Fairy lights

I’ve been looking at other peoples’ gardens, admiring the lights that line their pathways. Some gardens have lights that mark the undersides of trees, light up unusual rocks, or randomly illuminate blank brick walls. Other garden paths are merely lit by one porch light — the central focus of the dark yard. As we head towards the autumnal equinox, I think about lights in the fields, lights in the darkness, lights that emphasize the darkness and etch it with contrast.

This year, I was visiting a little town outside New York City, in time to see the Tribute in Lights. It was being tested the night before the 11th. The 11th was too cloudy to see the skyline at night, but then the next morning at 5 AM, I saw them again.

I had thought that the last time the lights would show up was last year, and I did not expect to see them. It was magical and startling, like porch lights suddenly snapped on to touch the heavens. 88 searchlights pointed toward the sky are a visual attraction — birds have been confused by the phenomenon. It was worth seeing, but too ephemeral to photograph the next morning. Sad, like a catch in the throat, a feeling of the uncanny, the otherworldly, like weakened twin paths of the moon reflected in the world below.* The rest of the time, it was good to glance over and see the city at daytime, struggling under the haze and fog, or at nighttime, lit up like normal under overcast skies.

*I’m not sure how the survivors and family members feel about the lights, honestly. I am glad they finally made a more permanent memorial. I’d be really sad off if there wasn’t a place (even a tree or a square of earth) to remember loved ones who have passed.

Wishing you the bluest sky

I’ve been traveling lately. And sometimes, the clamber is worth the view. The picture on the right was taken (I think) at Burnt Head, on Monhegan Island, Maine. One can quite see why the artists clamber around on cliff sides with their easels strapped to their backs.

Lovely calls of gulls as they wheeled overhead, cedar waxwings back in the bits of forest, etc. The Gardener and I took it slowly, mercifully meeting only one or two people going down when we were climbing up the paths through the underbrush. No sprained ankles, luckily.

In keeping with the “blue” theme of Project Spectrum and July, we spent one evening relaxing while looking at the water on the left, sipping on Bombay Sapphire gin and tonics. It was a wonderful way to unwind.

I’ll probably limit most of the vacation photos to Flickr, since mostly they’re pictures of sky, water, surf, and oceangoing vessels. Possibly not all that interesting to my readers. However, I did visit Tess’s Designer Yarns in Portland and Halcyon Yarn in Bath, Maine, so there will be photos of yarn for the knitters in the future.

 

Forests of calm and beauty

Sometimes, it’s helpful to remember where you came from, or your earliest memories where you thought like an independent person. For me, that’s time to go back to the forest and remember camping trips with my family, where I was expected to be able to think through logical challenges (clearing a fire pit, navigating around poison ivy) and enjoy moments of calm, listening to the wind in the trees without lots of talking to clutter up the moment. Stretch that forward to summers at camp, and then a job working at a camp. Forests and mountains can help me re-plug into happiness. But I’ve tried living in the middle of a forest, or in a farmhouse with amazing vistas, and too long without a city gets me blue. So here is a happy medium — a safe, forested area in the middle of a city (no not New York).

This one was quirky, complete with St Patrick’s Day [a day late] runners (who were carrying all the ingredients for a grilled picnic, and talking excitedly about the beer at the end of their route), with their green leggings, shamrock headgear, etc. I nearly decided to run after them, although I wasn’t dressed for it.

If I’m with someone else I’ll be happy to go back. Solitude is all well and good, but it’s better to share part of it with someone else who can also enjoy the quiet and the fun of playing “guess what brown bird that is…”

A silver valentine

A silver decoration from travels near Dusseldorf, Germany. Found in a shop window. Apparently, love has a price tag in the housewares shop windows.

Hope your day is happy! [Nods to Cornflower Blue, who had the idea first].

Taking over the view

OK, this is sort of a silly photo shot, but I was wondering if I would be able to catch my shadow on a the window during a sunset. Not only did I do so, but I also caught the reflection of my camera. I was 40+ feet up in a hotel, looking out a plate glass window over Dallas… and well, it’s sort of startling.

One shadow menaces the Comerica skyscraper across the way, while an even larger hand with a camera is reflected off to the right. It isn’t good photography, but it would make a marvellous scene from a sci-fi story. Debbie only Did Dallas… she didn’t menace it with gigantic shadows.

