Pilot Light

Pilot Light

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday would be the best day of the week, the weather folks said. Work and freezing rain had kept me inside the last day two days, so I wasn’t taking any chances. Into the outside I went, all parka-ed and gloved. 

The wind that has been picking up steam for the last 12 hours was only getting started then, so I could make my way along the usual loop, up and down the neighborhood’s main street.  Still, it felt colder than it should have felt.

We’ve come to that point in the winter when my blood feels thinned out by shivering. So much of it is a mental game. Not the cold itself — I know there are actual numbers involved there — but how I approach it. 

Looseness is key, not tensing the muscles, not resisting the chill as much as moving through it like the human stove that I, that all of us, can be. But sometimes, yesterday for example, it feels as if my pilot light has gone out. 

By Armchair to Cambodia

By Armchair to Cambodia

Comments 0 Comment

We’re closing in on the end of the longest month. Outside, the pandemic rages and borders are closing. Time for some armchair travel.

Two years ago I was preparing for a trip to Cambodia. I had yet to see moonlight on the Mekong or sip coconut milk from a straw. I had yet to visit Angkor Wat or Ta Prohm or Bayon. I had yet to meet Bunthan and Dilen and Johnny, the people I traveled with in country. 

But soon I would ride the roads with them. I would learn that Johnny was about to leave his job as driver and go into real estate (in fact, ours was his last trip). I would learn to count on Bunthan’s excellent translation and Dilen’s knack for noticing what others missed. 

I would also meet the people my organization serves: brave women and men who had known far more of life’s difficulties than triumphs. But still, they were building better lives, and we were there to celebrate them.

Armchair travel is comfortable, yes, but ah, I miss the real thing!

Stop Time

Stop Time

Comments 0 Comment

The rain fell and froze last night, and now the bamboo is bowing under the weight of it. Poor bamboo! It’s a nuisance in so many ways, but it forms a lovely screen for the deck, so I hope the day warms fast enough to free the gangly plant before it snaps.

Ice storms lack the beauty of snowfalls. They hold within themselves the hard edges of winter and none of its softness. 

Still, there is beauty in the glinting and there is wonder in the way droplets are trapped in poses they had hours ago. Ice stops time in its tracks. 

Brush Strokes

Brush Strokes

Comments 0 Comment

A bit of painting over the weekend has me thinking about brush strokes, about the rhythm and the touch of them, the way you angle the brush to feather the strokes. 

I paint as little as possible, so the arm is rusty, but, like riding a bicycle, it comes back quickly. 

In painting, as in life, you must be both tough and gentle. You must know how much pressure to apply and when. Push too hard and the paint splatters, too lightly and there’s no coverage.

Painting is also comparable to life in this fact — that by the time you get the hang of it, it’s time to stop. 

Benediction

Benediction

Comments 0 Comment

Who can say why it happens? The wind howls but seems dignified in its cry. A bank of clouds in the west pushes morning light into unexpected corners of the sky. Dawn purples the east and the rest of the firmament follows suit. It is strange but wonderful.

There is more, of course: the content of my dreams, already faded. The tang of the air. The promise of sweet, milky tea. Knowing that if I look out the back window at 10 I may see a fat red fox trotting across the yard. 

Whatever the elements I enjoy the result: the morning as benediction. 

Flags Flying

Flags Flying

Comments 0 Comment

The inaugural festivities had already begun on Wednesday when I realized I had not hung our little flag. I stopped what I was doing (exercising on the elliptical), grabbed the flag and ran outside to the mailbox with it, where it proudly “flew” for the rest of the day.

It was not alone. Down on the National Mall, a “field of flags,” almost 200,000 of them, stood in for the people who would usually be there, waving their own flags. 

Wednesday was windy, a good day for flying flags. Their rippling made them look alive, the embodiment of all the hope and promise of a new era. 

(The flags seen from space, courtesy Planet Labs Inc.)

Amplified

Amplified

Comments 0 Comment

It’s been a happy coincidence that along with all the inaugural activities and excitement this week I’ve also been listening to the soundtrack of “Hamilton.” Since that Broadway musical has long since moved from smash-hit to iconic status, I feel like one of the last people to the parade … but hey, at least I made it!

To walk, dance and bounce to songs like “Satisfied,” “My Shot” and “You’ll Be Back” is to be reminded of all that this great country has to offer — the creativity, the humor, the jumble of life all packed into two-and-a-half-plus hours. 

But it was the four years ahead that was mostly on my (and most everyone else’s) mind yesterday. There was the call for unity and sacrifice that I hoped Biden would make. There were stirring marches and anthems and invocations. There was President Biden saying, “We have never ever ever ever failed when we have acted together,” to which late-night host Stephen Colbert later joked, “Someone clearly never saw the “Cats” movie.

But, kidding aside (and it feels luxurious to be silly), yesterday’s big happening was a four-Kleenex event for me, unexpectedly moving — and listening to “Hamilton” just amplified it. 

A New Beginning

A New Beginning

Comments 0 Comment

It’s cold in Washington, D.C., today, the kind of cold that befits an inauguration. The chill seriousness of a new beginning. I woke up early, feeling a thrill of excitement. It’s a big day for this tired, battered country. 

Yes, we are divided, more than ever in my lifetime. We are hurting and angry, feeling like the bad news will never end. We are justifiably nervous about laying all this on the shoulders of a 78-year-old man. 

But it’s not just his shoulders that will bear the burden. I hope he will call on all of us to share it with him. 

One speech will not heal the nation — nor will one administration. It took us years to get to this point, and it will take us years to move past it. But at least, today, we can begin.

The Newcomer

The Newcomer

Comments 0 Comment

A walk in Reston yesterday, parking in my new spot, taking the trail that starts at the recycling bins (lovely!) but picks up in attractiveness from there. It’s a great find, this trail, because it begins so close to my house and connects with long favored paved paths. 

I’m still learning about this trail in winter, marveling at just how close the houses are, discovering one of those little free libraries along the way and finding a route with a slight rise in the middle (perfect for upping my heart rate).  

There’s a bounty to seasonal openness — to see far ahead, to spot the flash of a robin in the holly, to feel for a moment that expansiveness winter offers. 

It’s plain this will become a favorite, part of the deck I choose from when deciding which strip of asphalt to amble. I’m always glad to welcome another.

Taking Care of Business

Taking Care of Business

Comments 0 Comment

Today is a work holiday, which means that it’s a Day to Get Things Done. What kind of things? Applying generous electronic gift cards to electronic accounts, for instance. 

I’m famous (or infamous) for letting gift cards go unspent. I imagine many of us are; retailers count on it. But this way, that will be harder to do (if all these pronouns make sense). 

Of course, electronic to-dos aren’t the only ones I have today. There are other, more tangible tasks: cleaning and cooking and decluttering … the endless list. Guess I’d better get to them!

(Detail of a surface that needs dusting …)