Out on a Limb for the Love of Trees

There are tree huggers and there are tree huggers. The ones that have been tree-sitting (literally) in Berkeley, California, for the past couple of years are the kind I respect. I wouldn't mind having them in my corner when the (wood) chips are done. They've been hanging out in and around a grove of oak trees that stand in the way of a planned University of California athletic center. They've been chased and taunted and deprived of food and water, but they're hanging in. I respect their commitment and their cause. I admire people who stand by what they believe, even if they have to go out on a limb. The AP has the story here.

Weekend Snapshot: White Flower Farm

Last week my daughter and I stopped at White Flower Farm to take a little walk through some very beautiful gardens on our way from Wisdom House to Waterbury to do our chores.

These urns at the main entrance survived the trip from Greece. You know I didn't drive them over! It was a drizzly day, and my daughter felt chilly, so she was happy to get back in the car and enjoy these flowers from there.

Across the street were these lovely creatures, destined for sale as "Angus beef." I'd love to bust them out for a brighter future on the road!

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.(Thich Nhat Hanh)

Weekend Snapshot

One Single Impression: Doorways

Dark and dust here,
Light and breath there.
How many years to cross this portal,
To get from here to there?
Too many or none.
Call me. I come.

(Very recently reconnected with an old friend--a very good old friend--and realized that living well is a matter of being in love with life on its terms, not mine, and of letting it be. That, I think, is the only invitation necessary to pass through the portal.)

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: Boys and Friends

Every time my daughter comes home with a story about some nightmarish little girl cat at school or on the playground, I find myself telling her to hang out with boys. At her age, girls can be pretty tough on each other. The advice doesn't much help yet; in her almost 10 years on this planet, she has remained unconvinced that there are any boys who aren't gross, with the important exceptions of her cousins. Maybe I'm a fool and should instead encourage the "boys are gross" idea for another ten or so years.

But every time I giver her the boys-are-more-fun advice, I recall my own experiences of the boys who were my friends when I was younger. Having endured the trials and tribulations of what girls do to each other, I emerged from the bag of cats by my high school years to enjoy the company of some really good guys. I think of them and I smile. We had fun. I recall the laughter and see the big smiles of plain fun.

The other day I received an email from one of these guys for this first time in almost 25 years. He was a great guy--or as my mother says when she recalls him, "A nice, nice kid." (In my mother's lexicon, the double adjective "nice, nice" is the ultimate compliment--nice beyond nice--14 karat.)

On the Christmas Day of one of those high school years, he walked across our cold and slushy town to bring me carnations and say Merry Christmas. He was very bold. He came to the front door (we had new carpet and NOBODY came to the front door), and walked across the living room in his sneakers (GASP), and gave me his gift (WOW).

Twenty-five years later, I can't imagine walking into a house full of somebody else's relatives on Christmas and doing that and not knowing what to expect by way of reply.

Twenty-five years later, I still can't take in that someone thought I was worth the trouble.

He was a good friend. Foolish girl that I was, though, I don't think I fully appreciated how good. I get it now, though, and I hope my daughter has more sense than I did and that she makes the most of her time with the good guys. I hope she never lets go of true friends.

Since our conversation, she has pressed me to demonstrate sure knowledge that not all boys are gross, and I have told her the story about the boy who brought mommy flowers no Christmas Day a long, long time ago.

The memory is a blessing in its own right and as a lesson for my kid. The greeting from that friend in the present is also a blessing. Life is beautiful.

Blog Your Blessings

You Love Who You Love

I love you, right? Why? Because I'm supposed to? No. Because I can't help it....You can train your mind and you can learn from experience--that's what growing up is--and you can take responsibility for your actions, but you can't make your heart behave....You love who you love. Don't ever apologize for that. Don't ever feel you have to. (Miles Roby [Ed Harris], Empire Falls)

Empire Falls (2005) is an HBO movie about small-town life starring everybody--Ed Harris, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Helen Hunt, Aiden Quinn...--that I watched over the past few nights. It was great. The above lines sum up Roby's raison d'etre as he expresses it to his teenaged daughter. I typed them up while I was watching because these words are beautiful.