Latest news from people who don’t have to get up early in the A.M.: so far the Phillies are doing better this game (10:42 PM on a Monday evening). Go Phils!

 

Goin’ West

For Project Spectrum, I headed West to the land of tall buildings and the fictional home of JR Ewing. Back again, without extra yarn. I’m hoping the pictures I took will come out and I’ll be able to show you the few blue skies I got to see during a short visit to Dallas. There was great food, I got to see people I see once a year, and I wasn’t in the office. The bad part — I’m exhausted, I’m not sure I have something appropriate to wear tomorrow morning, and the cats were very very angry.

No, I did not go to the museum about Kennedy’s assassination. I did get to see an amazing Asian art museum (if you’re ever in Dallas, check out the Crow Asian Art Museum to hear calming beautiful music while getting to look at some of the most splendid jade from China and interesting marble temples from India). It’s weird that I got to go West to see mementos from the East. But here we have East brought to the West by avid collectors; and the old within the modern world of skyscrapers.

Rowboat and boat on banks of Lake Champlain

There are lovely places to hike near Lake Champlain. These boats were pulled up on a rocky ledge on the banks of the lake. I’m going through my pictures of sunsets over the water, woodsy trails, wildflowers, and interiors from the Inn I stayed at. All very lovely. Some of them are appropriate for Project Spectrum and I’ve put them up on my flickr account on the sidebar. Some may show up on these pages when they seem appropriate.

I guess it’s the sign of a good trip if you’re already hoping to go back again and figuring out ways to avoid lots and lots of driving.

Red berries in the north woods

It’s hard to believe these were real — but they were. Lovely red berries that captured the light and made me think of beautiful, clear jelly. This photo was taken during a short trip to the woods surrounding Lake Champlain. We saw many many rowboats as well as sailboats on the water. Dodged a couple of rainstorms, and survived one huge thunderstorm. Luckily, not that many mosquitoes saw me.

BTW: Lake Champlain is skinnier than I remembered. I must have been near it in the past and just thought it was a wide, huge river. Of course, that would have been riding with the family in my teens, when I probably had my nose in a book reading about ancient Egypt or Sumeranians.

Edited to add: This may be Japanese Honeysuckle fruit (it’s an invasive).

It does not appear to be any of the following: elderberries, red currants, vibernum, winterberry, or dogwood. However, I could be wrong. I am not a horticultural expert, and I do not believe these are edible berries at all (in fact, they seem to fit the bill of “fit only for the birds” and poisonous for the rest of us, since no one in the forest seemed to be eating these.)

Faux Wood Computer

I was not able to take pictures of the sheep on my way home from work due to:

1. Lambs too short to be seen over the grass, alas
2. A blind curve and nowhere to pull over

I had the camera out, and then I decided not to risk it.

Instead, I give you a faux wood PC tower cover seen in a shop window near Dusseldorf, Germany last week. I’m back home, but i have lots of Project Spectrum fodder off my camera chip. Every so often, when at a loss for knitting content, you may get to see more from the one day I was off work.

The little “rock” on top of the tower is actually a faux wood grained computer mouse (cordless). Sadly, I couldn’t get a picture of the faux stone keyboard. It was in a box and slanted so there was a strange glare coming off the box lid. The sign assures the passersby that the PC housing is air brushed, as well as of superior quality. There are other sell messages on the sign, but some of them are cutoff or backwards, so I haven’t a hope of translation.

Time Travelers

I was driving up a one way street in the evening, past the Basilica, when I stopped for a red light. A movement on the left, from behind the Basilica, caught my eye.

He came down the access alleyway, an African American man on a bicycle, possibly coming home from a late night at work. His mouth was set in a line beneath a pencil thin mustache. He was wearing a dark grey tweed driving hat, dark pea coat, a scarf, and slacks the color of the charcoal night. He seemed to have spent more care on his appearance than is common now. As though he was going on a romantic assignation, or merely wanted to connect with a more genteel time, without looking overdressed.

I sat and watched as he glided silently on his bicycle toward the stopped traffic, passed the black gates with gold tips, and turned right. As he glided off the wrong way on the one way street, I sat and thought about how timeless people could appear, as though equipped to step across the frame of forward moving time.

And then the light changed, and I drove off toward the moonlit streets and flowered trees of the park in front of me.