Today’s walk was an early evening affair for me. I came upon some sparrows, ensconced in what I’m sure they believed to be a private communications chamber. But they were spilling all their secrets to me.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FeXkK8HXHYM
Would they have been so chatty had they known a human was listening in?
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Though I haven’t posted about it as much as I intended, I’m still on a quest for new experiences. They can be big or small. The little ones quite often can be pretty darned fulfilling . It’s not necessary to travel great distances or spend a lot of money to discover more of the world. It’s all a matter of attention and attitude.
So today’s new to me experience was eating cranberry-apple jam from the farmers’ market. So tasty! And yes, I am acclimating to farmers’ market shopping. I still stay only a few minutes, making one or two purchases. But it’s opening up my life some more.
Despite all the troubles, there’s still a whole world of delights all around us, waiting to be noticed. It’s important not to lose sight of that.
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For the first time in 22 years, my household is catless. For a period of years, we had three cats. But one by one, they have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Puffies (or Puffaroo or Puffington or Puff Daddy or Puffing Thing, depending on the day) was our last feline standing.
He showed up on our porch nearly 12 years ago and communicated quite clearly, “I live here now.” The vet at that time estimated him to be 3 or 4 years old. So he was getting on in years lately. He and my husband had developed an old guy ritual of going out together in the mornings to watch the sunrise before coming back in for breakfast. I swear, they even started looking like each other.
Last week, out of the blue, our beloved kitty had a seizure. Then he stopped eating. After a trip to the vet ER, we learned he had a mass on his pancreas that was causing his blood glucose to bottom out. But we were able to take him home with some medicines that helped him perk up and enjoy some food for a couple of days before the pills stopped working.
His brain cells were scarce, but he was an exceptionally affectionate knucklehead and craved human companionship at all times. Over the weekend, we were able to make sure he spent very little time alone. The weather blessed us, and he got to spend a lot of time out in the back yard, lying in the grass, feeling the sunbeams and smelling the smells, while we hung out in camp chairs. When he was inside, I refrained from upsetting behaviors such as running the vacuum.
Monday, we had a vet come to the house and help Puffies the last bit of the way across the veil, before the pain became unbearable for him. It was about as good an ending as you could hope for, even if we would never be ready for it.
Now that all of our cats are gone, I find myself wondering what cat heaven might be like. There are no vacuum cleaners, for sure! Also no garbage disposals. I believe any door can be opened with a wishful thought, rather than a need for height and opposable thumbs. The food is always smell-rich, and humans never take away the bowl, saying you’ve had enough. Of course, it’s the correct food–human servants will never make a wrong selection. There are heating pads aplenty, all set at the perfect temperature for napping in the ever-present sunbeams. Oh, and boxes. So many boxes! This is what I like to imagine as I try to heal the cat-sized hole in my heart.
We are not ready to think about another pet. At all. So please don’t tell us about your cousin’s step-sister’s cat’s new litter of kittens. Though I am happy we took in every kitty we ever had, we just can’t go there again yet, or maybe ever. Time will tell.
Today’s walk about the neighborhood started out in fog–brain fog. It was pretty darned cold, but I couldn’t remember where I had stowed those nice new electric gloves. I vaguely recalled putting them “some place obvious” where “I’ll be sure to look.” At least I got a lot of indoor steps in my search, as well as finding a warm headband that’s been lost for a while.
I finally left wearing older, less thermal gloves. My hands did mostly okay. Once I had my focus on other things, of course, the memory of the “obvious location” snuck up on me and announced itself. I verified when I got home the new hand warmers were in fact in the carrying bag that came with them, hanging in my closet. I had even seen the bag, but we have dozens of reusable totes around. And I’ve had a lot on my mind, okay? Stop judging! LOL.
The only pics I got this afternoon were crap because it was pretty chilly to have my bare hands exposed. Here are a couple anyway, for documentation purposes.
We’ve had three significant snows since New Year’s Day, and there are still remnants here and there. From what I’m hearing, this might be my last walkabout for a few days. More you know what is on the way, accompanied by subzero temperatures. I don’t remember a winter this unrelenting in well over a decade.
But hey, I’m proud of myself for getting outdoors today anyway. And I’m grateful for the time and resources that have allowed me to stock up on provisions for weathering a week in New Siberia. For anyone else in the path of the coming system, take care, and know I’m wishing you well.
Maybe my next “On Today’s Walk” post will simply be images from different rooms in my house.
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I know we’re all fighting a lot of fires right now, some not even metaphorical. But we also need some times of rest and sanctuary from the…waves hand vaguely.
I found it today at the Bonnie View Nature Sanctuary. Wouldn’t you like to experience a respite vicariously through my photos?
I saw a cool playground. Got to admit, I was tempted to do some climbing on these structures.
I saw several birds but got no photos of any of them. However, the Merlin app took a stab at identifying them by sound.
