Open Door

Open Door

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Other topics were rattling around in my head this morning. But then I turned to look behind me, through the tidier than usual expanse of the living room, and saw this.

The front door open with just the storm door closed. Light pouring into the house from the east. Morning light that blots out the landscape, the bleeding heart, the azalea, the forget-me-nots, the lone tulip. (What happened to the others? I suspect deer!)

With the door open, the hall elongates and the floor shines. The world lies waiting, resplendent. All the promise of a May morning.

The outside comes in, not in its unique particulate form (not the way I see it now, for instance), but in a blur of possibilities, a smudging of light.

Derby Day

Derby Day

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I’ve spent more time in Kentucky this year than any time since I lived there decades ago. So it’s ironic that I’ve been less on top of Derby hopefuls than usual.

But maybe not. The Derby is Kentucky as metaphor. I’ve had Kentucky as anything but. The state has been so real for me that I don’t have to pine away for it.

Still, when the thoroughbreds strut in the post parade and “My Old Kentucky Home” begins to play, I’ll have white fences on my mind — and tissues at the ready.

May Day?

May Day?

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Here we are at May Day — sodden, squishy, water-logged. The petals of our dogwood, our Kwanzan cherries, scattered and beaten to the ground. Our airy forget-me-nots hardly the azure clouds they were three days ago. The azaleas hesitant, unwilling to bloom.

After this winter, I’d hoped for a knock-’em-dead spring. Something to warm and delight us. But nature doesn’t operate like that, I tell myself. Rain pelts and puddles — or fails to fall at all. Winds  funnel and destroy. Sometimes, snow even falls in spring.

The balance we seek, the recompense, is not in the natural world. If it is to be, we must supply it.

Coverage

Coverage

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It seems as if we’ve gotten all our April showers in the last two days, last night in particular. Walking to and from Metro in these downpours has made me ponder the efficiency — or inefficiency — of my umbrella.

The way I look at it you have a choice. You can either have a small umbrella with you at all times, a folding insurance policy, or take along a large one when the weather calls for it.

I’ve opted for the former. It’s easier to maneuver, fits in a pocket or bag and is light to carry.

But what it boasts in portability it lacks in coverage. It’s the diameter, I guess. There simply isn’t enough nylon to keep all the drops at bay.

I think there’s a life lesson here; I’m just a little too soggy now to figure it out.

Dogs Wearing Clothes

Dogs Wearing Clothes

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Our little ragamuffin pooch Copper was glad to see me when I walked in the door Sunday night. I gave him a hug and a pat, and yesterday, when we had more time together, I told him what I really thought about the dogs of New York.

They’re cute, I said, and you would probably like to sniff them out. But then again, you might not take them seriously because … they wear clothes. I mean, not just the random pampered poodle, but the perky bichon and the elegant whippet.  I would say about a third of the canines I spotted in the Big Apple were wearing something other than their leashes.

Dachshunds were the best dressed. They wore knitted shirts and tuxedo vests. And one dog (not a dachshund) in Washington Square Park was decked out in a plaid shirt and tennis shoes. This dog also walked on his hind legs.

I’ve heard there’s a new movement afoot to accord animals the rights of people. If not the rights, then at least the wardrobes. At least in Manhattan. 

Stopped in Their Tracks

Stopped in Their Tracks

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On the High Line yesterday nature-starved New Yorkers clustered around a red bud tree as if it were a work of high art. It halted them mid-promenade — the beauty of the nubby blossoms, the radiant color against the neutral palette of lower Manhattan.

I compare this tree with all the wild red buds I saw driving through the hills of West Virginia ten days earlier. Brilliant volunteers alone and unnoticed, living out their bloom on lonely hillsides.

Not this tree. It’s well loved, earnestly photographed. And it’s no volunteer. Even its position — pushing up through the rails of an abandoned railway— is no accident.

New Yorkers stride nonchalantly past soaring skyscrapers — but a single tree stops them in their tracks. It’s a reversal worth noting.

West Side Story

West Side Story

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I used to live in the West Village. Now I’m a visitor here. It’s taken a while to adjust to this fact. “A while” is an understatement. We’re talking more than two decades now!

It must be the timelessness of the place, the winding streets that began, they say, with cow paths. The bohemian flavor that lingers amidst the wealth and Starbucks.

But it’s not just the timelessness that draws me back. It’s the new features, like Hudson River Park, a ribbon of asphalt and greenery that runs from 59th Street to the Battery. To stroll or bike here is to be of the city but not in it. It’s to be moving as the river flows, as the city itself moves, poetry in motion.

Every time I visit, I add another chapter to my own West Side Story.

Big Apple Bound

Big Apple Bound

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Back in the salad days of freelancing, I made routine trips to New York City to visit my editors. We would have expense-account lunches or just chat in their offices, and in between I would walk up and down the streets and avenues.

It was rejuvenation in more ways than one. I usually came back with a few assignments — and even more important, with a lot of creative energy.

I no longer make my living as a freelancer, though I still make my living from words, and today I’m attempting to rekindle a bit of that excitement. There will be a conference and editors — and more to the point, there are still those streets and avenues (to say nothing of Central Park).

So while I will listen and take notes and learn how others are weathering the changes in our profession, I will also pound the pavement. I’ll be a walker in the city instead of the suburbs.

That’s how it all began.

The Smell of Cut Grass

The Smell of Cut Grass

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If greening is here, then mowing can’t be far behind. And indeed it is not. Where I live, the mowing season has definitely begun.

Mowing is one of the yard chores I like best — in part because I can zone out while doing it. But also because of the wonderful aromas it stirs up.

I’ve been conducting my own little fragrance test lately, and in a highly unscientific fashion I concluded that the cut bluegrass I inhaled deeply while in Kentucky last week smells better than the cut grass I know at home.

As it turns out, the explanation for this must lie in my head — not my nose. A few minutes online convinced me that the lawns in Virginia are as likely to be composed of bluegrass as the lawns in Kentucky.

So it’s not the grass type that’s making the difference. There is something else here. A whiff of nostalgia, perhaps?