Category Archives: photos

Peregrinations

Speaking of peregrinations: When I was child I wanted to be a falconer. I wanted to have a hawk, or perhaps a peregrine falcon on my arm. She would fly off my arm and circle the sky until she was only a dot and then, finally, fly back to me. I didn’t dwell on the hunting part of this fantasy–just on the bold, high flying bird who would come home to me. (I confess that I might have come up with this idea from reading The Hardy Boys: The Hooded Hawk Mystery). I keep alert for birds of prey wherever I am, but I have not had one on my arm. However, we’ve had Phoenix the orange-winged Amazon parrot in our family for the last 27 years, and I have been content to have him on my hand and in my heart, if not in the wild blue sky.

Tom and I spent much of September 2022 traveling. This year our road trip was at least 4,300 miles and we loved it, as usual.* We only camped by one great lake this year, but we did travel through 12 states. We visited with loved ones and walked on beaches, in forests, and on prairies. We enjoyed our travel on foot paths, back roads, dirt roads, and highways. Tom and I lunched in prosperous Glen Arbor, relaxed in the egalitarian comfort of campgrounds, and talked about sights to see with couple of Wisconsin bikers at Kitch-iti-kipi.

*bison and prairie grasses, Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Oklahoma*

*Kitch-iti-Kipi, Manitisque*, *Michigan*

Besides, Michigan, Tom and I camped in Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. We drank cold coffee and ate cold, but delicious, meals. Furthermore, for most of this trip, we didn’t even bother with putting up the tent; we just reclined on our the Subaru’s front seats and slept when the sky was dark.

One thing was different this year: we had campfires at three different campsites. Tom and I are usually content to have the sunset be the dramatic display of the evening. It’s more environmentally sound, I think, than the big bonfires some campers build. Plus, who needs a campfire for cheese and meat sandwiches, especially when we weren’t packing marshmallows, Hersey bars, and graham crackers. This time it was different, though. I think–damn hot weather not withstanding–we needed the emotional warmth of the fire. The flickering yet steady light, the hopeful sparks flying upward, and feet warming on the firepit rim soothed us. Tom and I are grateful for the year we have had–we are still here and we are still okay. However, we continue to get older, and not so much wiser. How can it be that I have been tagging along with brothers Mike and George for 70 years? How is it that brothers Rog and Dan are missing somehow? Why do I still miss the stubborn and lovely beagle/basset, Randi? Now that I finally finished reading Will Bagley’s South Pass: Gateway to a Continent, I want to talk to him about it and where is he? I just read in the Washington Post today that the January 6th berserkers “…stashed weapons, ammunition and hand grenades in a Comfort Inn in Arlington County, Va….” That motel is a 0.9 mile walk from where I am now writing in my living room. What is happening to my beloved country? We needed that fire to comfort us at night just as the water, trees, and flowers did during the day.

*post oaks, Osage Hills State Park, Oklahoma*

*snow-on-the-mountain, Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Oklahoma*

We call them “roadtrips,” not just “camping trips.” We do so because although we enjoy camping in less frequented parks, forests, and the like, we also enjoy finding out-of-the-way museums and visiting little towns. I sometimes imagine the lives of the people who live on the farms and in the burgs we pass through. I imagine them to be mostly happy. Early in the trip, Tom and I stayed in Green Bay, Wisconsin for a couple of days. We went to the National Railroad Museum. I was prepared to be blasé about a museum dedicated to trains, but, if–in your peregrinations–you ever find yourself in Green Bay, I recommend it.

*The Tree That Escaped the Crowded Forest, the Price Tower by Frank Lloyd Wright*, *Bartlesville, Oklahoma*

Old food service people that we are, Tom and I also keeping trying to find good restaurants and bakeries along the road. I just counted and I find that Tom and I have traveled in 47 states together so far. That’s a lot of states for the number of good eateries we’ve found. That’s okay; we are still searching.

*kolache and apple fritter, Rise N Shine Donuts, Amarillo, Texas*

I have a list of places we’ve visited that includes, national parks and forests, state parks and forests, trails, monuments, historic sites, museums, restaurants and wonders of all kinds. So far, this document is five pages long. On the other hand, our still-need-to-explore list is eight pages long. It carries a heading that indicates the complexities and course changes of the current era: “Points of Interest for Trips Spring/Summer/Fall 2019/2020/2021/2022.” In fact, I probably originally started the list about ten years ago. We keep hoping and we do what we can. Speaking of course changes, Tom and I had planned on heading west to New Mexico, at least, and then north to see friends before we headed home, but that didn’t work out. Instead, we got to watch the sun rise in Arkansas on our way home.

I look forward to our next trip. Maybe it won’t be the months long trips we used to take, or maybe it will. I remain optimistic that we will hit the road again together. I feel like we–Tom and I, our family and friends, and our country–are on a challenging journey. My wish for us all may be expressed (yet again) by the Beatles. I wish you good sleep wherever you are.

*You can read about last year’s roadtrip here.

More Clouds

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Last week when I was writing the article about my salad days and Joni Mitchell, I looked at some cloud photos I’ve taken. Below are several of my favorites.

