Too Damned High

From Jun 30, 2011

This morning on the beach I met two turtle women from Connecticut who weren't the least bit shy about the truth--which truth is why there are so few turtle nests in the usual places on North Topsail Beach.  Other turtle folks from other parts of our curious nation have played up the positive--there are 28 nests on the island--at the expense of the negative--there are too many people doing the wrong thing for females to do what they need to do in the right places. Which is to say the dunes are too high for female turtles to create their nests. As a result, there are many false crawls.  As a result, many females are digging their nests in bad places, places that are vulnerable to the tides....If the turtle hospital folk need to move a nest, then each egg must sit exactly where it sat in the previous location.  It would be much easier if the town would grade the sand it dumps in a way that was turtle friendly. It would also help if the vacationing yo-yos would remember they are not the center of the universe and fill holes on the beach, take in their toys, and douse the lights.  You are a part of a magical universe; show up and be nice.

Skywatch Friday: Whose Fire?

From Jun 26, 2011

We live in paradise. We have only to notice. And to be grateful. And to tell the angels. Goodness comes. Just look.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: The Patterns of Going Home

From Jun 26, 2011

Header Challenge: Expressions

From Jun 28, 2011

I like Dave's header challenge for this week because it is wide open. We're sure to get a range of responses. I am stretching expressions to an act of expression that I came across at the Food Lion in Surf City today. I had to get out the handy-dandy point-and-shoot for this guy. I think he has a point--but my inner, vacationing, reading teacher woke up to this one, and I am wondering if it's possible to have a legitimate point if you can't spell. Your thoughts?

(Please visit the bloggers listed under the banner for their take on the challenge of "expressions.")

My World Tuesday: Wilmington, North Carolina

From Jun 26, 2011

From Jun 26, 2011

From Jun 26, 2011

From Jun 26, 2011

From Jun 26, 2011

I took a ride down to Wilmington, North Carolina, on Sunday. I had thought I would bring the DSLR, but the battery was done and I wasn't waiting around. So I brought the Canon point-and-shoot and decided to work on composition. I wanted to capture those corner-of-your-eye moments, those turn the corner and catch your eye and have the "here" moments. I didn't quite succeed, but I got closer than I have been. So I was happy enough. Here are bits and pieces of the Wilmington that makes you want to stay there.

My World Tuesday

Clyde Strolls the Beach

My daughter's dog Clyde and I have been together on North Topsail Beach in North Carolina for almost a week. He has missed my daughter sorely, and he has been reluctant to go out to do more than the biz. He's porked out a bit without the usual exercise, and I was figuring it was time to cut him back at chow time so that he's have the familiar boyish figure by the time my daughter gets here Wednesday.

Then he surprised me. Today, he walked beyond the usual patch of grass to a larger one. Later, he walked with me to Seaview Pier and back again, his big ol' ears flapping in the breeze. He was happy and comfortable and enjoying the beach he has enjoyed on his last three vacations. (He has had four North Carolina vacations in the past year. Try not to feel too sorry for him.)

From Jun 25, 2011

The thing about Clyde is that he is truly my daughter's dog. When we went to the ASPCA shelter to adopt a very different dog last year, I spotted this guy in a kennel full of bouncing, yapping Jack Russell terriers being pummelled in their frenzy over apparently nothing. Della likes to remind me that even though I told her she would pick her dog, I had said, "Dell, there's your dog," and that was it. (I tell her once in a blue moon, I get something right, so work with me.) Being Della's dog, he is suspicious and upset when she leaves him and when he has to make his own way. It doesn't take a long time for him to warm up because it never happens. This time around, though, he has loosened up.

From Jun 25, 2011

Clearly, he wants his girl back, but he is making the most of his time with the hired help. And it warms my heart.

From Jun 25, 2011

The big lesson from little Clyde: relationships take time, and friendship takes heart. You have to show up--over and over again. And expect nothing. Because it has to be a gift.

One Single Impression: Seven Sins

It tops the list Of the seven deadlies
Our favorite to talk about
To grow warm over, to squirm and to blush
And look away....

The noun form means desire, pleasure,
A condition or state of being playful,
Any source of pleasure and delight.

An appetite.

A liking for a person.

Also, fertility (of soil).

The verb:
To please,
To delight.

Call it good
And then open your Bible
And see it as a bad thing:

A strong sexual desire.
Merely this,
An overwhelmingly bad thing
That gets in the way of spiritual progress.

Whatever that means.

Let the people say

Whatever

And be playful,
Have an appetite
To please and be pleased.

Let's do it.