Skywatch Friday: Solstice Rose

Roses always bring to mind "The Queen of Argyll" by Scotsman Andy Stewart (formerly of Silly Wizard). Here's the refrain of this courtliest of ballads:

And if you could have seen her there
Boys, if you had just been there
The swan was in her movements
And the marvel in her smile
All the roses in the garden
They bow and ask her pardon
For not one could match the beauty
Of the Queen of all Argyll

More Skywatch Views at Wigger's World

For You

I wouldn't mind being a rose
in a field full of roses.

Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
Reason they have not yet thought of.
Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
Or any other foolish question.

(Mary Oliver, from "Roses, Late Summer")

Thursday Thirteen 39: Lines from George Carlin

Comedian George Carlin was a master of the obvious. His keen eye for the world around him and his gift for the best and fewest words to name his observations made him a master of understatement as well as of comedy. "In his always irreverent, often furious social commentary, in his observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and in groundbreaking routines like the profane “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” he took aim at what he thought of as the palliating and obfuscating agents of American life — politicians, advertisements, religion, the media and conventional thinking of all stripes" (New York Times)."

Here are 13 lines that express his genius.

1. I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
2. Life....is a series of dogs.
3. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?
4. As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything.
5. Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
6. Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
7. I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
8. I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.
9. It's never just a game when you're winning.
10. Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.
11. There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.
12. There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.
13. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

Thursday Thirteen

I Love Lemonade Girl

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - Call it a lemonade standoff. A girl whose lemonade stand was robbed of $17.50 chased the suspect into a nearby home and called police, who spent nearly an hour trying to coax the man into surrendering...(more)

Wordless Wednesday: The Light of a Summer Day

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Weekend Snapshot: In Bloom at Topsmead

I was in Litchfield, Connecticut, on Saturday morning, so I stopped by Topsmead to see what was in bloom. First I came across these wildflowers in the tall grass,

and then I came across some beautiful poppies in one of the formal gardens. They were a little tired but beautiful nonetheless.

Weekend Snapshot

To Call Myself Beloved

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
(Raymond Carver)

Blog Your Blessings: Rain Outs and Rug Rats

We've had so many heavy rains this month that everything is lush and green. Those plants that have withstood the pelting downpours are especially vibrant. The more fragile are slowly lifting their heads to determine whether there is any promise of sunshine, I think. Though I am not among the fragile, I do feel a bit timid when I look up these days. Looking through the gap between two trees the other morning, I saw more of the same was on its way. It seems minding the celestial gap is the only sure way to predict the weather these days.

Every year my nephew's bunch of Boy Scouts goes camping in the middle of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Once Connecticut's garden city, this run-down post-industrial blight magnet of a city has been doing its best over the past decade to reclaim some of its former claim to fame. It has also sought to attract sports fans by building a hockey arena and a minor league baseball park. Here's where the camping takes place. After the game, the boys and their families pitch tents in the outfield, watch a movie on the scoreboard, run around in the thick grass, hope like heck they don't need to make many trips to the used up and yucky restrooms way across the dark field, and generally have a very good time.

We joined in with my nephew and their dad two years ago, when we learned the outfield is not as smooth as it looks from our living room or even the stands. Our aging bodies knew every anomaly in the lawn. Still, we had a great time and were ready to do it again this year except that the rains came. And came. And came. In biblical proportions the rain came. Think Genesis. Think Exodus. Think Storm on the Sea of Galilee and you will have a picture of this ballpark.

