Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

Don't tread on me reflecting puddle

As we all know, living in New York is especially expensive. Even in troubled times, space is extraordinarily pricey on the Upper East Side. For example, in August 2011 the average price per square foot on the Upper East Side was $1,358 (*). Yes, that's per square foot . It's clear why landowners are trying to scrape up any loose square feet where ever they can. At first, this respected building decided to eliminate elevators, since each one can take up to 100 Square Feet p er floor .* That plan had legal drawbacks, so the building decided to  replace the entire lobby with an elevator! No more stuffed chairs to vacuum, no more marble tile to polish, no more annoying plants to water or bad original art. No more brass! (Well, some brass on the elevator.) No more excessive doormen. The only staff needed is one single doorman-elevator operator at a time. Sure those renting relics from before conversion might be put out, but look how much lower the fees will be for ...

 Person observing the  East River waters of life. A small black Spirit Dog guards the location. September 18, 2010

It might be September or even November,  Who cares if it’s April or May? There’s a late summer blue and a sunflower too, Who cares what the calendars say! French Conservancy Garden,  September Beauatiful, blue salvia with a canna hiding in the back, from Christian F.  AND, from Vera A. in Denver,  And what do you think, she's forgotten the pink, So smitten with blues and yellow. But don't you agree, Mr. Pink's worth a see? He too is a colorful fellow. !!

Berries, Berries, Berries, but not a single Bear! No Birds! No Bees! What's going on here? Central Park Near the 79th Street Transverse, September

LIME TREE What's that odd looking tree growing on East 79th Street? Why! It's a Lime Tree !!!   But, Why is it being guarded day and night by one of New York's finest??? NEW YORK'S FINEST GUARDING  A LIME TREE AHA !!! It's Michael Bloomberg's Lime Tree. MICHAEL BLOOMBERG'S LIME TREE

I have no plans!   I need my plans! I cannot budge about without a trace! Have I no leave-town muscles and pack-up bones?   Why do I lie stitched to the floor, Praying to a stained, cat-haired carpet, Old, frayed, taped to the edges of life? Where is the lancing boiling aching love,  What happened to that tried and true, That weather torn, that muddled scraggly lock of life? What will I leave behind me?  A dull stain on a desiccated stone, Dead with dry leaves, veined and laced by hardened winter. Where are you morning psychedelic dew?  Where are you green striped, bronzed and swollen sun?  Who is left to paint the swirling aching swaying starlight ? I saw the moon once through a backyard telescope. No bits, no bytes, no megapixels. Moonlight cleaned the stars away that night. September 10, 2011 (New York) (A poem a little more on the sharp-edged side of things. We're in transition mode again!)

Summer sliding dumbly toward a muted fall, With faded greens, a yellow here and there and me, Heartsick for no apparent reason, stuck like gum to a sidewalk square. No place to go and no way out except by public transportation. Scraping up my soul I head for home, imagination searching for the way it might have been

As you know, well-mannered sunflowers follow the sun. In Tuscany, for example, field after field of flowers track the sun in happy synchronicity. Gardener after New York Gardener has tried (in obvious vane) to order New York patches into proper, harmonious herds. Jaunty and free, our New York sunflowers catch the light wherever they may.

Harlem Meer in the Last Rays of Summer 2011

This lovely sweetheart is mostly a ribbon grass plant but I'd swear there's a little cactus in the family. It's hard to get close to Ribbon, but inside the pointy exterior she has a very soft heart. Well! My Horticultural Specialist has clarified the heritage of Ribbon. She is a succulent of the Aloe family. Just as we thought, she has a soft and healing heart. Conservancy Garden, September 2011

So many times I heard those cautionary words, Don’t wait.  Don’t wake up at 50! Hurry!  Wait, were those not Roses? Haste makes waste! Write it down!  Fifty times! Each day! Every Day! Each hour!  Rich? Famous? Singer? Sculptor? Actor! Each second, waking and sleeping, Write it down, write it Down! Dow!n, do!wn d!own, D ~O ~W ~N ~! 50 Came.  Then 50 Went,  And with a small alteration of the pen,  50 came Again! I did find out a thing or two, amid those endless 50s, About the makeup of a made-up Dream. The Dreamer may become the dream, but it Starts the other way around.   I sit among my 50s shredding journals. Life was interesting enough at the time. “What now?”  I ask, and just for fun, “Where now?” “Here,” Now answers. “Waiting for my due.”   A Moment of Reflections

