Discovery Drafts

Whatever this day means to you, may it be lovely.

The most recent batch of store-bought loveliness went from very tight, green buds to full-blown, fragrant splendor in a matter of what seemed to be minutes.  Outdoors, Ma Nature was catching up with peeper, Canada geese, red-winged blackbirds, and robins singing their songs while the Canada geese and wood ducks swam the perimeter of the pond and pronounced all things good. So it was. Today's Flowers

Connecticut is cool (all the time, it would seem): Carolina is cooler (all the time, it would seem): Truth be told, I love the water that dances with light, that never stops dancing, that curls itself around morning with a roar and a nuzzle, that massages the solid earth into a soft and drifting dreamland.  I dream in orange, not blue.  Though blue is lovely and full of different dreams. Skywatch Friday

(Clyde eviscerated a Stepford child, apparently.) Wordless Wednesday

The other day I mentioned in a parenthetical note on a post that my daughter had a solo in the school musical.  We're out of the parentheses now!  My daughter's high school produced Guys 'n' Dolls this past weekend.  The show was a huge success.  The kids were downright adorable as they lived the lines of this 1950s musical based on the works of Damon Runyon. The romance between Adelaide and Nathan Detroit had its hilarious moments.  The students got their roles and were hilarious and poignant and hilarious again. Sometimes a girl has to speak up for herself, say enough is enough, and "Give Back the Mink." The pit band was outstanding.  Of course.  They wore hats and glasses for the "Havana Escapade," when bottles flew across the stage in a minor girl fight-barroom brawl. Time in Havana ended well, when Sister Sarah Brown and Sky Masterson had their moment and Sarah sang, "If I Were a Bell." In the end, Luck would be a l

Our daffodils will have to push through a few inches of snow if they're to make an appearance any time soon.  Meanwhile, there's the supermarket....and that's a good thing. Today's Flowers

While Adella was at school practicing with the pit band for this weekend's performance of Guys 'n' Dolls (in which she has a clarinet solo), Clyde and I kept an eye on the 'hood.  At the bottom of our hill, we took in this view of the first day of spring.  In the distance that my little camera could not capture, there were Canada geese enjoying a paddle.  (When I got home, they were standing on the edge of the ice enjoying their own reflections.  I love Canada geese.  They are so cool.  These honkers can poop on my grass any time.) Clyde and I had a little bit of time on our hands, so we kept walking.  It was worth it because he had the opportunity to wake up this swan, which he felt very good about.  He even tried out the water for three seconds before he traded in the idea of a fresh poultry dinner for Alpo. This guy was sleeping for so long that the ice closed in around the back of him. This happened to a boat in Antarctica, and they made a movie about

Wordless Wednesday

The NRA sent busloads of supporters to Hartford last Monday, after Gov. Dannel P. Malloy released his package of gun control proposals and a bipartisan legislative panel unveiled competing gun violence recommendations from Democrats and Republicans. Legislative leaders are considering those recommendations and others as they try to draft a bipartisan bill for the full General Assembly to consider, likely later this month. The leaders met behind closed doors Monday as the gun rights supporters descended on the Capitol. Since 20-year-old Adam Lanza slaughtered 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook School on December 14, the NRA hasn't had much of a presence in the state.  They have been waiting for what  NRA  lobbyist Bob Welch has called " the Connecticut effect ."  Speaking in Wisconsin, hesaid, "We have a strong agenda coming up for next year, but of course a lot of that’s going to be delayed as the 'Connecticut effect' has to go

Below the surface:  truth. It is not hidden though you cannot see it. It is not, in fact, hidden. Merely, it is where you do not look. Not hidden though undiscovered And perhaps not sought, The truth is available: Put your ear to the ground That you might know it In the beat of your own heart. One Single Impression

When I left work in New Haven, the air was so warm that I had to stop at my trunk and peel off the layers of warmth I had needed at 5:30 in the morning, when I left the house.  By the time I got to Naugatuck--not so many miles up the road--the flurries were blowing around, performing a strange reenactment of last Friday.  Spring's not a week away, and the pleasure of beautiful, yellow flowers pushing through the earth is not so far away. Today's Flowers.com

I love the morning.  Early morning is the best. Every day I am up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for work, so morning is a habit for me.  But I love those 4:30s when I don't have to watch  the clock and can wander about as I please.  I love the sleeping world and the peace it breathes. The orange is a promise that morning keeps every time.  I love that.  There's nothing to wonder about or doubt.   You just show up and fall in love.  It's simple. Skywatch Friday  

Wordless Wednesday

We've had plenty of winter around here. In fact, the dose we got on Friday left us with another snow day.  Dell and I didn't mind, though. We got out the scissors and glue and the latest Anthropologie catalog and had some fun with some Twinings tea boxes.  We made collages.  The only rule:  some part of the box has to show through.  Here's what Dell did. I went a little crazy and did two. The catalog is a little weird this time around.  The catalog is set in Thailand, and in this fantasy world, subservient young local men are doting on aloof, other-worldly women.  We made the most of it, though.  We cut out the aloof lasses. Our World Tuesday

Shopping today, I came across a case full of refrigerated factory flowers, and they were gorgeous. Saturday must be delivery day, because the flowers were fresh and bright. The sight of these flowers got me thinking this world is pretty alright if people are still willing to spend money to have flowers in their home or to give them away just because they are beautiful.  ("Why by flowers?" is up there with the "Why read literature?" question.  The short answer is that we would die without these things just because we want them and at a deep, fundamental level we need them to thrive.  We want beauty; nobody wants only to work and pay taxes and pass the salt.  Things of beauty--natural or created--don't exist to serve some other purpose; they are their purpose, and ours is to embrace that.) These store-bought beauties sure do hang in there, too.  This is last week's rose doing fine, thank you very much. Today's Flowers

This was a cold and beautiful morning when I had the beach to myself. It was nippy out there, that's for sure. One of the great things about winter anywhere, though, is the peace.  Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday

Here's to all the marvelous little shells that land on the beach to reveal some few secrets of the sea--what minerals are there, what lives there, how long they survive--and keep so many others.  It's shell is a dream.  I marvel at how the simple lives that once dwelt inside them could spin such beauty from so very little.  But there it is. It's always a deal to find a complete shell.  One of these days, I will come across an intact sand dollar.  Meanwhile, though, I like peering inside the broken ones along with the other fragments.  We are fragments, too.  And like these shells, we are part of a complete story that is worth thinking on. Our World Tuesday

Deer do not look both ways Before they cross. In fact, they have no idea about looking. They cross. It's a question of focus. They have it.  They go  forward. It is for us to stop. To breathe. To let These gentle shape-shifters Transform the here and now Into the religion of being. It is for us to watch shadow Take the form of life And to enter the dream. One Single Impression

I don't believe in destiny or plans Or the idea that things happen for a reason. I don't believe in reason. I don't believe in God. I believe only in getting up. I believe in seeing what will happen. This morning I did just that And went for a walk, And a flock of Canada geese Took flight not far from me Though I was in the woods And I heard the flap of their wings, Felt the rush of their flight, Looked up, And thought of my grandmother, Who always thought of her father When she heard the Canada geese take flight. In the flap of those wings, The displaced air gave way to my ancestors. We were there, together, As we always have been. It was not a gift. It was an accident of circumstance, And it meant everything.

I was reading the other day about the decline in the number and variety of bumble bee s and thinking about the effect on the number and variety of plants that fill our world where we let them. It's a sad thing. Our world needs kindness beginning with the smallest of creatures. Today's Flowers