Lightning flashed as we sat on our metal seats under the metal roof in the stadium flanked on one side by a power plant and on the other by a skyscraper and circled by Amtrak. We felt very, very vulnerable. There would be no camping; we knew it, but who would tell the kids who had informed us that:

1. People camp in the rain;
2. Peopled camped in the rain last year;
3. The rain won't get us because we have air mattresses;
4. It's not really raining that hard;
5. I don't care if it's raining hard....

The cousins wanted to be together. I watched them conspiring and whispering while they were standing at the rail and watching the ground crew rolling the tarp over the infield and listened to the rain bubbling and thumping around us as if were were in some kind of big deep fat fryer. They wanted their outing to go on and on. To us they came one at a time, each with one of the above five thoughts.

The cousins wanted to be together so bad they would sleep in this large fishbowl of a stadium just to make it happen. They did not come to us and suggest sleeping in the car or going back to one house or another or some other moderately more comfortable alternative. It was about being together; comfort had nothing to do with it. They'd lie in a deep puddle under thundering skies just to be together.

"Maybe some other time," was not an option. Della slept at her cousins' and came home the next day. We'll camp another time--maybe when we can light a fire for these three friends.

More at Blog Your Blessings

Good-bye, Mr. D.

Our longtime family friend Harry Denney died on Wednesday, June 18. Whenever I think about him, my mind returns to Long Island Sound and those countless outings on our boats. I feel the summer heat clinging to everything, the sand as my flip-flops shoot it up the back of my salty wet legs, the press of the webbing of old aluminum lawn chairs in the back of my legs...I taste the awful chili again, and I wait for the silliness and adventure that came with having anything at all to do with Mr. D.

But silliness and adventure won't come. Those days are over even if they live well in the Shangri-La of memory.

Memory....Here's one that firmly planted Mr. D. and my dad as heroes in my mind.

I recall a relentlessly stormy night of one of our camping trips on Shea Island in Long Island Sound. Though we could see Norwalk from our campsite, the yellow lights of civilization offered no comfort that particular evening. There would be no getting there from where we were. So, after the campfire and Mr. D's Tommy Peach-fuzz stories and the right amount of marshmallows, licorice, and who knows what, we fell inside our tents and let Mother Nature have at it.

One thing every camper knows is to never under any circumstances touch the side of the tent lest dampness or rain seep in. So there we were, dad and me and my sister in the bizarre suspended animation of the tent dweller. You breathe but you don't breathe, you move but you don't move when a false move can bring the water in and kill your last bit of comfort.

I slept. With my dad behind me and Mr. D. two small tents away, I had no worries. My godfather (another member of the Dummy Club who took the dummy cake at every turn) was in his big tent with his daughters, and all three of these people were sleeping on the sissiest of cots (a matter about which we teased them unmercifully), but no matter. Our troupe was flanked by two giants. Who needs more?

At some point later, I awoke to the sounds of my dad and Mr. D. working hard in the pitch dark of the storm to secure their boats and my godfather's. It seemed hours rolled by as they fought the dark, the wind, the rain, the shifting sand, the waves....I lay there and listened, sure they would finish the job and go back to sleep.

And they did. Eventually. After dad and Mr. D. climbed into their tents and lay down again, my godfather chirped, "Need any help?"

What a dummy. My dad and Mr. D. razzed him the next day. And for quite a while after that.

And we never forgot: My dad and Mr. D. took on that storm and won.

Rest well, Mr. D.

The obituary:
Denney, Harry L., 73, of Hartford Ave., formerly of Connecticut, died June 18, 2008 in North Providence, at the home of his loving friend, Madeline Boyer. Born in Denver, CO, he was the son of the late Harry T. and Mary M. (Lobeda) Denney.

Harry was an installer with Southern New England Telephone of Connecticut before retiring. He also was a self-employed landscaper and a custodian at St. Robert Bellarmine Church. Harry was a Marine Corps veteran of Korea and was a friend of Bill W.