Beautiful young girl caught scurrying past this Horrifying Fall Collection Madison Avenue, New York -Fall 2011

East 90th Street near 5th Avenue, sunset 2011 I love a graceful, bendy silhouette against a New York streetscape.  This warrior tree has weathered many a blizzard and hurricane wind protecting its townhouse ward. Shoppers, dogs, walkers, children, play in its streets and sidewalks.  See the golden window in the upper left?  Last summer Warrior made the shade for the stoop where two accidental neighbors met and fell in love.

You have very likely noticed more and more CVS drugstores cropping up on corners, vacant lots, and empty mid-block clothing stores.  Until quite recently in New York City, CVS employed batallians of underpaid workers.  In fact, the wages were so low that employees could no longer afford those Timex watches on the CVS racks.  Hence, CVS decided to bring back the Factory Whistle.  This whistle was designed especially for noisy Manhattan.   Sadly, the whisle launch was seriously behind schedule (because of labor disputes and whatnot).  Although the new Factory Whistle is finally ready for blowing, CVS has found a way to replace 3 of every 4 workers with unpleasant, demanding, and pushy-voiced machines.  Nevertheless, the ill-clothed gentleman in the lower right is still getting ready to trigger the 9am whistle with his iPhone remote. Of course the days are numbered for both Gentleman and Whistle .

I've been remembering a lot about our magic tree in this time of remembering.  Magic Tree lost her earthly life in early August.  She was at the height of her magical beauty, as you see.  I believe her magical wonders, and the magic and wonder of each of those who have lost their life, still remains with us and does not perished from the earth.  Magic Tree is Caught in the Act This incredible photo captures our Magic Tree in the actual act of generating magic!!  Look how she shimmers; look how she appears to float above the bridle path!  Look how she showers magical power unbound by earthly space and time.  Watch carefully in the next few days for magic in your life and those around you.

I love this beach-cream colored building with softened shadows, fronted by a classic Upper East Side street lampost.  What a beautiful day. 

There's no more denying the nature of things. There are cycles and trends, variations and swings, In the weather, in love, in the stock market too. Who cares what goes on 'till it happens to you? An emotional binge by a fairly close friend is a blip on the screen 'till it starts to descend on your very own heart, and then suddenly love barges over your senses and takes control of All the matter-of-facts and the same-old-sames, All those thread-worn moves in the same old games. I'm beyond those thrills , I'm completely restored! Thank goodness! I'm steady, I'm calm, even bored!

Dancing scissor tree, caught in a glass sealed time capsule Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas:  Metropolitan Museum of Art

I was sun-soaked and laughing. When the tide ripped over the broken road Twisting me off at the roots. Numb and quiet, holding my own, I survey the damaged places. Time heals, they say, that’s what they say.   Forget that fake and tawdry glimmer, Half made up; just passing through! Time will tell, that’s what they say.  Leave space for the unexpected.

Where is all that grass  you were talking about? Seaweed!  That's the ticket

I was walking along on the railroad track When I stumbled upon what looked like a pack With a sack full of simples and samples and tack. I went next to a shop, and there on the rack was a similar pack With a sack full of simples and samples and tack! Now how did the sack get up from the track and make its way back To the shop with the rack? I studied the matter both forward and back, And I came to believe there’s a bit of a crack In the fabric of time that provides for some slack When a shop with a rack in the back Has a serious need for a pack with a sack Full of simples and samples and tack! Lily Pond, Conservancy Garden (Central Park-2011)

Turn Back the Clock, by Linda Jo Calloway Reading by Jane Cecil (click  the left arrow on the bar & wait a few moments) Today's optional mini-mission: pause, listen, notice what you can hear in a few moments...