Moonlight Ski, Get the Daphne out of Me

   Christmas Eve morning: Spot first heron at 8:26 a.m. It alights in the shallow water, near two mallards and the bare bramble. It’s a crane: all stilted legs and angularity. It bows its neck like a dressage horse, beak perpendicular to the water, to fish. Another heron unfolds its wings and flies away in silence, leaving the shoreline. If you were to think of that portion of the creek as a bit of pasta, the herons were at the ends of a macaroni elbow.

  On the final portion of my walk, I see Victor for the first time in a while. Tuesday was difficult walking, he says. Tuesday, he only went so far and turned back. Now that a tractor has laid down some tracks that compress the snow and smooth the way, the going is easier.

    He has shoveled at home the snow that fell there. When he was a boy in Europe, he says, he liked to ski at night in the moonlight.

  “It’s a miracle I’m still alive,” says Victor. “I would ski at night by myself and it was just mountains and snow and if you broke a leg or went off the mountain there was no one there to pick you up or help.”

   When he came here, his father said he would need to go to Utah or Colorado or New England to find places to ski.

   “Where am I going to get the money to do that?” Victor says. “I took my ice skates to the rink in the city and there were 200 people there skating in tiny circles. I needed room to skate in, not to follow all these people in a small space!”

   We trade Christmas greetings and a big warm bear hug. It is better to hug a man than a tree most of the time, I find. It gets the Daphne out of me.

   Speaking of out: Santa is here, in the parking lot. He is a thin St. Nick, dressed in red, talking with a man in black. The patron Santa of runners and joggers?

   At home, my uncle calls to say thank you for the soup, some crab and roasted corn chowder from the Butler’s Pantry.

   “It’s a marvellous collection of flavors,” says Uncle Phil. “I just love it.”

American, Express

   One of the members of my cabinet is the Paper Czar, who rules paper and has been slacking on the job by leaving things unattended, defiled and unsorted. There is a method to this madness. It provides a precious opportunity to go on the paper trail in order to discern the sources, uses and disposition of these items.

   A brief survey of the territory: it looks like some of the papers have declared anarchy. Others sit in silent protest. Some may be ignored, only to be followed up with persistent and insistent reminders that change colors like the terrorist alert. Some have their holding patterns, their right places, their spots. I wouldn’t change them.

    Observe how well the Paper Czar has instituted the pile system!  Advice to  handle things only once has been disregarded. Very good. What does this say? Why be efficient? The mystery deepens. To what system does Paper Czar adhere? 

    A cursory inspection indicates the Paper Czar employs a variation of the determinants: useful, beautiful, interesting  and  in keeping anything that falls into this range  has too few clues as to what to do with it all. Too much of a good thing. Yet, Oscar Wilde has declared: nothing succeeds like excess! You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much paper. Paper is thin. Paper is rich. Newspaper owners are rich.  If  the Paper Czar could get a penny per piece of paper, there would be hundred of thousands of dollars flowing in. (If it’s valuable why don’t you keep it?) If the artist in residence can create a demand, Paper Czar has it made.

   This is a problem in search of a solution and the solution is always in the problem. Now for the work, dear cabinet-maker. Better disposition.

   The little heron that flies up, complaining of being flushed in the dark at 6:45 a.m. is the only heron spotted this morning. The temperature is about 17 degrees and the sun I see at 7:43 popping in over the hill and shining its gold on the creek, priceless.

Things in threes and 3’s in Things

 

  Harness the power. Palindromic 12/21 today! Use Feng shui. Make it divine. Group by threes. Love every minute.

   Have dreaded tasks? Break it up. Three simple steps.

   Errands to run? List top three. Get it done.

   Undecided on something? List three pros; list three cons. Add more notes. Weigh the sides. Get the picture.

   Choices to make? Narrow to three.  Mix them up. Pick the middle. Or the first. Or the third.

   Green light, yellow light, red light. Go to where? Why go there? Travel how fast? Why slow down? Where is danger? Why use caution? Why not stop? Stop on dime. Time doesn’t stop.

   If you add an H to trees, you get threes. Both are green. Both are wood. Muerto is dead. Eliminate dead wood. Travel Rio Grande. Flower is compass. Wellsville in center for health. Finger Lakes, finger tips and tips of leaves making z’s. Never bored. Always happy.

The Path Becomes the Figure

    Snow creates a figure of the path, a ribbon into the distance, up to the next curve. It’s cold.  The mallards and geese pedal and bob in the creek, providing the most movement. They seem to be making a good time of it. Dedicated runner #1 and I greet one other.

    When the phrase creative expression crosses my mind, near the metal pipe above the 10 marker, a heron flies away, low over the murky water, its body is that deep and dark slate and Prussian blue combination they show when it is cloudy.

    Today the path leads all the way to the metal bridge, where a red township truck is poised to dump salt at Palisades road. Two maroon vehicles sit in the parking lot. One is a heavy-duty pickup truck and the other looks like it has four-wheel drive. To whom do they belong?

   Wow, there’s a fisherman chest-high in the water, fishing through the snowfall. It’s 25 degrees.

