In summer they are backdrop. Essential, green, the air we breathe.
In winter they drop all pretense. They are not smooth and uncomplicated. They are gnarled and uneven.
Here is what lies beneath the leaf, the flower. Here is what they really are.
Give them a gray sky, a brisk wind. They can handle it.
The road from Kentucky to Virginia (or from Virginia to Kentucky, for that matter) is by no means flat. It crosses a major mountain range, of course, so you don’t choose whether to drive through mountains, only how you will do it.
For much of the route the altitude shifts are buffered by the grade restrictions of the U.S. interstate system. In other words, nothing too extreme. If your car is powerful enough and you’re in a hurry, you may not realize how high you’re climbing.
This got me thinking about the gradual ascent, the steady accretion of duties, the daily growth of a child that’s invisible to you until she sees distant relatives who say, “How much you’ve grown!”
So much happens to us slowly, invisibly, without our permission. It’s probably better that way.
I noticed these green shoots more than a week ago. They may have peeked through in late December. The ground has been easy to peek through, after all. A few cold blustery days but warmer than usual for the most part.
Yesterday was mild and foggy, today more of the same. Meanwhile, in other parts of the state, temperatures rose into the 70s this weekend.
The heather is blooming, soon the witch hazel will, too. And from the looks of it, the daffodils will be early this year.
It’s not so much early spring as lack of winter. It’s the new normal.
It’s a bad habit, I know, this tendency to scribble on whatever is at hand. Usually, it works. The scraps discovered, assembled, copied. The ideas, such as they are, saved.
But today I’m bereft. The napkin I used on the long trek through the mountains Monday, all the ideas I had while driving, gone.
There’s one more place I can look, one more dark corner. I dig and search and … success. Found it.
I unfold the napkin, examine the squiggles. Yes, there are ideas on this napkin. Two of them I’ve already used in posts. The others, hmmm — they’re not as brilliant as they first appeared.
Next time I’ll keep my eyes on the road.
It’s Oscar Season! Nominees were announced yesterday, and I’ve seen four of the films nominated for Best Picture. That’s better than usual. Most years I would have seen none by this date.
In the old days, of course, seeing four would mean I’d almost seen them all. But this year, with nine pictures up for the top spot, I have five more to go. Or maybe not. This year proxy viewing is allowed, and a trusted assistant is doing some of the “work” for me. (“I don’t think you’d like ‘Django,’ Mom,” my daughter says. “Too violent.”)
So that leaves four: Two films that only start today and I’d planned to see anyway, and two “about animals” (I know there’s more to them than that) that I might palm off to my trusted assistant. And this is not even including the Best Actor/Actress performances.
What can I say … most of the time, reality is enough for me. But not during Oscar Season.
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A funny thing happened on the way to work today. Same thing yesterday and the day before. I blame it on my phone, which is also my camera.
No longer do I stride quickly from Metro to office, car to train. Now I stop, look, snap.
What would before have been preserved only in my mind is suddenly ripe for the taking. A wisp of smoke tinged pink by the rising sun. A bank of clouds moving in from the west.
Pictures are everywhere. Now I have a chance to take them.
I may never be on time again.
My visit to Kentucky entailed more cooking than I usually do. It made me realize how far I’ve slipped in the culinary arts. Take mashed potatoes, retrograde food that they are. If you’re making Swiss steak for someone who’s been longing for it then you must also whip up some potatoes.
Here’s what you must not do. You must not boil the potatoes until they’re a watery mush. You must not let them sit in the starchy water while you finish an email, read another chapter, watch the end of a TV show. You must not mash the potatoes all cold and slimy. They should be warm and well drained.
If they’re not mashed properly (until grainy) then the milk does not make them fluffy, it turns the whole mess into something resembling wallpaper paste. Lumpy, gelatinous and too white. It’s all a matter of chemistry, I guess.
Funny thing about those potatoes, though. People were hungry enough that they gobbled them down. Chemistry is important, yes. But so is appetite.
(Mine did not look like this. Photo: Wikipedia)
The season has been mild for us, so I’m glad I took the mountainous route home yesterday. The road winds from Intestate 79 to Interstate 81 on two-lane roads with drop-dead views.
The drop-dead part is not entirely metaphorical. Guardrails are few, elevations are high, descents are steep. Some of the hairpin turns make your stomach drop, especially heading east, when you’re on the one-foot-more-and-I’d-be-over-the-edge side.
My heart was pounding extra hard about this route yesterday, because the road was still sloppy and gritty from a nighttime dusting. I almost turned around, but am so glad I didn’t.
New snow had whitened each branch of each tree, freshened the ground cover, softened all but the craggiest mountain peaks. For miles I drove through tunnels of white under a blue, blue sky. And then, I crossed some divide, descended to some height and the snow was gone.
It was winter without the work. Drive-Through Winter.
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, the traditional end of the Christmas season and the point at which I begin to be faintly restless that our tree is still up.
But no matter, because today is about something bigger. Revelation, the ah-hah moment — sudden clarity. Indecisive by nature (even my zodiac sign is Gemini, the twins), I find few moments of clarity in life. So I value them more.
Today I learned we have James Joyce to thank for this definition of “epiphany.” This morning’s “Writer’s Almanac” tells us that Joyce “used the word to mean the ‘revelation of the whatness of a thing,’ the moment when ‘the soul of
the commonest object […] seems to us radiant.'”
The soul of the commonest object radiant. Something to think about today.
I worry about my hometown, worry that it has lost itself. Known for horses and horse farms, it has allowed some to be enveloped or developed — one into a mega shopping center. Meanwhile, it erects shrines to the thoroughbred.
Like so many places, it may not know what it has, what if offers, just as itself. No need to market or develop. Just leave alone.
How many other places, small hometowns across the country, need the same?