A crane your neck to see the top tall tree:
Some really beautiful prairie grass, even if it is dormant season. The mix of hues and shapes is breathtaking if you take the time to really look. One view from across the way and one view from what it might look like for a tiny animal taking refuge in the brush. (I stuck my camera right in.)
And despite the fact that our last snow fell on *January 10*, a little bit of it remains here and there.
If all of the…waves hand vaguely…has got you stressed and anxious, try to go out into nature and move around for a while if possible. When you come back, I almost guarantee you’ll be better able to deal with it.
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For decades, I’ve made it a point to read authors from a variety of backgrounds. As satisfying as it is to come upon a piece of writing that reflects my lived reality, my life is richer for also reading works by writers who have had different experiences. It helps me think more deeply, builds my capacity for empathy and gives me a more well-rounded worldview.
For Black History Month, I’m sharing a handful of memorable books I’ve read by Black authors.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Published in 1937, this book by one of the prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance is considered a classic for good reasons. Hurston’s Janie is one of the most fully realized characters I’ve seen in a book this length. Through her upbringing with her grandmother and multiple marriages, we see Janie struggling to free her real self from the confines of those who define the parameters of her life.
Hurston evokes so much through simple, every day scenes – a game of checkers, the buying of groceries. All of her characters are real and complex. No stock cut-outs here.
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
Nonfiction, first published in 2010. The author Wes Moore – Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, TV host, eventual governor of Maryland, all-around accomplished guy. The other Wes Moore – serving a life sentence for the killing of a security guard during a jewelry store robbery.
Both are near the same age, and they lived within blocks of each other as children in Baltimore. Both grew up without fathers (the author’s father died from an illness at a young age, while the other’s father was simply absent). Both African American. Both had brushes with the law as kids.
But at some point, their paths diverged, and the author explores what factors might have made a difference. I appreciate his humility, as he expresses that their roles could easily have been reversed.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Published in 1987. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The horrors of slavery are examined through the experiences of a Black mother in post-Civil War America. The baby girl who died many years before, buried in a grave marked with a stone bearing only the word “beloved” returns as a young adult ghost (or something) to Sethe’s life.
The opening lines let you know right off that this isn’t going to be a gentle book, but a powerful one:
“124 WAS SPITEFUL. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children.”
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
This story drew me in. The main character, Ray Carney, is complex and relatable. I held my breath many times as he found himself more and more out of his depth, drawn into a web of crime he never intended. He has a weakness for trying to make his cousin (more like a brother) happy no matter what bad decisions the guy is making. Then there’s the constant struggle to keep his home life with the wife and kids he adores separate from the other part of his existence. Excellent world building immerses the reader right into 1950s-1960s Harlem.
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
There’s a lot of depth in this poetry collection. I appreciate the way Gorman experiments with form. One poem I re-read a couple of times is titled “Pan.” …”Pandemic, meaning all people. / Pandemonium, meaning / all demon. / Pandora , / meaning all-gifted…”
And I’ll wrap it up with one of my all-time favorite books of poetry.
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith
This is another Pulitzer Prize winner. It combines many elements that have been integral to my life: poetry, science fiction and David Bowie. A couple of these poems punched me in the gut, while others had me simply nodding my head in recognition. Smith’s father was a scientist who worked on the Hubble Telescope, which helps explain where some of this came from. Get ready for some BIG questions when you open these pages.
Lines from her poem The Weather in Space:
“…When the storm
Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing
After all we’re certain to lose, so alive—
Faces radiant with panic…”
Please feel free to add your own recommended titles in the comments. Read on!
Can a bag of onions make a meaningful difference in the world? I sure hope so!
I know many of us are searching for ways to make a positive impact right now in a time when a lot of things are going very wrong. While we might not experience many opportunities to take big actions, every one of us can do one thing. And those individual contributions add up.
I’ve come to believe community building needs to be an essential focus right now. One specific part of that is supporting local businesses and local agriculture. It’s becoming more vital every day to reinforce strong local food systems.
For a while, I had a subscription to an every-other-week produce box through a local store’s community supported agriculture program. But that was not working out for me logistically, so I cancelled a while back. My little city has a nice, largish, year-round farmer’s market, as well as some smaller seasonal ones. I kept telling myself I should hit them up for some of my food. But even thinking about it made my anxiety spike.
The big market, at least, is a perfect storm of social anxiety and sensory issues for me. I would have to deal with a lot of noise, bustle and crowds while trying to make decisions in a setting where I wasn’t sure of the rules or expectations. That’s every one of my buttons pushed, right there in one go.
But then I made a plan. A bite-sized plan. I could get myself used to farmers’ market shopping and learn the ropes by starting small. All I had to do was go in and buy one item, then leave. Still an improvement over no items from local farmers.