Besides his friend, Madeline and her family, he leaves three children, Donna Zenhye of Burlington, CT, Susan Polka of Norwalk, CT, and H. Lee Denney of Bethel, CT, six grandchildren, and a sister, Doris Denney of Boise, ID.

Relatives and friends are invited to a Mass of Christian Burial Monday at 10 am in St. Robert Bellarmine Church, Johnston. Military honors will follow. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the St. Robert Bellarmine Food Closet, 1804 Atwood Ave., Johnston, RI 02919 or to VNS of Greater RI, 6 Blackstone Valley Place, Suite 515, Lincoln, RI 02865. For guestbook and condolences, visit robbinsfuneralhome.com

Skywatch Friday: Mind the Gap

We've had so many heavy rains this month that everything is lush and green. We've gotten so that we don't look anywhere but up to find out about the weather. The clouds are subtle, deep, and beautiful. It's nice to look through the gaps in the leaves watch their rapid movement and the changing shapes. By mid-week, the thick cover gave way to this:

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Thursday Thirteen 38: A Few Things About Mark Twain

A view of the conservatory from the porch of Mark Twain's home in Hartford, Connecticut.

On Saturday we visited Mark Twain's house in Hartford, Connecticut. It sits alongside fellow author Harriet Beecher Stowe's house and defies many conventions just by being there. For one, the kitchen faces the main street because, two, it actually faces Stowe's house, and, three, it looks more like a riverboat than a house anyway. None of these things bothered Twain, who like the place just fine and lived there with is family for 17 years at a time Hartford was the richest country in the nation and he was the most famous person in the world.

Twain's house is lovingly and faithfully restored to look exactly as it did when he and his family entertained the likes of Ulysses S. Grant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and other famous people of the time. We took the tour from the kitchen to the billiards room at the top floor and enjoyed every minute of it and of the docent's presentation. She knew her Twain and she loved the history. I am grateful to her for imparting that joy to my daughter because she brought the house to life. On the way home, we thought up 13 things we learned from this nice lady. Here goes:

1. Most of the walls of the rooms in the house are red because that was Twain's favorite color; he called it the color of life.
2. The wallpaper on the first floor was stencilled by Tiffany, whose tiles also adorn the wall behind the fireplace in the dining room.
3. His children were home-schooled by their college-educated mother Olivia.
4. He worked as a printer, boatswain, miner, and reporter.
5. He spoke German fluently.
6. He was offered the opportunity to invest in the fledgling telephone industry but declined. His was one of 50 Hartford homes with a phone in the 1870s.
7. He was a master of self-promotion; he believed all publicity was good. His servants' quarters were on the third floor of his home; this scandal was enough to get people talking; it did and he loved it.
8. When he lived at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, he timed his exit from the hotel on Sundays to coincide with the end of church services so he could be seen in his white suit with his white cat on his shoulder.
9. Though he lost all his money and declared bankruptcy in 1873, he eventually made back all his money and paid all his debts.
10. He was so beloved in his time that a movement began to elicit $1 from every American to help Twain pay his debt; the author refused the money.
11. He was a social critic as well as a humorist and a fiction writer. Most famously, some of his works focused on the evils of slavery. Less well-known was his concern for animal welfare.
12.His wife was his best critic and helper. Because their tastes complemented each other, her insights helped him revise his works to reach a broad audience.
13. He built a home in Redding, Connecticut, that burned to the ground shortly after he died.

A few words from the man himself:

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Thursday Thirteen

Wordless Wednesday: Peace and Love to All Who Enter Here

This detail
adorns the front porch of the Chamberlin-Burr Day House, headquarters of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Here's more of the porch.


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Peonies Survive the Storm

On Saturday night, this part of Connecticut endured a deluge that defies description. Wind and rain stripped the rhododendron, mountain laurel, and lilac of their blossoms. Torrents of rain carved new streams into the sides of hills. Rocks washed into the roads. We came home from a washed out baseball game looking like, well, very wet possums.

