Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

Lost in the trackless, stateless post-Christmas wilderness of Central Park, sans wreath, sans leftovers, sans compass, sans -- everything,

Tell me again about the castle!  Please?  Well, it’s a far one this time, way inside the corner of the mind. You may remember travelling there, back in '17. There’s a chilly rose-pink sunset, but I guess that’s just as well, since Things are as they should be.  There’s a tall gate that guards the tree lights and a table set with candles and a roast with carrots and onions and walnuts wrapped in sugar cookies. The fire logs throb with red, the big stones warm the great hall The planked floor is spread with a soft rug and a knitted pillow. Dawn breaks with snowy craters, tatted and iced by the night.   Snow Castles

 Freedom breaking after the winter storm   Over the Central Park Reservoir

Ship shape and able, I set out upon the waters of spring to earn my living as a lover of life; happy eyed and full of tumbled joy.    Life and golden days ensued with nary a drop of sooty rain.  May came in with blood red tulips and new love, oh what a May. The June days swept by long and lovely, July waded in with thick air and a promise. August had that pushy frankfurter smell, and squeaky hot carouselous days. September walked on stage with a serious note and a book. October was almost too cavernous to bear with its skeletal revealings and its eaten leaves with frayed stems.  November is a waiting month, things dim, and nothing seems to happen. Now, it is December with that false glee and artificial lightness born from dark closed-in evenings with blue reflections and sometimes a warm fire with a mate, ending with a weary ribbon. I remember those Januaries past with their stark colorless streets and brown lacy weeded edges in the countryside, hopelessly shortened days hunting for

Our Magic Tree waits in the snow for the dark sparrows to feed

It has been awhile since I took little Ounce for a walk, so I went about searching in the usual places.  Ounce was playing in the Rambles just above the Boathouse and was so excited!  You know how Ounce likes to play in water and usually we find a puddle and go for a swim, if it isn't too deep. I explained that it is now winter .  The day was simply too cold, so I took us to the Boathouse for a warm drink. Poor Ounce was so disappointed!  I found a french fry, but it just wasn't the same. 

Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection 59 East Second Street, New York, NY 10003 info@nycathedral.org

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I'll keep you posted

I have an idea Would you like to play? No special rules, it’s a game called today We’ll meet at the farm by the cottonwood tree Bring a basket along; it’s all right with me There are raspberries up in the canyon they say We can take the old path though it’s out of the way I’ll hide and you seek, I’ll give you a clue If you find the old mill I’ll be waiting for you. We can’t wait too long for the time to be right Tomorrow is already stalking tonight.   Waiting Bird hiding in a camouflage of patterns

The towers of Eldorado covered in winter willow gold   Eldorado from the Boathouse Lake

From a super reader (bf.)  [watch out for that triangular cleavage] As I dimly recall (Geology 101), Central Park & most of the city has 2 major rock formations: sparkly mica schist & hornblend schist (triangular cleavage,I think).  But "Rocky" looks like one of the boulders--not "country rock"-- that got rolled over from New Jersey during the last glacial movement--maybe Palisades diabase? There's a great big one up at the Cloisters. Bit of interest: the mica schist in our neck of the woods is not biotite mica (dark sparkle) but muscovite (white sparkle)  so-called because the Russians used sheets of it for stoves that both warmed & illuminated.  THANK YOU!!!  I love these things. 

Meet Rocky, an exciting varietal example of the genre of sculpture often called Rock.  Essentially, rock sculptures are composed of one or more rocks.  Central Park is built on a strata of rock called schist*.  Schist forms the rocky outcroppings in the Park. Rocky is ancient, and has been crafted over the eons to symbolize the creation of mind, matter and soul  Look carefully and you may discover a special talisman all your own. nature-made sculpture The Rambles, mid park and 76th street *Schist definition, any of a class of crystalline metamorphic rocks whose constituent mineral grains have a more or less parallel or foliated arrangement . dictionary.reference.com/browse/ schist

