Blog Your Blessings: More Turtle Times

Last Saturday, I woke up to a beautiful day that landed an important question on my pillow: What to do with the day? I wasted a good few hours feeling like I had to be busy doing something to make the most of the day. Oh, but what to do....

I asked my daughter. What do you want to do?

I'll go for a walk with you.

Here? Somewhere else? Should we make it an adventure?

Here.

OK. Not what I want, but OK.

We walked.

At the bottom of the hill, we hooked a hard left and kept on and came across, oh, about a dozen or so turtles out in the swamp doing their turtle thing. Turtle thing: each little hard-shelled dude was on his own little grass tuft in the swamp taking in the sun. They were so still, so quiet, so unbelievably strong, peaceful, eternal.

They have been here forever, Adella, because they know what to do with Saturday.

They're funny, mom.

That, too. Yes.

She slipped her hand in mine, and we made our way into the woods, up the hill, and all over the place. That was our day.

So funny. I love those guys.

Do Saturday right. Do Saturday like a turtle.

Blog Your Blessings

Wordless Wednesday: 'In Memory of the Men of....

...Connecticut who suffered in southern military prisons, 1861-1866." This monument stands on the grounds of the Connecticut state capitol building. (This man sure does look like a child to me. Such are the effects of war.)

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Hanging out in Waterbury

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Magic Garden? Munchkin Land?

This installation was on display at the Hartford Public Library when I was there a few weekends back. When I saw it, I thought immediately of Munchkin Land. And stopped there for a long while to enjoy the good fun of this artificial garden.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Avatar

A dream come to life

The breath and pulse

The living heat of my

Wildest imagination

You are real

You are not

Avatar

I close in on you

Bracket you with my embrace

Though I am dreaming

Flatten you with my love

Though I am dreaming

Give you everything

I want to give away

And by the way

Aren't I wonderful

Won't you say it

Say

I am wonderful for giving away

All that I want to give away

The muck, the detritus of my soul

Becomes the earth

From which

I shape

My soul mate.

Avatar

Great hole in the ground

Into which I empty myself

Avatar. Cistern.

From you I draw the muck

From which I form myself.

I love you,

Avatar.

Love me back.

I am your god.

This poem is a response to the prompt avatar at One Single Impression. It has nothing to do with the movie. Lately I've been thinking of how we make others over according to our own needs and according to the dictates of our egos in an attempt to satisfy what we think is a need for another. So often that need is a desire for self. That is, we seek in others what we long for in ourselves. It's as painful as it is maddening to think you're a person only to realize you're a sounding board. I hate it. This is an angry, angry poem.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: How 'bout Getting Along?

I caught the Civil War monument in Hartford's Bushnell Park from the point of view of one of the Indians on the Corning fountain in the same park. I thought, "He's thinking, 'These people can't even get along with each other.'" Hartford sent 400 men to the Civil War battlefields; 40 died defending the Union. I have an opinion about that situation. I sum it up this way: It is good and right that the Union prevailed. It is good and right that we keep our word. (Ever read any of the slave narratives? Have a look here and see what you think of "northern aggression.")

About the arch: The arch was dedicated on September 17, 1886 – the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam – to honor the 4,000 Hartford citizens who served in the Civil War, and the 400 who died for the Union. It is the first permanent triumphal arch, as well as the first permanent war memorial, constructed in the U.S. The memorial features terra cotta friezes – on the north side, New York sculptor Samuel Kitson showed the story of the Civil War; on the south side, the City of Hartford, represented by a female figure, welcomes the soldier's home in a scene sculpted by Casper Buberl. Albert W. Entress sculpted the life-size figures at the base of each tower.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Fearless, Feathered Flirt

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Down on Main Street

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For Skywatch Friday, I posted an image of the Center Church in Hartford, Connecticut, as it appears in the glass of the bronze windows of the People's Bank tower on Main Street in the Nutmeg State's capitol. The effect of this building on light is magical. The first shot above shows that light cast onto the side of the Wadsworth Atheneum, which is another marvelous place. The museum has the right amount of everything wonderful, including the epic works of John Trumbull.

Down the road a few paces is a municipal building, the front of which is graced with a weird, eclectic work of art made of many bits and pieces of machinery. The plow blades made me think of human hips, and the rust--well, it reminded me to take my fish oil pills.

A few more paces down the road is the Hartford Public Library. I love this building. It's gorgeous and full of everything good. The Sunday I stopped in, a young man named Tiano was performing a piano recital to a rapt audience. The place was a librarian's dream, it was so quiet. All kinds of people were listening--no matter what they were doing. Net surfers, book browsers, stray dogs like me--all were listening to this college student majoring in microbiology offer a marvelous fusion of jazz, reggae, and classical piano music.

My little walkabout in Hartford that day made me realize all over again that if you want a good life, then you have to show up for it. Because it's there.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: My Daughter's Rose

I bought my daughter some roses after her weekend in Hartford, where her choir and three others sang Evensong on March 7.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Aura

Aura

Before the snow softens
I feel the ache of the earth
As it arches its back and
Opens itself wide

To take in the snow

Once it yields to the sun
To become the drink of a new day.

Before the snow softens
I smell daffodils
And dream my way deep inside
A golden cup that empties
Sunlight down the green vein
Of its stem into the earth.

There I am inside that bulb
That has survived so many hungry squirrels
And so many hard, rainy days
That every year makes spring

This bulb was once
At the top of the hill
But is now at the bottom,

So near the water
So near its own reflection

All that refracted sunshine.
I want it.