But these peonies in my parents' garden didn't mind the cold shower. These are pictures of two of them the next day.

Weekend Snapshot: The Twain and Stowe Homes

We visited the Mark Twain (top) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (center) houses in Hartford on Saturday. Both sites offered special activities as part of Connecticut Open House Day.

From Twain: "A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval."

From Stowe: "The truth is the kindest things we can give folks in the end."

The roses basking in the sun in one a formal garden on the Stowe property.

More at Weekend Snapshot

Blog Your Blessings: Mom and Dad

When the first selectman left me an automated voice message telling me to be very careful in the intense summer heat on Tuesday, I was only too happy to oblige. So was my daughter, who agreed that getting out to the school bus on time would exceed the town father's recommended amount of exertion per minute per square inch of person.

So, heck, we played hooky--or, more accurately, she played hooky and I was her willing accomplice. In fact, I thought up the idea. It made sense--to a lot of people. Wherever we stopped, someone would say, "No school today?" We'd say, "Playing hooky and going swimming." They'd say, "Good for you. I won't tell." Wherever we went, we had accomplices who weren't working too hard or fast, either.

Ever so slowly, ever so carefully, we rode over to my parents' home in Newtown to plant some pumpkin, cucumber, and radish seedlings and to swim.

Along the way, we happened upon one box turtle who had not heard that school in Newtown was delayed and who therefore chose the exact wrong time to cross the road ever so slowly. So we shanghaied him. He too played hooky at grandma and grandpa's house. He was good company for our short ride, too. He crawled all over everything but neither pooped nor peed on anything. My kind of passenger.

Adella jumped for joy when she saw my nephew Adam was at my parents' house, so he got to see the turtle, whom he named Slow Poke after taking him in with a long, incredulous look (see above). We deposited the new family friend in a cool, shady area full of ferns and made our way to the important business of swimming.

I planted the young plants while Adella and my dad splashed about. I enjoyed the summer sun and heat and the pleasure of the garden while I listened to my daughter present each new style of flip and turn to my dad. Grandpa challenged her to swim and dive and rescue abandoned toys from the bottom of the deep end. She took the challenges and rose to each one. So much for slowly, carefully...Grandpa paid $1 for each rescued toy. At that rate, a girl hops to.

Grandma joined us for rest and snacks and a lesson from Adella on how to play the games on the Webkinz site.

On the way home, a doe crossed the street in front of us and faded into the shade of the woods. She moved slowly, carefully, soundlessly, almost imperceptibly, and she was gone in an instant. Day faded into evening, and evening into a thunderstorm that shook the earth. No noise could reach my dreaming daughter, who didn't stir in her deep and silent, satisfied, sleep.

Thank you, mom and dad.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: Lazy Daisy Sunday

Last Sunday, we stopped at Topsmead State Park to take in the formal gardens and have a walk around the grounds. There are some very beautiful wildflowers around this natural treasure in Litchfield, Connecticut. Sunday was humid, hazy, and heavy with the sweet perfume of summer, ready or not!

More Skywatch Friday at Wigger's World

Thursday Thirteen 37: The Family Album

A few weeks ago, I met a nature photographer who was standing in the exact place I like to stand when I take nature shots near our pond. He gave me the wonderful advice of simply paying attention to what's going on around me to find all kinds of life to photograph. I have taken his advice, and it has worked some kind of magic. I am discovering animals everywhere. In addition to the above images of wildlife in Connecticut, I've come across these fellow travelers:
1. Turkey vultures,
2. Muskrats,
3. Beaver,
4. Barn swalls,
5. Chickadees,
6. Foxes,
7. Deer,
8. Woodpeckers,
9. Seagulls (of course),
10. Deer,
11. Feral cats,
12. Rabbits, and
13. Horseshoe crabs.