*Front Range late afternoon, Denver, Colorado, April 2012*

*Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park, Utah, February 2013*

*The Needles Overlook*, *Canyonlands*, *Utah, March 2013*

*Sunset, Antelope Island State Park, Great Salt Lake, April 2013*

*Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, April 2013*

*Pawnee Buttes, Pawnee National Grassland, Colorado, August 2015*

*Union Bay, Lake Superior, Ontonagon, Michigan, September 2018*

*Mathews Arm Campground, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, September 2020*

*Bartholdi Fountain, Bartholdi Garden, Washington, DC, August 2021*

*Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, September 2021*

*dawn Upper Mississippi River, Pikes Peak State Park, Iowa*, *September 2021*

*from the grounds of the Netherlands Carillon, Arlington, Virginia, May 5, 2022*

Almost Summer 2022

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I have so many people and things to be grateful for and so many things to be worried and sad about that I find my thoughts and feelings ricocheting around in my aging brain. Because I feel lousy today (two negative Covid tests so far, but, who knows) I am trying to settle down and write. Note: It is now two days later and I am still feeling a little weary, but now I have bored myself so thoroughly, that I am writing again.

Grateful I know I have written this litany before, but here it is again: Family, friends, nature.

Worry and sadness Some part of me has felt worried and sad since the 2016 election. I take that back: I was worried and sad before, after Sandy Hook in 2012. Surely, I thought, we will change our laws and our society now. I had similar thoughts after Abu Ghraib. Heck, I thought things would change after Mai Lai. I must have told you this before as well: I thought we good-hearted and idealistic people would put an end to war (and ethnocentrism, inequality, etc. ) back in the 1960s. I am, of course, reeling over the pandemic, Ukraine, Uvalde and all the rest.

I also worry and sometimes feel sad about those on the my “grateful” list. I worry about my family near and far, friends here and there, and nature everywhere.

My assignment In high school, I was noted among my friends as a “stable” person. Not sure what that actually meant. Most of the time through the years, I have continued to be a glass half-full sort of person. I lean toward the hopeful side. I think I lean that way because my loved ones modeled that stance for me and it has helped me throughout my life. So, now, that I have used this post to clarify my thoughts and feelings, I need to drink from that half-full glass again. My soul drinks in words, photos, and music.

Words

I have been thinking about William Wordsworth lately. That’s partly because my friends Donna and David will be walking in the Lake District this June, but also because my brother Dan loved Wordsworth. Plus, I think Wordsworth has some words for us:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. (circa 1802)

sign seen at Van Aken Market Hall, Shaker Heights, Ohio

Photos

native spiderwort, Hillside Park, Arlington, Virginia

redbuds, Sky Meadows State Park

tulip poplar flower

pawpaw flower, Sky Meadows State Park

pitch pine, New Jersey Pine Barrens

planting common milkweed along the W & OD Trail, Arlington, Virginia

Cook Forest State Park, Pennsylvania

swallowtail–first of the season

Photo and music

oak trees Westbound Van Aken Boulevard, Shaker Heights, Ohio

“Because,” John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1969

Spring 2022

U.P., Up, and Away

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the view from our campsite on Lake Superior, Ontonagon Township, Michigan

Tom and I have been taking road trips together since 1971: fifty years in and we still love them. We went on another road trip from September 1 to October 2, 2021. This trip could be fairly summarized as: nine family members, three great lakes, two pleasant peninsulas, fourteen states, and 4,500 miles. Also, Tom and I went on six hikes where no one shared our trail; we saw old growth trees including giant, healthy eastern hemlocks and hundred foot birches, and we learned to love the bluffs of the upper Mississippi and the river itself. Our trip was balm to our societal-disintegrated and pandemic-battered minds, souls, and bodies. We mostly took short 3 to 5 mile hikes, punctuated with longer hikes (11+ miles at Sleeping Bear). Still, I was happy to see that my hiker’s leg muscles came back.

Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore

eastern hemlock, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Michigan

I have other photos (see below) and stories: happy times visiting brothers and sisters-in-law and nieces and great-nieces; plus eating those delicious camp meals again–hummus, chips, carrots, local sausage, and Amy’s chili. Once we got to the Upper Peninsula, we left the poison ivy behind and found ferns, flowers, and fungus galore. On part of the journey, Tom and I traveled along the Great River Road along the Mississippi River. We had never heard of this road and, now, we have another part of the country to love. A young bald eagle soared near us as we stood on the bluffs above the Mississippi River at the Effigy Mounds National Monument.

dawn, Upper Mississippi River

Other Parts of the Journey Tom and I–fully vaccinated since March–both contracted the Delta variant, probably somewhere in the Upper Peninsula. Also, three of our loved ones died. This trip, even with its aftermath of illness, death, and mourning was fabulous. My major struggle lately has been trying to write the words about the ones who have gone away.

