Unsettling

Unsettling

Comments 0 Comment

I write this only minutes after learning that the president has tested positive for coronavirus, as a year we thought could not be more unsettling has suddenly become more so. 

I look back to my earliest posts on the new order and think about how much has changed since then: our notions of disease and contagion, the reality of remote work, the way this virus has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives from how we shop to how often we see our dearest family and friends.

And now this. 

Is there anyone who has not suffered from the disease and the social and economic havoc it has caused? Some, of course, so much more than others. A prayer and a hope today for our country, that it emerge from this stronger, healthier and more civil. 

New Month

New Month

Comments 0 Comment

The witch hazel tree, first to bloom, is also the first to turn. But this year, other trees are following suit. Cold evenings have also tinged the maples and oaks. 

In the garden, the weeds I haven’t pulled are thinning and retreating on their own. Summer is giving up the ghost.

It’s a new month, an autumnal month. And months matter more in this time of few markers. 

Sleepless in America

Sleepless in America

Comments 0 Comment

It was raining last night, hard at times. It pounded the roof and formed a curtain of sound between the house and the world. It seemed to be washing away all that had come before, including the presidential debate we had just watched.

I thought it would be difficult to sleep, but exhaustion and the sound of rain on the roof carried me away for five hours, when I awoke chest pounding, thoughts ricocheting. No need to go into those; let’s just say they weren’t pretty. 

But there was one consolation: Last night, I imagine, I was not alone. I can only assume there were legions of us tossing and turning. Last night, I suspect, it was the exception rather than the rule to be sleepless in America. 

The Raven’s Debut

The Raven’s Debut

Comments 0 Comment

Last night I caught most of “You Can’t Take it With You,” Frank Capra’s 1938 film staring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Basil Rathbone and … Jimmy the raven. It was first of many appearances for Jimmy in Capra films, most notably (at least for me) in It’s a Wonderful Life. 

I’m not a Capra expert, but I certainly picked up on themes I’ve known from his other films — the little people against the big people, the importance of friendship, the corrupting influence of money, and the dearness of animals. 

In this film Jimmy the raven helps make fireworks (don’t ask) and a small kitten sits charmingly atop a sheaf of papers that one of the characters is typing up for a book. She decided to become a writer when a typewriter was accidentally delivered to their house. Perhaps as good a reason as any to take up the profession.

Whether it was the writing, the raven or the sheer zaniness of the plot, the film left me light-hearted. Not a bad way to end the day.  

A Post at Midday

A Post at Midday

Comments 0 Comment

While I would like to bookend last evening’s “A Post at Sundown” with “A Post at Sunrise,” alas it is far too late for that. Perhaps “A Post at Midday.” 

Which gets to one of my favorite topics, which is time: the numerous time zones in which we live — not just around the world but within individual lives. To the young, days and weeks pass oh so slowly. To those of us who have a few more years under our belts, they fly. 

And nowhere does this reveal itself more clearly than with the arrival of a new generation. To a grandparent, the changes a baby undergoes during those first precious weeks and months, from a completely helpless newborn with wise eyes that seem to carry within them the wisdom of the ages to a smiley six-week-old are doubly amazing. Miraculous in and of themselves — and more so for us, because the transformation occurs at warp speed. 

With change happening this quickly, no wonder A Post at Sunrise becomes … A Post at Midday.

 

A Post at Sundown

A Post at Sundown

Comments 0 Comment

It’s past six on a Sunday evening, late enough that if I hadn’t written a blog post I would just skip it for the day. But not this Sunday — or any of the 51 others we’ve had this year.

That’s because about this time in 2019, I realized that if I wrote a post every day, I might hit the 3,000-mark at about the same time as this blog’s 10-year anniversary in February. I figured that if I could write five or six posts a week I could probably write seven. And so I did.

I didn’t quite make 3,000 posts by the 10-year mark, though I was close. But as it turns out, I’ve kept up the daily blog-writing routine for more than 365 days now. Come October 1,  I’ll start giving myself an occasional pass on a Saturday or Sunday.

It’s all rather silly, I know — a resolution I didn’t have to make for a blog I don’t have to write. But that’s the fun of it.

Metronomic

Metronomic

Comments 0 Comment

Today I was idling at an intersection, turn signal on, when I noticed how the tick-tick of the signal was in perfect sync with the meter of the Bach on the radio. I enjoyed the music even more with the pulse of 4/4 time reinforced in the car.  

My days of musical study are long since over, but I still find myself tapping out beats. If it’s not convenient to nod my head or tap my fingers, I move my toes quietly inside my shoes, as we were taught to do long ago in orchestra class. 

What strikes me then, and still seems true now, is how we live in rhythms of our own making and how music merely makes us aware of that lovely fact. It’s the rhythm of life — and it’s ours for the tapping. 

The Late Show

The Late Show

Comments 0 Comment

Like many people these days, I’m not skimping on the indoor entertainment budget. I’ve splurged recently and signed up for two online streaming services. Add to that the DVD rentals to which I still subscribe, plus cable television, which has its own delights, chiefly the movie channels.

I’ve been watching one of those the last couple of evenings. Strangely enough, though I could choose from a wide variety of streaming programs, it’s the more limited menu of old black-and-white films that’s holding my attention most these days. 

This probably says something about the limits of choice, but what it’s doing most is reminding me fondly of those old-fashioned late shows. Back when television had a sign-off time and binge-watching wasn’t yet possible, I would stumble upon “The Blackboard Jungle” or “The Philadelphia Story” when I was babysitting or after returning from my 3-11 p.m. shift at Jerry’s Restaurant. 

I was the only one awake in the house. It was just me and the movie — be it comedy or drama or romance. It was then, I think, that I learned to love film. And watching these old movies now, sometimes once again the only one awake in the house, reminds me of those early discoveries. How good they were then; how good they are still.

(Photo of “The Philadelphia Story” courtesy IMBD)

Second Bloom

Second Bloom

Comments 0 Comment

The climbing roses have thrived this year, and the topmost ones are flowering again. I just snapped this shot today, attempting to capture the creamy springlike hue of the rose along with the first gold tinge of the witch hazel. 

Not for nothing are these called climbing roses. I leaned out a second-floor window to take this photograph. While I enjoy the view from on high, I miss the full effect when I’m more earth-bound. 

Every year at blooming time — the main flowering season in late May and the lesser one in September — I ponder the lesson in this. A reminder to train my eyes upward? To have perspective?

Second bloom means second chances, a bonus, what ought not to arrive but somehow, miraculously, does. In a time of year more associated with fading and dying, these flowers are just coming to life. Maybe that’s why there are second blooms — for the romantics among us who like to pretend there are messages in nature. 

Baby Step

Baby Step

Comments 0 Comment

Tonight I take a baby step toward my next life: a webinar for a course of graduate study I have in mind. I have no idea if this will work out, if it will be what I think it can be, or even if I want to apply. But I won’t begin unless I know more, so hearing them out seems a good way to begin.

As I watch our grandson become more alert, as I marvel at his first smiles, I realize, all over again, how much change is a part of life. Babies change weekly — no, daily! — and older children almost as quickly. But as we get older change becomes the enemy. The body fights it and the mind does, too.

So the question becomes, how to build change and challenge into life? Work provides this for me, but it won’t always. Study seems like a perfect substitute: pushing the mind to new frontiers. Or at least that’s the plan. As with so much these days, all I can say is … we’ll see …