Thursday, March 29, 2012

Oboe looking into the sun

















To see takes time.
(Georgia O'Keeffe)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

"...where we together weathered many a storm..."














(photo from early March from California's Lost Coast webcam)

... nowhere you can be that you weren't meant to be ...
(John Lennon, from "All You Need Is Love")

"But I also miss the mountains and rivers of my childhood. I miss my old friends. So I return now and then, when I can not still the longing in my heart.

The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other."
(Allen Say, from Grandfather's Journey, p. 31)

Listen

















(view in early March from my porch in Northwest Washington)

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

"... So happy just to be alive ..." / March 21, 2012






















Listen

"... Can’t you feel that sun a-shinin’?
Groundhog runnin’ by the country stream
This must be the day that all of my dreams come true
So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you..."

(lyrics from by Bob Dylan from "New Morning" -- 1970)

Monday, March 19, 2012

Snowy foothills to the east / Language of the heart










"If I create from the heart, almost everything works; if from the head, nearly nothing."

-- Marc Chagall

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Generous listening

Dad and me in 1949:






















My father died in the morning on St. Patrick's Day in 2003 at age 89. Hard to believe that 9 years have passed. Today I was looking at the autobiography that he completed in 2001 and wrote for his only grandchild, my nephew Lee. I am grateful that my first and last communications with my father were positive. All that remains of my father is love.















A friend forwarded this via email:


































(photo by am, taken late in the day yesterday, looking to the southeast from my porch)

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Clouds to the east after rain mixed with snow














(Click on image for fuller experience)

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
- Philip K. Dick

Thanks to Whiskey River for this quote for my post today.

Thanks to Wikipedia for this:

"There are no heroes in Dick's books," Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, "but there are heroics. One is reminded of Dickens: what counts is the honesty, constancy, kindness and patience of ordinary people."

The every-other-day-on-the-internet experiment is working out well. The effect so far is that I am spending half as much time on the internet and savoring the time off as well as the time on.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Mid-March morning / Snow and a more than half moon / Fennerio













For fuller experience, click to enlarge photo.

Listen

Addendum:

We, the Web Kids, found at wood s lot on February 28, 2012.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

A most puzzling spectacle















Beginning the day at 5 a.m.:






















kick (kik), ... 28. Slang. a. a thrill; pleasurable excitement.
(from The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Addition, 1981)

Lyrics from Cole Porter, 1934:



If you ever plan to motor west,
Travel my way, take the highway that is best.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

It winds from chicago to la,
More than two thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

Now you go through saint looey
Joplin, missouri,
And oklahoma city is mighty pretty.
You see amarillo,
Gallup, new mexico,
Flagstaff, arizona.
Don't forget winona,
Kingman, barstow, san bernandino.
(from "(Get your Kicks on) Route 66", Bobby Troupe, 1946)



Kix, Food for Action, 1950s (starts at 3:36:)



"For free?"



"... You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you ..."
(from "Like a Rolling Stone," Bob Dylan, 1965)



Well, there's nothin' that you ain't tried
To fill the emptiness inside
But when you come back down, girl
Still ain't feelin' right

Chorus: (And don't it seem like)
Kicks just keep gettin' harder to find
And all your kicks ain't bringin' you peace of mind
(from "Kicks," written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)

A most puzzling spectacle:



("Bull Playing Soccer," pen and ink by am, 1974)

Monday, March 5, 2012

A curious balancing time

















Listen.

Thanks to http://lassieandtimmy.blogspot.com.

Something new. Only opening my laptop every other day. Going to see what happens. Curious.

9BVNJHTXVA5W

Saturday, March 3, 2012

As I walk in good company

















"A sense of Mystery can take us beyond disappointment and judgment to a place of expectancy. It opens in us an attitude of listening and respect. If everyone has in them the dimension of the unknown, possibility is present at all times. . . Knowing this enables us to listen to life from the place in us that is Mystery also. Mystery requires that we relinquish an endless search for answers and become willing to not understand. . . Perhaps real wisdom lies in not seeking answers at all. Any answer we find will not be true for long. An answer is a place where we can fall asleep as life moves past us to its next question. After all these years, I have begun to wonder if the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company."

~ from MY GRANDFATHER'S BLESSINGS, by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

That's the kind of medical doctor I will listen to.

("Beloved," gouache and watercolor by am from the late 1980s or early 1990s, my late 30s or early 40s. The words in the painting are a poem I wrote when I was 17 years old, in December of 1966)

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Walking Through the Fertile Land of Memory and Forgiveness

















"There are some good things to be said about walking. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated and anyone can transport himself anywhere, instantly. Big deal, Buckminster. To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me."
- Edward Abbey

Thanks to Whiskey River

Walking toward Bellingham Bay in Marine Park in Bellingham, Washington:






















("Walking Through the Fertile Land of Memory and Forgiveness," gouache and watercolor, by am, from the 1990s)