[North Hampton Beach, NH; 7/6/12]
Today, the dawn slunk in under gray clouds. Tonight's temperatures will sink to the 20's F. Wind chills tomorrow will make the day feel cold as the night. Winter has its charms, but right now I want to close my eyes and remember summer.
[Leaves in late light; 11/13/10]
That extra hour courtesy of rolling back Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time is a drop in the bucket. By this afternoon, time has flown and I've accomplished so little. But, maybe, with each dilution that one hour grows more potent: by winter, it will be a remedy for claustrophobia, fear of darkness or of dying, anxiety around deadlines, conferring a sense of spaciousness, of eternal present.
[Seen on my lunch break today; 11/3/11]
Monsters under the bed. They still creep up on us if awakened during the night, even if we'd no longer describe them as such. In the dark, phantoms rise and enfold us in their chilly grip. Our minds are vulnerable, suspended between the civilization of consciousness and deep forest of dreams. I woke at 5am, shifted in bed, and then the tentacles crept in -- looming deadline, interrogation, shame, weak-willed justification, self-loathing, rebellion, casting about for escape routes, self-pity, insomnia, coughing and nose-blowing, weeping. 6am. I pushed myself out of my cocoon of flannels and ensconcing down pillows and went to the bathroom, popped an herbal sleep remedy, and went back to bed, with modest success at returning to sleep.
Daylight dispells the ghosties. The deadline is elastic, everyone busy with other things, my manager just returned from a long vacation and still under its magical spell. The phantoms are simply hankies strung from trees.
[Optician's storefront, Lowell MA; 7/31/11]
Maybe instead of going on an actual vacation this summer, I'll just make believe.
[Transom window, Stanhope St, Boston; 4/2/11]
The word window originates from the Old Norse for "wind eye." It began as a peep-hole through the roof, then as a "door for the eye." But it was the invention of glass that allowed light to come through and a view of the outside while protecting the inhabitants from the elements. Architects would eventually grace building façades with innumerable repeating windows, or skip walls altogether once glass was perfected to allow for vast expanses of glass, floor to ceiling, ground to sky.
["Pledge of Allegiance Building" in Boston]
An intriguing thing about window glass is its ability to reflect, sometimes mirroring back more than it reveals, like some cagey types who charm while disclosing nothing. Or it blends the internal and external in accidental alliance, a fleeting liaison of light and shadow.
[Lanoue Fine Art, Newbury St, Boston; 4/2/11]
And then there's the ability of glass to project light, to create the imaginary in the shadow of the real.
[Empty glass reflection, Aquitaine Bistrot, Boston; 4/2/11]
[On Boston Common; 1/15/11]
"...and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone."
[Cambridge Common near Harvard Square; 1/9/11]
---
The day began a white canvas etched with faint paint-by-number lines. The painter daubed in dark shapes, a bit of blue for sky, paused to assess, then tried magenta. But in the end, gave it up unfinished, consigned all to ink.
---
Sweet fresh air blowing through my apartment windows this morning. We are weaned off our ventilators, the support systems that fed our homes with warmth through the winter months have been turned off. Our dwellings' lungs expand and cleanse. We are free to breathe on our own, walk about the grounds shorn of protective clothing, our toes wiggling like cilia.
Beneath the skin, blood
-red, lip-curling assault
of come-hither tart
-tongued and siren
-sweet lure of succubus
but life-giving - a supple
heart its fruit.
---
[My porch, 8am, 1/7/09]
Ice has formed across my tea, my toast sugared unsweetly white, eggs cemented to the plate. Ah, but the strawberries, gleefully flush in the snow!
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