One Single Impression

Today's Flowers: 'We Choose Our Road'

From Jun 22, 2011

From Jun 22, 2011

Today's Flowers

The Sea Turtle Hospital

I visited the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center yesterday. There were about half a dozen turtles being introduced to the public. Among them were Lennie, the blind Kemp's ridley who is a permanent resident at the hospital because he is blind. A fisherman had struck him in the head and tossed him overboard--hence, the blindness. He was swimming in a tank alongside another, younger Kemp's, who had dislocated his shoulders in another fishing net. The interns said this was a common injury among these endangered little guys.

I learned today that the most common injuries of late are head injuries and body trauma caused by propellers and by impact with boats. There were a few banged up loggerheads whose shells were being put back together with stainless steel bands. When the turtles come to the surface of the water for air, they suffer these injuries.

There was a little loggerhead who had been cold stunned and was getting her strength back to be ready for release. She was happily chowing on some romaine lettuce to pass the time.

Our guide peppered her facts and figures with anecdotes that were heart-warming. There was the one about the family from New Jersey who rescued a sea turtle and drove it to Topsail Beach for care. When the turtle was fit for release, they drove down for the big moment. Then there's the one about the Coast Guard flying another turtle home to Florida for release. Seems if you need help, all you have to do is ask because, as the lady said, "If they can do it, they will do it. And they're happy to."

A regular visitor to the hospital, I knew enough to be early for the tour. I was among one of the first groups to hear the stories, and I had to move through hundreds of people to get back to the road to get to my car. Powerful stuff. And important.

Back at the ranch, the babies are incubating in the sand....

And this little tortoise was trying to cross the road at dusk. I helped him out.  I hope he doesn't have height issues!  I never saw one like this before.  He really did blend with the pavement--not a good idea!

Topsail Storm

I was out for a walk last night--again alone on the beach. When I turned around, the clouds illustrated pretty clearly why everyone else was hunkered down indoors. I guess I didn't get the memo. It was a lovely storm, though brief.

Writing in Faith: Changing Gears

As a kid watching Gilligan's Island (over and over again), I had to wonder about the place(s) those folks were going to on their three-hour tour. They wanted outta here for a little while, but their lives were pretty good. So where...

I have wondered. And I have wondered what would become of me if I were suddenly unmoored, adrift.

Wondering that, I have cut myself free to wander and explore for the summer. I wil visit your blogs and comment as I have Internet access, but I need a change of scenery. I will be back. For now, though, adieu.

---

The wild fire in Holly Ridge, North Carolina, has been raging for days, filling the air from here to Viginia Beach, Virginia, with untold filth. Yesterday, I was about the only person on the beach in the morning, and the smoke in the air hung like a curtain.

From Jun 22, 2011

I have no idea who this guy in the white shorts is in the photo below, but I took his photo to make the point that his own mother wouldn't recognize him in this mucky air. My dad's landscaper tells me the local authorities decided to let the fire burn since no homes were in jeopardy "except that now lots of homes are in jeopardy." People are evacuating the county.

From Jun 22, 2011

Meanwhile, we swim and walk among the debris of the fire.

From Jun 22, 2011

Skywatch Friday: A View of the Sound

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

A chalky gray sky can keep the world from seeming too big. So it was at Harkness Memorial State Park last weekend as the ferry moved up and down the coast.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: A Quiet Place

Wordless Wednesday

Header Challlenge: 'What's Buggin' You?'

This week's challenge from Lanny was an easy one because I had a few photos of my favorite bug eaters, the local turtle population.  What really bugs me, though, is that these guys are the most vulnerable jaywalkers here in the suburbs.  (Click here to "Meet Mother.") Not a day goes by that I don't come across the fragments of a shattered turtle shell and the flesh of their remains smeared in the road.  Makes me nuts.  If you care about these amazing reptiles, please sign the petition on the right in support of their cousins the leatherbacks.

Also, please have a look at the other head bangers whose blogs are listed below my banner.  They are wonderful photographers.

My World Tuesday: Harkness Memorial State Park from the Inside

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

Della and I had a look inside Eolia, the mansion at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, Connecticut, last weekend. Once the summer retreat of the fourth richest family in the United States, Harkness is now a well-dressed ward of the state and the site of many weddings (for a mere $4,450) and other fancy functions.

The Harknesses actually gave John D. Rockefeller a leg up when that gentleman began dabbling in oil.  Mr. Rockefeller borrowed money from the Harknesses to drill for oil--twice because he was unsuccessful the first time.  (Never heard of Harkness before?  I guess not everybody needs to brag....)

