasn't changed either.) It was chilly. It was windy. It was glorious. It was the best feeling in the world.

I want to do it again. And again. And again.

And I will.

Whoever said "enough is enough" was obviously not a cyclist.

The Moon Last Night

"Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly."

-- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Waxing "gibbous" moon 4-12-14

"And the sun and moon

Sometimes argue over

Who will tuck me in at night."

-- Hafez, "I Hold the Lion's Paw"

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Welcome to the "One Good Thing Lunar Minute."

If you looked up at the sky and away from your iPhone last night, you couldn't miss this beautiful, luminous, waxing gibbous moon hanging out over everything. 

Why, you may wonder, is it called a "waxing gibbous" moon?

Well, I'm no Siri, but Imma 'bout to tell ya.

Gibbous comes from the Latin word gibbus, which means humped, or hunched, as well as the Italian word gobba, for humpback. And the term "waxing" comes from an Olde English word that means "becoming" or "growing."

While I can sort of see where the early astronomers were coming from, I think whoever called it gibbous must have been a dude. Because to me, the moon at this point is all woman and looks less like a humpback than it does a big, round, distended, pregnant belly. 

 And in case you didn't know, the female reproductive cycles respond very closely to the lunar cycle. More babies are born during the full moon than during any other moon phase. Plus, pregnant bellies are nice and round. Hunchbacks are all lumpy.

See where I'm coming from?

The Latin word for pregnant is "gravid." So with that in mind, I'd like to start a campaign to re-name this lunar phase the "waxing gravid moon."

 Anybody with me? 

Come on, guys. We can do it. Didn't anybody read Frindle for fuck's sake?

Well, by any name, this moon was absolutely lovely. I'd say she had a certain glow about her.

You know who else glows? Pregnant women.

Ever heard anybody describe a hunchback as "glowing?" Victor Hugo didn't call Quasimodo "glowing." He called his deformed bell-ringer "hideous" and a "creation of the devil."

I think I've made my case.

A Good Bike Mechanic

"The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test.

If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong ..."

-- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Bicycle chain and sprockets 4-11-14

"When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments.

Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man.

And (unlike subsequent inventions or man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became.

Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it,

and of no harm or irritation to others.

Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle."

-- Elizabeth Howard West, Hovel in the Hills

Sometimes I wish I was a professional cyclist -- not for the competition or the glory or the travel or the nifty jerseys -- but for the daily massages. Also, it'd be super nice to have a team of bike mechanics at my beck and call whenever I needed them.

I am not mechanical. Not even a little bit.

So when my road bike "Dolce" needs maintenance, I take her to my very mechanical bicycle mechanics, Ted and Rachel.

By the end of last season, Dolce's gears were missing a lot, as well as making some pretty unpleasant noises. I could only use two gears without a ton of interference and frustration. I tried riding on my indoor trainer, but the problems persisted. The only thing worse than riding on an indoor trainer, is riding a grindy-geared bike on an indoor trainer. 

I looked for fix-it tips on YouTube, but I knew I was probably in over my head. For me, fixing my own bike would be like cutting my own bangs. I'd immediately regret it and probably only end up making things way, way worse.

So Dolce's been sitting neglected and unused in the basement, like a lonely kid in the corner, all winter.

I wasn't punishing her. I was just too damn lazy to get her fixed.

With the spring and summer riding season (hopefully) approaching, I finally got off my ass and dropped Dolce off at the bike shop for a checkup. I figured they'd have to twiddle a couple of wires, make some little adjustments, and I'd be good to go. Easy, right? 

Not so much.

Ted called with the diagnosis.

It turns out my maintenance neglect over the past couple of seasons had caused some pretty significant damage. My chain was stretched beyond repair and I'd ground down the evenly-spaced nicely-rounded teeth on my front sprockets until they were snaggly, sharp, pointy little fangs.

But Ted and Rachel came to the rescue. They replaced the chain and both sprockets (and my trainer-bald rear tire) and I picked my bike up yesterday. She's good as new. 

I love hanging around the bike shop. I love the intoxicating aroma of solvents and grease and rubber. Ted and Rachel are always so thorough about explaining what they did to fix my bike, and why, and how. They take the time to teach me how things got wonky in the first place, and what I can do to prevent future problems. 

They are my bike's biggest advocates. They speak up on her behalf in order to protect her from me and my ignorance, and my tendency to carelessly ride her into a state of disrepair.

Sometimes I get the feeling Ted and Rachel love my bike more than I do.

It's a good thing they do.

Because it's that kind of love that keeps me riding. And it's riding that makes me indescribably happy.

Now if I could only get them to follow me around in a team car everywhere I ride.