 I went over to the other side to take a look  You know it was the same old quiet evening  Over and over structure, repetition, an urban stamped out subdivision.  I want that house, give me that petal, and let’s have a look at that grass blade-No! Not that one, for heaven’s sake, I mean that one over there. Yes, that is the one. Oh, to be selected.  So what if Milky Ways are one in twenty?  Who cares about the droplets and the grains?  Just once to be the one and only The one with homespun and yellow corn and himself there in love. Its Christmas now and streaky windows pick up stringy lights and smeared colors in the oily puddles and the waffled manhole covers     Jane's tree with Susie

Let go and hold on! Untermeyer Fountain, Walter Schott, Berlin 1910  Installed  in Central Park's French Garden in 1947

One time I wore a yellow cloud with a pinkness to it.   I borrowed it, I'm not ashamed to say.  I'll share it with you; I just cannot return it. I'll pay the fine, I'll take the consequences.

This painting could be called Littleton Colorado, Summer 1954   Home fields, John singer Sargent, 1885 A Gust of Wind John Singer Sargent -- 1886-87   Glancing backward, Reapers Resting in a Wheat Field, John Singer Sargent 1885

Our heroic photographer, ever brave & courageous, entered the Secret Garden to seek out the rim of the formidable lily pond, where only months earlier she had been submerged.  Alas, the true extent of danger stared her down.  The pond is practically three feet deep! She stalwartly balanced on the rim once more and fearlessly snapped at this chilly scene.    The English Garden in the Southern part of the Conservancy Gardens December 2010

Meet me at the station in St. Louis at the top of the stairs.  We'll pretend it's springtime in 1904, and we'll go outside to the World's Fair.   Union Station, St. Louis, Winter 2010

I’ve sought out many an icon in my travels. I love the way those vagaries of passing time transpose and modulate the landscape. I can crop and shove a photo with the best of them, But sometimes life does better on its own, And I’d just as soon leave well enough alone.

White bird of peace poses against the pavement in Northern Central Park

I didn't want to scare our Blushing Tree by posting this  photo too early.  You know how shy she can be, yet look at all the new intensities! I wouldn't know for certain, but  I think Blushing Tree is in love. Blushing Tree, Late November

I love an open road White line vanishing Riding down the ribbon   Life on the run Spinning under the floorboards   Billowing over the windshields Waking up the shadows Chasing down the sun   Heading West, near 96th Street

Unseen architect designs cheery banister with light at the bottom of the Stairs.  Evening around 98th Street West

I love the foreverness of mudpuddles, and I certainly cannot resist an entire fuzzy set of them! Why is our set of forever mudpuddles fuzzy?  Why is it not a crisp set? Well! First of all, because I am a fuzzy-set sort of person.  In a fuzzy set, one doesn't know whether an element (mudpuddle) is a member of the set or not,  because we have incomplete or missing information.  We do not know for certain, for example, whether or not Every One of our Mudpuddles is Entirely Immortal.   But, we are willing to take a chance.. In a crisp (or classical) set, an element either belongs, or does not belong, to the set.  Personally, I like a little room for doubt~~a wee wiggle of ambiguity, if I may.  Fuzzy Set of Mudpuddles

I have papers and books and requests to peruse, I’m busy and frantic with hullabaloos, There’s a life to be lived, there’s my list of to-dos! So what? I’ll scratch out a few for a moment with you. I’ll bury the list for a hot rendezvous, I’ll banish a slew for a dally or two, Don't you think it’s the best thing to do?

Redtail, evening, with rat for dinner. 79th Street East

It just seems useful not to care. I try this tactic now and then. I think it worked in New Orleans. …Like a perfumed woman. Smellin' of where she's been. Smellin' of Oregon cherries Or maybe Texas avocado Or maybe Arizona sugar beet… That’s my Pal Joey; my name was Joie when I was a pretender, that’s for sure. I wish it worked. I just can’t bear the flat, drab, dumb and stateless days. And so, I open up that sweet trap door, to surging, rushing, pounding, swelling, burning life again.