I've seen all these creatures without wandering very far from my front step. So many I don't have pictures of many of them because I have come across them at dawn or dusk when I have been out for a walk without my camera. Perhaps I'll have the family album done before the end of summer.

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Saturday Is Connecticut Open House Day

If you live in Connecticut, please follow this link and find out what's going on Saturday, Open House Day. Historical sites, museums, gardens, and other great places will be open free of charge or at a reduced rate for the day. This is an excellent way to see what's so great about the Nutmeg State.

Wordless Wednesday: Gentle Friends

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Field Day: The Road to Hell

Ready for some high-energy fun, I instead watched a cliche unfold during an event at my daughter's school-wide field day recently. The cliche: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The event: a game called cupid's arrows in which three children stand between two rows of children, who are armed with small foam balls, and toss up hula hoops. The child on the side who passes his ball through the hoop receives the honor of replacing one of the children in the middle who had the hula hoop. On it goes as the center children are pelted with foam balls and clunked on the head with their own rapidly descending hula hoops.

Field day is organized mayhem during which the parents are invited to come along and see firsthand the challenges of keeping 20 or so kids alive during PE. For this parent, for whom the mere word gym invokes image of hellfire and dodgeball, showing up for field day is the ultimate labor of love. I did it. Yes, I did it. And I found myself assigned to this flaming ring of hell called cupid's arrows. How I longed to be at the three-legged-race station. Or even the egg toss. Anyplace but cupid's arrows.

But it wasn't so bad. Not at first. The kids knew the game and the rules. They played any way they wanted to, but they abided by the key rule that you must get a ball through the hoop to earn your place in the center. And it was fine. I retrieved balls from the periphery and cheered and got away with being at field day without any athletic ability.

But then Mr. Entitlement decided to change the rule about who got to be in the center. No longer was this a place of honor after succeeding at the game; this was an entitlement of every child in the line regardless of performance. Now we would cycle 20 kids through the center in 10 minutes just because they showed up. Welcome to hell.

There were tears. Whining. Stomped feet. Storming off. More tears. Boys and girls alike became indignant if they didn't get their turn in the middle when they bloody well thought the time was right for them to be there. Many of these kids found the surplus hoops and helped themselves. Suddenly seven hoops were up in the air where there had been the regulation three and head after nose after head felt crack after crack from these tumbling plastic halos.

The architect of our demise, this daddy who wanted everyone to be a winner even at the expense of every winner's sense of accomplishment, killed the game and the mood on the field. The frustration my daughter and I had shared during basketball season seized me in the gut. That frustration had everything to do with refs who called the game willy-nilly. The pleasure of interaction in sports is that the rules are clear and the skills required are clear, so quality of performance determines the victor. When these are skewed, anger and frustration ensue.

During a break on this morning, another mom who was helping out remarked to the father who turned everyone's morning upside down, "When I was a kid, someone won and someone lost and that was it. It was a game." Though it was a direct hit, it was lost on this fat-headed guy, who made a big psychological deal out of a silly game.

During another break, when I was the only one left standing near him, he passed a remark about a school referendum. Our region had voted against building a new elementary school last year. There just wasn't enough imaginary money to go around to pay for a new building. "If they had held another referendum, they would have gotten the vote they wanted, and we'd be building right now. But they let it go." The same frustration seized my gut again. (It's obvious what's wrong with this, right? Voting people into submission?)

Tell me how to reason with a guy who doesn't play by the rules. Any rules anywhere ever. All I could do was walk away. I'm not good at this kind of sport.

Weekend Snapshot: The Bride Lost her Head

Years ago a friend wrote a flash fiction story about a bride who looked in the mirror and discovered she had no head. She screamed. End of story.

Exactly, I thought when I read the piece. A bride is at once the most decorated item at a wedding and the least important. On one level, weddings are about property and prestige; they are commercial ventures. On another, they're about the gears of one family meshing, or not meshing, with the teeth of another.