But I am dreaming.

Claim me, earth,
As I claim you
In my lonely, silent heart.

I want to be that flower.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: The Center Church, Hartford, Connecticut

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Someone Else's Night Before

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Bushnell Park, Hartford, Connecticut

This is the Cornell Fountain in Bushnell Park, Hartford, Connecticut. Here's what the Bushnell Park Foundation has to say about this work of art: Erected in 1899 and presented by John Corning (Corning Glass Works of New York) as a tribute to his father, a Hartford businessman who operated a grist mill on the site. Designed by James Massey Rhind of New York, the sculpture uses a Native American theme, rather than a classical one, which would have been more typical of the period. The monument is made of marble and stone, 30 feet tall, with the figure of a stag (or "Hart" for Hartford) surrounded by Saukiog Indians, the city's first inhabitants.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: The Girls are Back in Town

These daffs were labeled as imports from the United Kingdom when I bought them from the wholesaler in Waterbury. I guess these flowers that are among the first to brave the change in season from winter to spring can stand a little trip from the UK to the US. They even took it pretty well when the cashier plunked a dozen eggs on top of them. These are my favorite flowers; I'm glad their tough as well as lovely.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Murmur

One murmur

And the pond

Breathes

A sigh of relief

That heaves the ice

And breaks it

Into more than enough pieces

For me,

The unbelieving fishermen

Set adrift by this miracle,

And the half dozen geese

Standing at the edge

Hungry and ready to receive

One murmur

And there is enough

Grace to go around.

A cool breeze

Snuffs the light

Murmurs

Sleep tight

Murmurs

Spring

To a

Wintering

Heart.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: "Qui Transtulit Sustinet"

Connecticut's motto: "He who translated still sustains." It's true.



E Pluribus Unum: Also true.
Skywatch Friday

Blog Your Blessings: The Friendly 'Hood

Saturday afternoon, I saw four cops talking with a young man in a hoodie and baggie jeans as I was making my way across Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut. After a few minutes, the cop on the bike cycled off and the young man was let go. He smiled and nodded to the cops and continued his walk as he put a liter bottle of cola into the cargo pocket on his tan jeans. "Where'd he go?" one cop asked the other as they looked around for the bicycling cop, who was well and away. Nothing to do for the other three but...go somewhere else.

Before I knew it, I was in step with the young man and about 10 paces behind him--not quick enough to overtake him without power walking but close enough to wish I weren't quite so close. He turned around. "I'm not following you, but I do seem to be going your way," I said and smiled.

"I wasn't worried about you. I was just looking behind me. I am more worried about the police who stop me for nothing."

He wore a hoodie. He had dark skin. His pants sagged. No profiling here--because all criminals commit crimes walking alone in empty parks and sipping cola in the middle of sunny spring days.

"Well, they have to keep Hartford safe from the harmless people," I said. He had an accent; I asked him where he was from.

"I am from the Dominican Republic--are you going through the tunnel?" We had been making our way toward the tunnel under the tracks at Union Station. "I will walk with you." He was looking after me.

As we talked, he kept me from getting hit by cars (twice) because this girl does not multitask well. Listening and watching traffic I can't do simultaneously.

He asked me where I was going--to a church on Asylum Avenue where my daughter's choir was rehearsing for an Evensong--and left me there safely.

Along the way he told me about coming to the US from the Dominican Republic, finding good Dominican food in Hartford (or not), living and working in our capitol city.

It was a fine thing. Simple and safe. Talking to a neighbor. In a hoodie. Oh my.

P.S. I took the above photo after leaving my daughter at the church on Sunday. The names of things and the crosswalk sign made me stop and think what we are about. I have to say, too, that no matter where I was in that city, it seemed there was a Y right in front of me. All kinds of goodness....

Wordless Wednesday: Finding the Way

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Hartford, Connecticut

Connecticut's capitol building in Hartford is an amazing work of High Victorian Gothic architecture that hearkens back to a time Hartford was a very wealthy city--and a time when creating beautiful buildings to stand the varied tests of time was important. Hartford is a city of architectural beauty as well as of fast-and-easy cement boxes and glass towers (whose greatest purpose is to reflect and refract the beauty around them.)

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Amaryllis

This amazing flower was a Christmas gift from my nephew to my dad. I didn't see this tropical marvel grow, but I had the pleasure of enjoying its blossoms when my daughter and I stopped by on Friday. There's a universe of secret places in each blossom.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Hesitation

I will not go

Head first

Into the green water

The muck and leaves, the cloying vines

Of the darkness down there

The sand and silt, the unforgiving stone,

The uneven, unpredictable edges

Of the darkness down there

Though, lord knows,

I have tried.

Tried and failed.

I hesitate every time.

And then I jump awkwardly:

My hands joined over my head

My eyes wide open facing the horizon

My back caught

In a stiff, reluctant curve.

My feet go first.

I am confident

My legs will accomplish

What my head never will

In the same way

I jump into

Your vocabulary

Of love

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: A Blur Sometimes

I shot this photo of a nightgown hanging on a clothesline inside a little building at Lyman Orchards a few weeks ago as my nephews reminded me I was slowing down the walk to the car (where their snowy, cold feet would find relief). I took this shot at a few exposures and liked this one best because I like the juxtaposition of indoors and out in the glass. Though I took the picture because I liked the domestic image stuck in time, I find my eyes traveling to the blue beyond when I look at it.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Backlighting Courtesy of Old Man Winter

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Winter: Learn to Love it and Smile

My World Tuesday