Inside  

Out to get a breath of air

I heard buzzing within the siding.

Was it bees or wasps grinding to stay in

or to get out, and above, a tiny tap

of toes walking across the eaves, but then

a ping, like radar, or is it sonar that bats use?

Hidden from view in the wood and aluminum

a hive of bugs provides snacks for a pair of bats.

Little Brown Bats photo from Animal Diversity Web

Mud Dauber photo from Pest Control Canada website

Diana Nyad to try the Florida-Cuba swim again

Diana Nyad is waiting for the right weather in the Caribbean to begin her swim from Cuba to Florida, a feat she attempted over thirty years ago, but had to cut short because of weather problems.  Now she has assembled a team including kayakers with shark repellent and charted a plan to accomplish at 60 what she couldn't at 28.  I am hoping that she succeeds. 

August 8, 2011

Last night at 8:30 or so, Nyad jumped into the waters off of Havana, Cuba and began swimming to Key West.  According to the map posted by CNN this afternoon, she has swum more than 25% of the route.

What I don't understand is, and guess has to do with the sexist nature of athletics and media coverage of them, why this is not a bigger story.  To me, it wraps together a story of human endurance, athleticism, and female power.  People have asked why is she doing it.  I think the answer is simple.  Because she can.

Here is a poem I wrote when she first tried the swim, thirty three years ago.



The Legend of Diana Nyad


When I entered the sea at Florida,
my body covered with a layer of thick oil,
my limbs turned over the water like a motor.
But the waves sucked me in, spit me out,
jellyfish stung me until I puffed up,
and the shark cage rattled so I thought I'd go deaf.
I wanted to make it to Cuba,
but a voice, familiar and terse,
said Diana, Diana and fished me out.
Into the boat I flopped,
my eyes sunken into my head.
They slapped me back to life
and I began spouting like a fountain.
And I will go back until the strain has snapped
and the difficult becomes easy--
to let the part of me that isn't lost to shore
glides easily through the sea.

&&&&&&&&&***********&&&&&&&&&

It is now August 10.  Nyad made it halfway when she became ill and had to stop.
I still am deeply inspired by the effort.

"I am stunned, at age 61, at how fast it all flies by. My mom just died. We blink and another decade passes. I don't want to reach the end of my life and regret not having given my days everything in me to make them worthwhile. Now that also means relaxing with a friend, taking in a sunset. Not all type A personality activities. But I don't want to waste any precious time, as Bob Dylan put it!"

--Nyad in an interview from February 2011 (LA Times)

Hoarding images

July 13

Yesterday walking through the woods, I thought I always carry my camera eager to capture every beautiful thing that I see because I know how short lived these things are and by photographing them I get to keep them for later when I am no longer here in the location where I found these things or when someone has bulldozed over these precious lands and developed the property into a development.

rhododendron

 

 

 

 

 

Then I thought I should limit myself to just three shots, and become much more careful about what I capture. I am gone hogwild with digital imagery.  How easy it is to manipulate; I am cropping and enlarging all the time.   I need to be more discriminating, or more patient.  I am such a restless person, pacing back and forth, walking here and there, swimming up and down, instead of just sitting waiting for something to come to me. I am yearning to go out and find it.

Indian Pipe

Unknown lepidoptera

Hemlock Tree

Hemlock


Under its majesty, I shrink.
Its branches protect and
threaten in their gnarled darkness
to block sunlight that warms up
the wilderness.

Sky

I sit on the porch

and watch the moon rise as the

frogs begin their song

At Walmart in Monticello

Of all the Walmarts I have been to, this one seems sort of scruffy.  It is not unusual to run into a pile of things that in the process of being unloaded and put away, are abandoned and not put away.  Sometimes the aisles are empty --  new stock is coming but not there yet.

What  a diverse number of things are on my list-- starting with blossom fertilizer and ending with apple fritters -- can be found there, and on sale for a cheap price.  I couldn't believe the price of Schweppes tonic-- $.50 cheaper than what I was used to in my little local grocery.  Butter is shockingly cheap when compared to the price in NYC.

I had been wanting a new chef's apron since my old one got so stained and beat up I threw it away.  Looking on Amazon, chefs aprons sold for $15-20.  At Walmart a chefs apron costs $7.00!

I almost bought some beautiful clay pots in red, green and mustard, just because they were made in Portugal and it is so hard to find anything that is not made in China.  But I did not need clay pots.

Walking down the aisle that sold tuna fish, we came upon a giant can, it must have had enough tuna to feed 50 people.  R wanted to buy it just for the sight of it, so that he could look at the foot high giant can of tuna.

photo courtesy of Walmart

At one point as I was pushing my big cart down the aisle to meet R, I noticed a woman coming furiously at me.  She looked slightly tense, determined to get someplace, and not let anyone get in her way.  It was a mirror and I was aiming at my image.

Thornden Park Rose Garden

R and C and I visited the Rose Garden at Thornden Park.

When we first came in, R was interested in the most fragrant blooms.  We asked a volunteer who was pruning and she said sadly that she had lost her sense of smell 20 years ago, but there were always dead heads to take off.  She continued her pruning.  On this melancholy note, we explored what was left in early July of what comes into full glory in mid June, and were not disappointed.

First Fridays: Poetry Reading at Narrowsburg Public Library

Taylor Mali

Marie Elizabeth Mali

Taylor Mali and Marie Elizabeth Mali performed at the Narrowsburg Public Library July 1.  It was a packed house.

They presented a well prepared set of poems beginning with a bilingual recitation (she recited the Spanish, he the English translation) of a love poem by Neruda which set the tone for what was to come.  Two people not only perform together, they live together, and love each other.  I have never seen anything like it before.  It was almost too good to be true:  two attractive, accomplished, funny and charming people who both write well and perform well together.

Taylor Mali is the more practiced performer, with his big voice and persona. He could command a stage as big as Yankee Stadium, so the small reading room in the Narrowsburg library was very cozy and intimate a stage for a poet whose poem about how to write a political poem begins "However it begins, it's gotta be loud."  His poems about teaching have inspired over 700 people to become teachers, and when he hears from 1,000 (hopefully by the end of August of this year), he will cut his hair and donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a hair donation organization for women with cancer.  Even though he is best known for the poem, "What Teachers Make," he did not read it,  closing instead with "The The Impotence of Proofreading."  Marie Elizabeth Mali is no less accomplished a writer, but her subjects are more diverse and influenced by her background of Argentinian-Swedish family.

First there was the usual First Fridays open mike reading, with ten readers, closing with Vera Williams who recited her poem about how to make a peach sandwich.  Master of ceremonies was as always the charming Corinna, a teen, whose mother manages the programing at First Fridays.   Corinna recited one of her own poems, and then cheerleaded the rest of the readers.

Vera Williams

Mushrooms

INdian pipes

Went looking for mushrooms today, though find identifying them challenging. Indian pipes are not mushrooms, they just seem to belong in that family since they do not have chlorophyll, turn dark, and live off the decayed leaves in the forest.

The second mushroom has little specks on it as if it were decorated pastry.  This one is living in the moss, but is covered with pine needles and rooted in a decayed leaf.

The third one looks like a very nicely made poached egg, and learned it is called an American Caesar.