There's not a lot that's strictly personal about a wedding. Visiting the Gunn Historical Museum last week to see antique wedding dresses worn in the rural town of Washington, Connecticut, over the past few centuries drove that point home to me. In "The Fabric of Marriage: Wedding Dresses," the dresses on display--everything from heavy beaded satins to gauzy homemade muslins--obviously outlived the women who wore them and survived to tell the history of the town.

More to my point, though, they were draped on headless mannequins that made the women themselves anonymous. Though the accompanying captions told the story of the town and the families who have populated it, they really said very little about the women themselves. Where vintage photos of the bride were placed near the dresses, the women seemed bemused by their own invisibility as they studied their gowns from a slight and airy distance. They seemed to know these fragile bits of fabric were doing the talking for them--or for the place in society they once occupied.

I left the exhibit wondering why mannequins don't have heads. Perhaps to make it easier for each of us to imagine ourselves in the costumes they wear? Perhaps their story is in some way ours? Must these stories always end in personal oblivion?

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Blog Your Blessings: Standing by for a Turtle

A venerable turtle making his way to a glacial kettle full of deep, cool, clean, water at the same time I was driving my daughter to school one rainy morning became a small-town celebrity for, oh, fifteen minutes this week. Though we didn't have our cameras this particular morning, we found ourselves among the paparazzi--eight others who stopped their cars to ensure this fellow's safe passage to the pond.

I stopped when a woman at the nearby stop sign flashed her lights; the next duo stopped when I flashed my lights to them before I pulled over. A third vehicle stopped when he saw all our parked cars. Like excited kids at a petting zoo for the first time, we were all standing in the road in an instant, though the turtle wasn't in any kind of hurry.

"If I hadn't not have come with you, I would have missed this," said one older lady who was travelling with her daughter. Out came the camera, and the older woman snapped away. The flash caused the turtle to hunker down a moment and wait until she was done. She picked up on the body language and pocketed the camera. And he was off--ever so slowly.

My daughter and I took a few steps toward him to get a closer look at his wrinked, bumpy skin the color of earth, the protective ridges along the tail, the loose skin around the neck,and the thick shell that looked as heavy as the rock it was meant to look like. He hunkered down again; we backed off. He made great strides under the weight of his body, and we were close enough to see his claws as he stretched a leg and gripped the pavement and then the earth.

"These are ancient beings, and they deserve to live...." Watching this turtle from beside my car in the soft rain, I heard the voice from years and years ago of a German woman who had parked on a precarious curve on Route 53 where it winds through the Saugatuck Reservoir in Connecticut. Her voice had trailed off and she gestured with open hands to a turtle in the road. I pulled over beside her. Foolishly young and fearless, I lifted that turtle by the shell at a distance I hoped was beyond the reach of his mouth and brought him to safety. Neither of us was any the worse for wear.

A few decades later in another Connecticut town, three generations of men, women, and children stood guard for another such ancient being. Strangers all, we shared the belief that he deserved to live.Nobody moved on until the turtle was safe in the tall grass.

Perhaps the secret of the turtles is that they slow down and stop as necessary and stay on the road they know.

(Click here for a poem inspired by a turtle long ago.)

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Skywatch Friday: Love Echoes

How deeply do I love me?
Asked the moon of the moon.
I would drown but to kiss my face--
I would drown but to change my place
How deeply do I love me?
Asked the moon of the moon.
Too much, too much....

(The view made me think of Langston Hughes's poem "Suicide's Note"--"The calm/Cool face of the river/Asked me for a kiss."--without the fatalism!)

The dark bump in the water in the foreground is a frog.

More Skywatch Friday at Wigger's World

Thursday Thirteen 36: Lines from Lao-Tzu

In the Buddhist meditation group that meets twice a month in Waterbury, we've been studying the Tao. We read a new verse every two weeks or so and try to make it a part of the way we go about life. It seems to me one verse is very much like another and that distinguishing one from the other is difficult and perhaps even counterproductive. With that in mind, I present this passage that I think deserves thinking and rethinking, oh, 13 times.

1. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
2. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
3. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
4. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
5. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
6. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
7. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
8. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
9. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
10. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
11. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
12. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
13. Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

More at Thursday Thirteen

Wordless Wednesday: Ocean Beach Park, New London, Connecticut

We went to Ocean Beach Park in New London, Connecticut, on Memorial Day. There we saw seagulls, cormorants, a crane, and this endangered piping plover whose egg lay in the sand on the beach. My daughter, her friend, and I guarded it like mother hens. Though our efforts kept the heavy feet of a marauding bunch of sun bathers from scrambling it, we didn't help this bird get any closer to it! (More photos are here.)

(Thanks to Me & My Puppies for the name of the bird.)

Wordless Wednesday

Ask the Cow

There are dog people--out-going, plain-speaking, and down-to-earth--and there are cat people--reticent, removed, watching carefully from the shadows. And there are fish people--silent observers who delight in the mysteries of the deep--and there are bird people--dreamers enchanted by all that is or seems to be exotic.

And there are donkey people, goat people, chicken people, insect people, cow people....

Author Rita M. Reynolds is a cow person. And a dog person and a cat, donkey, goat, chicken, insect, person. In fact she's an every-living-thing person whose animal sanctuary in Batesville, Virginia contains so much life, she could populate a Compassion Zodiac.

Animal people respect animals as friends, companions, fellow-travelers in this magical world, and as teachers. Who doesn't spend some time playing ball with the dog after a long day at work? Who doesn't mark the beginning, middle, and end of every day by walking the dog? Who doesn't introduce their baby to a puppy so that the child can learn kindness, warmth, empathy? Oops, there I go. I'm a dog person and I'm speaking for myself. The point is, though, that we choose the animals in our lives--or, more accurately, they choose us--based on our dispositions and our needs and our capacity to love. Animal people know, and delight in knowing, that we are part of this world, not keepers of it.

Rita's tremendous capacity to love led her to Batesville so many years ago to care for animals in need of care for any reason at all. She provides them with a safe and loving place. Her previous book, Blessing the Bridge, is her story of the lessons on living and dying that animals have taught her over the years. Her quarterly magazine, LaJoie & Co., shares the lessons she and others learn from our animal companions. These works are lessons in grace.

She met her bovine friend Christina when Christina came calling at the sanctuary. This friendship was the cow's choice. The farmer who had felt he owned the cow saw things differently, though, and he brought the cow back to his place against Christina's wishes after she walked away the first time. The farmer had yet to learn: it was the cow's choice; Christina made her way back to Rita. Happily, the farmer caught on and gave up, and Rita and Christina have been together ever since.

Ask the Cow is Rita's story of their time together so far. This lovely, delightfully insightful book is Rita's spiritual memoir of her relationship with her special friend and teacher. By spending time with Christina and being open to Christina's beautiful way of seeing the world, Rita has learned even greater kindness, compassion, humility, love. (I have known Rita for 10 years and have been reading her work for as long; I would not have thought it was possible for any person to love more--but it is.) Each of the 30 chapters describes in clear, honest prose one of Christina's lessons on living humbly and compassionately. The book is full of gentle humor and imagery that places the reader right in the barn with these two faithful companions.

I found myself slowing down as I approached the end of the book only to defer ending it. I was happy in that barn, and I was learning plenty. But an important lesson of the book is to take the lessons out of the barn and into the larger world and to live in, with, for, from, by, and out of love in everything. Anyway, the barn will be there, and so will Rita and Christina, should I come back to learn again the lessons of this bovine sage and the gentle woman who has given her wisdom to the world.

Weekend Snapshot: Yellow Irises

A lily of a day
is fairer in May
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant of flower and light,
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.
(Benjamin Johnson)

Weekend Snapshot