And I did it Saturday morning! I was a little overwhelmed, but I wore my Loop earplugs to minimize noise, looked around for one clearly marked item that I needed, found the onions, and paid. Then I went on to the usual grocery store for the rest of my shopping trip. It’s a start. I can keep taking more steps.
What if we all looked for one step each day or each week? How much difference could we make? Let’s try it and see! Let’s go!
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“What most did not understand then was that I was not only married to the man I loved, but I was also married to the movement that I loved.” – Coretta Scott King
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I’d like to take a couple of minutes to think about the person who, perhaps more than any other, made sure the message and the work of social justice continued after his death. Coretta Scott King was married to Martin Luther King, Jr. for 15 years, a full partner in leading the movement for peace and equal rights.
For another 38 years after his death, she continued leading the charge not only in the U.S., but around the world. This is taken from The King Center website. That would be The King Center that Coretta Scott King founded.
“One of the most influential African-American leaders of her time, Mrs. King received honorary doctorates from over 60 colleges and universities; authored two books, edited a compilation of selected quotes by Dr. King, maintained a nationally-syndicated newspaper column, and served on and helped found dozens of organizations, including the Black Leadership Forum, the National Black Coalition for Voter Participation, and the Black Leadership Roundtable.
Mrs. King died on January 30, 2006. She was the first woman and the first African American to lay in honor in the rotunda of the Georgia capitol. Also, a few days after her death, thousands of people stood in line in the rain to pay their respects at a viewing in the heritage sanctuary of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.“
The Kings taught us a lot about the importance of unity, community, and standing together with the oppressed. I believe those principles are more important today than ever.
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For the past couple of weeks, I have been driving my car to get from point A to point B on most trips. I was becoming desperate for a walk in the fresh air. So despite the arctic temperatures
along with lingering patches of snow and ice from our recent winter storms, I took myself out for a short ramble around my immediate neighborhood this afternoon.
It was too cold to take many photos, but I did click one in an attempt to capture the feel of things.
Yep, that’s Winter with a capital “W.” But I know how to layer up. And now, I have something that’s a game changer for wintertime strolls.
My husband found a nice post-holiday sale on electric gloves. He ordered a pair for each of us.
No matter how insulated I was able to keep everything else, I always had cold fingers outside when the temp dipped below about 25 degrees Fahrenheit. But no more! These battery-powered beauties kept my digits toasty.
Now I only need to find some kind of electric nose tip warmer and I’ll be completely set!
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I’ve had two different inclement weathers days off work this past week, which made me nostalgic for the snow days of yore when my kids were young. Sure, there was some inconvenience involved, but also so much magic and fun. I loved sledding, snowball fights and sculpting creatures to decorate our yard.
I admit, I also realize I took for granted the level of energy I had back then. The work of getting through winter takes more out of me now. But I still want to enjoy it. I wonder how weirdly people would take it if I showed up alone at one of the popular sledding hills in town all on my own, just this 60-year-old woman.
I’m still healthy and strong enough to wield a shovel. But the big yard where the kids could play when we bought our house came with a long stretch of sidewalk that takes a while to dig out. We have a shared driveway with an apartment building, and the owners hire someone to remove snow. However, for the Sunday/Monday weather event, he had equipment problems, which meant a huge mess at the end of the drive where the city snowplows repeatedly left a lumpy, frozen wall, and our neighbor with a large pickup kept driving through it.
I knew if we were to get our own cars out I had to move mountains before the overnight Monday freeze. My husband was wrapped up in telework deadlines while my son was under the weather. And I don’t believe any of the next-door tenants own shovels. So this heavy labor fell to me. I took a break for a photo about halfway through the job. After 90 minutes, I finally had it passable for cars.
After that, my arms were jelly, and I only wanted to sit quietly with a cup of tea.
Along about Thursday night, here came a second snowstorm, one that kept accumulating all Friday morning. For that one, the apartment owners found someone who had a heavy-duty truck with a plow on front. He got the apartment lot and driveway passable pretty quickly. But in the process, he walled in all egress points from our house. After the snow stopped, I went out our side door believing I only had to clear our porch steps and front walkway, but encountered this:
Fortunately, it was fresh with no melt and refreeze, so not tooooo difficult to work through. And then there was the wall blocking the front walkway from our porch to the drive and the wall built up behind our cars at the edge or our carport.
This all turned into another hour and a half session. However, the temperature was perfect for being outdoors in snow – right around 30 degrees with no wind. I was pretty tuckered again, but not so much I didn’t consider at least making a small snowperson.
However, I decided our block was represented well enough by the neighbors’ large one.
I was able to take a few minutes to enjoy the sights, so joy found its way through the drudgery. I do love the beauty of winter.
Someone else was traipsing through the snow.
But it wasn’t this guy, who doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.
He did keep me company while I rested up with a cup of tea. So he earned his keep in that way.
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Nomadic Noesis 