 The Harknesses bought the 42-room Roman Renaissance Classical Revival-style in 1907. It is surrounded by some of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. The lawn rolls down to Long Island Sound; the whole place is so peaceful and out-of-this-world timeless that being there is like stepping into paradise. (Wikipedia offers an aerial view here.)  The view of one of the gardens above is seen through a window on the back stairs that leads to the servants' quarters.  Not a bad place to work back in the day!

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Brown-Eyed Girl

From Wildflowers

From Wildflowers

I know these are black-eyed Susans, but I don't see black; I see brown. The centers make me think of Clyde's little wet nose, so I may just rename them for myself as Clyde's noses and call it good. These guys sprouted a few days after the tornado that wasn't that actually was after a proper review of the amateur video footage. We've got it all here in Connecticut, that's for sure. We have also the lesson that if you stay close to the ground, Mother Nature is less likely to mow you down on a bad-hair. You live. Your learn. You blossom.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Wind

For ninety minutes in June

Wind tore off skin
Exposed and shredded
Muscle
And left corpses
Draped over power lines
In unwilling bows
That suggested

Extreme humiliation

Or cast across laneways
And lawns
To be discovered and removed
By some bystander or passerby
Who dared to.

So it went in a vortex
Of black clouds and rain and
Green tornadic light
And thunderous, chilling
Cracks that,

As my dad would say,

Would make a believer out of you.

Except, of course, that this was the wind,
Air moving in circles at a furious pace

Except, of course,
That there was no fury.
There was no slaughter, no rape, no humiliation.

This was simply wind
Taking down magnificent trees

Because it was wind
Because the trees were there.

I was there.  I watched.
I said, and I say, fury.
Strangely.

Click here for images and the back story.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Almost There

From Topsail, April 2011

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out. (Thich Nhat Hanh)

I love the color orange for the reasons stated in the photo.  I love the intense warmth and friendliness of the color.  It invites you in to enjoy yourself without expecting you to dress up for the event.  That, to my way of thinking, is delightful.  I am days away from a summer filled with this delight.  I can't take it in, though.  These last days of school are so intense and important that I can't think beyond them.  That's OK, though; dreams have a way of waiting--for a little bit.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Shimmer

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

These crystals hang around a light bulb in a ceiling fixture in the morning room of the mansion at Harkness Memorial Park in Waterford, Connecticut.  Here is the light:

From Harkness Memorial Park, June 12, 2011

and here is a link to the album.
Wordless Wednesday

Header Challenge: That's Silly

From Topsail, April 2011

This good-looking couple on the beach in North Carolina is my daughter, Adella, and her best bud, Clyde. We rescued Clyde a year ago this July shortly after her guinea pig died. It was time; Clyde was waiting for her. I think Tapper the Pig knew that and made way for the next mammal. I think animals know.

When we first saw Clyde, he was in a small kennel at the ASPCA kennel in Monroe, Connecticut, being bounced on by what seemed to be three dozen million Jack Russell terriers. "There's your dog," I said to Dell. "Under those other ones." And so he was.

Almost a year later, he walks the line between devoted and needy, often falling over one way AND the other. He's a piece of work. He will be a tough act to follow for the men in her life many years down the road.

Clyde's devotion is to my daughter only. He does not multitask; he does not share. I am an onlooker, a bill payer, in his world. That he can run so hot and cold so quickly is amazing. Still, when he is under her spell, he is the silliest, most compliant pup in the world. He's also pretty funny looking when his ears catch air.

Please visit the other head bangers listed in the banner to catch their take on "that's silly" this week.

My World Tuesday: The Namless Tornado That was not

From Not Tornado Damage, 6/9/11

Mother Nature packs quite a punch.  On Thursday, we in Woodbury, Connecticut found that out when she socked us but good when several micro-bursts (not tornadoes, apparently) touched down here, leaving trees lying across wires like babes in arms,  slammed into streets, on top of cars and homes, and leaning against other trees in the woods. It was a wild storm that left us without electrical power for more than two days. 

It was awkward.  It was frightening.  But we did not die. 

Instead, we walked up and down our little road and told the tale, mixing and mingling with neighbors we otherwise had not had the time for.  Neighbors spoke of being in their cars and trapped between fallen trees, floating in that water-filled space for more than an hour (an eternity) while waiting for some guardian angel with a chainsaw to show up and carve the way to freedom.  Others left their cars on the main road and walked under the slack power lines to get home to their waiting dogs.  Some little girls wondered how a strong and healthy maple could have fallen if they had wrapped duct tape around its trunk just a few days before.  (Some things can't be explained, I told them.)  EMTs came in to be available for the elderly and infirm among us who just might need help.  A contractor of some sort with an 8-pack of lite beer decided the party might as well be there and then if the trees were going to keep him where he didn't want to be.  It was, after all, Friday night.