   Return way: a kingfisher twitters in a tree. A real twitter. The heron that flew away flies away again. By the time I reach the red bridge, am feeling cold. The rest rooms are locked, no relief. One mile more to the car. Have to send myself on a…

    …fool’s errand: need to return furnace filter purchased at Target last night and purchase correct size. In a flash of home maintenance brilliance,  had written the dimensions on an exterior label on the furnace. Had copied this figure onto a piece of memo paper. Had remembered to take paper to store. Had located filters in stock. Made the unfortunate discovery the figure (21″)  was incorrect. They come in 20″ or 25″  lengths. I guessed  20 inch. Guess again. Twenty-five is the final answer. Same price. Even exchange. Edit note.

Just for Snow

   Friday’s puzzle was forgotten because it was all fret work. Snow is is  the forecast and had little to say.

Be Luck

   Time to put the finishing touches on the ark. Rain chattering on the roof early this morning. Chattering. On Commerce Drive, snow plows busy, moving slush. Today’s word is buckle. Buckle up, buckle down and be luck. Take teak, for example, a good wood. Do not buckle under pressure. Travel a biked rut, debut a kite, collect the following for a scavenger hunt: Someting tabu. A bra. An ear. A Rake. A drake. Some material that has been treated with dye and wax. A tuba. A tub and a bud. Or ear buds. An Auk. A bit. A bed and a baud. Time for breakfast. Even the cat chose to stay inside this morning. Red ticking.

A Face is a Landscape

-   The herons look cold, says a runner on the trail.

-   Where do you see one?

-   Up ahead on the rock.

  It is in the middle of the creek on a rock, another one was downstream near one of the picnic areas and was also on a rock in the middle of the creek, stock still.

  Often I wish I could distinguish among the herons and know who’s who.  Sometimes it appears to me, an untrained observer, that one is a female, prettier and lighter while another one seems to be the wise old man bird. When I regard the heron on the rock on the way back, it looks to me like it is the landscape that looks cold, as November takes hold, and the bird is the same in spring summer and autumn.

   Ruth runs by and the other day reported finishing a painting of Jerry Garcia in one night start to finish. Articulate about rock stars, bands and interesting information such as the story of Jerry’s missing finger.

   Then she says the most interesting thing of all: “People tell me to paint this person or that landscape. I think a face is a landscape.”

A Great Pumpkin

      

 Edgar Allen Poe and Raven

were taken with this pumpkin

 (see the Oct. 19 post),

 a round straw bale

 fancifully transformed

 into a pumpkin

 to let people know

 about Duncan’s Corn Maze along the Robesonia-Bernville Road.

 Ingenious, honest solution to the problem. Happy Hallowe’en!

Silhouette

    Fasten your seatbelts: Art group Thursday night.  The leader of our meeting, having abstained from work on the theme, Silhouette, instead provides a seasonal picture – a pastel drawing of a rainspotted maple leaf drafted in gentle fall colors. We all ooh and ahh.

    Next: a photo of the oddest and most intriguing kapok-like clouds and silhouetted trees. Somehow the bumps in the sky associate with the rain drops in the previous work. Where is Bette Davis? Can it be going to be a bumpy night?

    A handsome pair of linoleum prints are trotted out: a composition of fall leaves done in black and white and in color. We like these, too, and are interested in the process.

   Another member of the group produces a seasonal, i.e. Hallowe’en, card made with an iris folding technique and  a silhouette theme. Accompanying these, my own little nitwit puzzle, from a tract left by someone at the Y, a dictionary page, and the mental looping of lyrics from A Fine Romance, the fine song by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields which I like sung by Rosemary Clooney.

   One person provides the piece de resistance, a postage stamp quilt. A showpiece. It is derived from a photograph taken by someone she knows, a factory maintenance worker. The sunset sky is composed of  batik fabric: purple and orange and red and yellow, with an overstitched black tree silhouette. Although the finished product has an authentic Asian look and feel, it is not a tree in a Chinese or Japanese painting, it is a tree crown at the botanical gardens in Allentown.

   The one-inch squares make it measure about 23″ x 17″ plus double-mat and frame. She has sold it, too. We marvel at her gift for turning an idea or a picture into a fabric design and executing it, all in the past six weeks. She receives our highest honors. Here is an artist showing and sharing the power of making wise choices and in making something lovely, beautiful and desirable. It’s like a trip to bountiful that we all want a view to admire.

Real Simple

Real Simple by Allison Huyett

 

 

   Honey locust leaves all over the trail.  It’s real simple.

   A heron at the half-mile rapids. Rain again, prompting use of umbrella, a rare but necessary accessory for the fact. Just the facts, Ma’am. Ready for the sun to come out.

    This is my to-to list for the day because I really got to be about my business. Who else in the entire world makes a honey locust leaf to do list? No one. Who gets it done better than you? No one!

    Oh, you can get a honeydew melon. You can put “ honeydew” on the list. You can find and make a  Honey Do List. ”Honey, do this.” But this? Only I can do this, that and the other thing this way.

    Stick out your can, here comes the garbage man. Got that to do too! Git R Done.

  Gotta run!