Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

One more time I think I’ll make believe I love you, One more time I’ll settle in among these mottled days. I have a friend who doesn’t like her husband and in this day and age she stays. I did ask why, I couldn’t help it. That’s it, she said. This day, this age -- I’m too old to plant a new beginning. Not me, though. I’m not here to stay I’m off within a day or so. Though I'll rest my head against your shoulder one more time before I go.

Happy and Beautiful Snowperson discovered navigating through the treacherous drifts in Central Park holding a small plastic bag

Snow-laden branches shade  these upstairs windows, just in case a pair careless lovers found a day for sleeping in.

Still Hunt, Winter Cat (January 2011) by Edward Kemeys (1843–1907), installed in 1883 http://www.centralparknyc.org/about/ East Drive @ 76th Street in Central Park

Beautiful Bethesda Fountain, dressed in neutrals

  "Cold Winter Fog, Oakland" by Craig Murdock of San Francisco

Dead?......I just took my first breath. To arch the step, but crawl to the door. A lift, a pull, a slip, a fall perhaps to matter just not at all. My beauty reflects in the sky that I view. not down in the ice nor fly with the dew I wander and choose and sometimes I cry The truth of the matter too vain to die. by Christian Fletcher, New York

I crossed this snowy foot-printed path and I followed along for a ways. I’ve seen a few trails and tales of grails so I thought that one of these days I’d follow the scent just see where they went and to fend off my certain malaise. They leapt and skipped and galloped and still I scampered along with an icy thrill, when at once they ceased with a swirl in the snow. What destiny fell them, I’ll never know. I conceived a great leap to foil a hawk a hidden burrow a sheltering rock-- Still now and then when we walk that way I pause at the spot and remember the day When that prescient malaise began fading away

Meet HedgeMyBets, a Forever Tree.  This worried but happy tree has learned over the years to live in a bed of hundreds of shoots for protection in the here and to ensure a robust hereafter, if only in the spirit of genetics.

This year the winner in the Annual Young Pine Height Race is clearly ChipRed named after his heritage and location near the Great Chip Dunes of Central Park.  ChipRed put on a burst during the final fall homestretch and clearly won by a limb.  

January on East 94th Street

Can this transparent gossamer clothing be cast in standard earthy metal? Impossible. The Secret Garden Burnett Fountain by Bessie Potter Vonnoh is said to represent Mary and Dickon, the main characters in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Dedicated in 1936.

A wintry Buddha with a promise of a hopeful spring  ©Pat Kvill of Edmonton

The most gorgeous photo of Central Park's Bow Bridge: Fresh, snowy and lamp-touched ©Alan Schein of New York:   alanschein@nyc.rr.com

Beautiful crispy winter day in Estes Park,  2010 ©Vera, 2010

Around 106th Street in the middle of the Park

Rachel's digging a hole near a large beech tree for exactly no reason at all, at all for exactly no reason at all. What could cause a person adrift in the day, to sit by a beech tree digging away? There's a story of old that I've often been told Of a bulb near a tree and a hole that was free.  Well it happened to be that an accident came to befall, befall that an accident came to befall. It's not totally clear, but the bulb drew near and the very next year at the onset of spring, a flower-like thing grew strong and grew yellow and tall, and tall grew strong and grew yellow and tall.

Yes, there’s a fork up there I see it coming. But I want this anchored blissful status quo, I want this peace of mind, I do! Why is it drawing me up, closing me in, roaring at me? Choose! Choose? I can take them both!  I can split in half and take them both, I know I can.  I have enough capacity, Enough imagination aching for a dual life, Grass, green and dewy; Grass hot and soft as cinnamon, Time, a tasty brew of well known satisfactions; Time, biting raw and trembling, Treacherous with chances. My head aches with permutations; my hands hurt from tying knots; my soul is sick from limitations. I’d scream if it would help include them both. Wait! What if I were French?

There’s a chance to make a first impression so I hear In a snowy covered field, A way to etch a newborn thought within that tingly drift. A  temporary mark you might conclude And yet we know that’s just the way things are.

You go straight up this path 'till you get to the corner up there, and then you turn left.  You'll be on the West side in less than 15 minutes. 

Squiva asked that we post this photo.  The tail is perfect in Squiva's opinion, the dense winter coat is beautiful, and as you see this winter crop of nuts has been bumper.     Squiva South of the Metropolitan Museum

Rare photo of reverent Winter Bush caught burning its shadows in the snow

In this just-so afternoon light we catch a hint of the winter Italian Garden quietly preparing spring colors Conservancy Gardens, winter 2011

There’s something about a Magic Tree that moves beyond complexity. I see a trunk of an aging tree, but it’s not so simple as that you see. Is that shivering twig an omen to be? Did that gnarly limb reach out at me? Did that twig-finger point surreptitiously? Did you see that specter phantom sigh? Or was that a figment of the eye? Yet look over there in the crook of a branch Do you see that wish with a second chance? That hollow near the warty burl, Is that a hibernating squirrel? Look over at that thing on the right, I think I see an inner light! And near that fork with the melting snow, There’s a shelter for those with no place to go. There’s a landing pad in the upper right, Where a passing raven might rest for the night. And if you wander nearby on your way, there’s a hollow of magic just waiting to say, The thing you need most to hear that day. Then one day by the fire when it's time to recover, you’ll find a small sliver of something or other, Let it carr

These snowy remnants of a mysterious encounter are under investigation by an elite team of Central Park trackers.  The unofficial verdict is that two happy life forms found one another and had a lot of fun. Northern edge of Turtle Pond

Afternoon sun lights up the Central Park street lamps.   101st Street, in from 5th Avemue

Little is known about the lone prospector who staked claim to this rare Central Park island property, although it is thought to have been originally settled back in 1998, before the turn of the century.  Although the property is officially called Turtle Island, it is clear upon close inspection that the actual homesteader, though seldom seen, is a very industrious and dexterous Avian Dweller (of unknown provenance). Turtle Island as seen from Belvedere Castle, winter 2010

Squiva was so busy with modelling jobs during the holiday season that there was really no time to say hello.  Things are quieting down somewhat, and Squiva let me take this picture.  Actually, another photographer was paying the fee, but Squiva decided it would be all right for us to print this surreptitious photo.  "After all" said Squiva, "I might just be climbing a tree because I'm climbing a tree."   See how beautiful and round Squiva has become for winter?