From Not Tornado Damage, 6/9/11

Though the middle managers of the electric company did all they could to thwart progress, the men in their Carharts dug in and planted new utility poles, moved wires, and put our world back in place within 48 hours.  They had the help of arborists and the police.  Lots of people from far away pitched in, too. 

From Not Tornado Damage, 6/9/11

Through it all, we had to laugh.  My neighbor shouted to me this afternoon, "How are you managing?"  I replied, "I feel like a Girl Scout on a camping trip!" He said, "Not really.  You have water; can take a shower!" 

Which is to say, say what you want, life is good.  We have water.

And we did not die. 

I kind of enjoyed the lack of electricity.  I felt strangely relaxed--sleepy all day, in fact.  l liked it though I did miss blogging and keeping up with email and the like.  But it was nice to let go and be tired.  And sleep.

From Not Tornado Damage, 6/9/11

My World Tuesday

Beluga Whales Face Extinction

Today's Flowers: Lone Beauty

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

(Henry David Thoreau)

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Miss

Driving along New River Inlet Road
To the stop
Before the bridge
That is the first step to far away
I do not miss
The smell of the ocean
Or the taste of salt
Or even the light crystallized in the foam
As the heat of morning
Dissolves the mist
And the moment
Becomes clear.

None of this
Do I miss;

I take it with me.

Instead, I miss a sensation that will not travel:

The feel of the damp sand
Inches below the warm surface
Cold and
Halfway to where the hermit crabs make their home
At the center of the earth.

I miss the digging in,
The rooted feeling,
The being home.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Ordinary Times

When I rise, 

Let me rise. 

Like a bird, 

Joyfully. 

And when I fall, 

Let me fall. Like a leaf, 

Gracefully, without regrets. 

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Joy

From Apr 9, 2011

"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof." (Richard Bach)

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: In the Garden

From May 7, 2011

From May 7, 2011

From May 7, 2011

Saturday I spent some time planting vegetables in my parents' garden. Dad had tilled the earth, so it was a small matter of raking it out, drilling some holes, and wishing the seedlings well in their new home at the back of the house. Easy work, this, but the sun left me blissfully warm and tired at the end of it. When I finished, I found my daughter walking around the flower beds with her dog and her little Canon taking photos of the flowers that seem to do just fine without our help, thank you very much. So I followed here and took these among others. I love flowers. They remind me that art is every bit as important as math, that we must breathe no matter what else we do.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Peonies

From

From May 7, 2011

From May 7, 2011

My parents' peonies are about to blossom. It's great to watch them loosen up under the sun as the days grown longer and warmer. After a recent heat wave, we've had the pure pleasure of low humidity, vivid blue skies, and breezes that have kept the pollen flying about and the vivacity of spring going on. In Connecticut, we've escaped the extremes of weather that have taken lives and left people homeless and facing an uncertain future. Ours is a sheltered world, somehow.

Wishing you a delightful Sunday.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Endure

From Writing in Faith

Reading your letter,
Ruth,
I wonder if you were worthy of my
Great uncle
Not yet twenty
In his third year of service in the US Navy
As a submariner

In the Second World War.

My uncle was a high school drop out.

Passion drove him
And though it horrified his mother,

She was an artist,

She understood,

She signed.

Go, boy. Fight.

He died fighting off the coast of Japan.

Reading your letter, Ruth,
I think you were the bright and flighty voice
Of home,
Of all that was simple and warm and fragrant
With your
Gees and sweeties and sugars
And send me an insignia I can pin to
My suits and jackets
Like the other girls with sweethearts
In the Navy.


You made a boy feel good.

He died for that feeling
And the place it came from.

You and the Japanese
And this boy's mother who saved
Every scrap of her son
In newspaper articles and announcements
Of his friends' engagements and marriages, life and death:

You brought us here.

Note: Recently my mother's aunt died, and my mother came into possession of her Uncle Laurence's high school yearbook.  Aunt Audrey had the book because she and Uncle Bert had named their son after Uncle Laurence, who had been a submariner in the Pacific during World War II.  He died in combat.  His mother, my great-grandmother, was a great saver of everything, and the yearbook contains the wedding announcements of his classmates, news stories about his boat, the USS Herring, other photos, and a single letter from Ruth, Uncle Laurence's girlfriend.  It is a wildly light and rambling letter that seems to be from a world quite distinct from the war zones my uncle patrolled during his years of service in the Navy.  Letters fascinate me for their way of capturing so much of a personality.  This particular letter struck me as a living voice of another time, a strange and sad dream.

One Single Impression