Randi Tom and I camped in Pike’s Peak State Park in Clayton County, Iowa for three nights. Yes, this Pike’s Peak was also named for Zebulon Pike who explored the upper Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains in the early 1800s. The park was an unexpectedly lovely oasis and one of the highlights of our trip. On the first afternoon at Pike’s Peak, we pitched our tent and headed out for a walk. We headed to a lookout point high above the Mississippi. We took a hike to see (and to feel) the Bear Mound (a ceremonial burial site constructed by indigenous people of an earlier time) and to take a look at the Bridal Veil Falls. All of it: the forest and the sun and the clear air and the whiff of fall caught us up into a perfect afternoon. Chinkapin oaks and hickories and butternuts had already been dropping their acorns and nuts. Hearty and vigorous squirrels crashed through fallen leaves with, it seemed, some delight. I had a strong vision of Randi (our daughter Sarah and son-in-law Mike’s dog) and how she would love this forest. Randi, a beagle/basset, likes nothing more than smelling squirrels, barking much louder than her weight class. I didn’t say chasing squirrels: Randi just loves smelling the squirrely trails; she doesn’t need the squirrels themselves. I thought of Randi at least twice on that walk and mentioned to Tom how Randi would love this high forest near the great river. The next day an early morning text came from Sarah. Randi, who had been suffering with late stage kidney disease had died. Through tears, I told Sarah about the prior day’s thoughts about Randi in the forest. The sun and air had been special–as it can be in a cathedral forest. Sarah and I agreed; maybe before Randi left this particular reality, we think maybe she stopped by to share our perfect afternoon. What do I know? I am an old woman crying in a Panera as I write this. One thing I am pretty sure of is that all dogs go to heaven.*

Randi visiting us December 2019

Will I didn’t know Will Bagley very well, but I did love and do love him. Will married my lifelong friend, Laura in 2003.** A few years after that, I was going to be conducting professional development workshops for adult English as a second language (ESL) teachers somewhere in the west–maybe Montana. I can’t remember. What I do remember is that I had a stopover in Salt Lake City where Laura and Will lived. They said they would pick me up at the airport and drive me down to Zion National Park. I was exhausted from my workshops and I slept part of the way. We reached Springdale in the dark of the night and I woke in the morning surrounded by my old friend Laura, my new friend Will, and my red rock refuge for the first time in twenty years. We three walked and talked and I bought a pair of socks at the Zion Lodge gift shop. I haven’t been able to throw away these worn-out holey socks because they remind me of friendship, love, and refuge.

Paraphrasing Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web: It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Will was both.

desert socks from Zion National Park

Tom and I got back to Arlington on October 2. In Arlington we tested positive for Covid-19, which was no surprise. In the latter half of September, I had felt like I had the flu with a little cough and aches and chills. At first, it was a little difficult to tell what I had because we were tent camping and a few aches and chills go with the territory. Tom followed with similar symptoms. A couple of day after we got home, we got the call that my brother Dan had died of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dan I have a lifetime of memories of Dan: from early years in Detroit and Milford to the middle years in Ann Arbor, Dodge City, Kansas and Lemoyne, Pennslyvania to the later years on our Deep Creek family reunion weekends. For all his brilliance–and he shone brightly with style and grace and rock and roll songs or poetry ever on his lips–it is Dan’s kindness I remember most. Circa 1970, when Dan and his wife Jeanne lived in Ypsilanti they watched over the baby sister–me–eight miles away in Ann Arbor. They hosted my 21st birthday party in their small apartment. A few years later, Dan and Jeanne’s home in Dodge City was my beacon as I crisscrossed the country between Michigan and the Intermountain West. I could go on, but I I don’t know if I can trust my own words to do justice to this good brother. A couple of months ago, on this blog, I dedicated Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill to Dan. While not exactly a prince of our apple town, he was the fair-haired and bold youth with the golden ’36 Ford with the corvette engine. Enough. Let Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey say the words.

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man’s life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,—

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

*Maybe you caught it: I wasn’t quite able to write all of Randi’s verbs in past tense. Not yet.

**Laura is not exactly a “lifelong” but since our teaching fellow days beginning in 1973; close enough.

Lake Superior, Ontonagon, Michigan

in the Upper Peninsula

yellow patches (Amanita flaoconia?) near Cascade Falls, Ottawa National Forest

asters, Wyalusing State Park, Wisconsin

Summer 2021, Part 2: Photos

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This summer–like all the other summers I’ve known–seems beautiful.* Even with the loss, the sickness, the uncertainty, the worry, the fires, the floods, the wars, and all the rest of it, I am trying (fitfully, I admit) to see some good in this world. I do see it in my stalwart family and friends and in the sky, plants, and animals. I don’t have much to say, at least much that is new, but I hope you enjoy the photos.

*Bartholdi Fountain, Bartholdi Park, Washington, D.C.*

*milkweed longhorn beetle (genus Tetraopes) Mt. Cuba Center, Hockessin, Delaware*

*garden–inside and outside of our condo*

*Regional Garden, U.S. Botanic Gardens, Washington, D.C.*

*bee on pickerel weed, Regional Garden, U.S. Botanic Gardens, Washington, D.C.*

*New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), Hillside Park, Arlington, Virginia*

*bishop’s hat (Epimedium brachyrrhizum), Mary Livingston Ripley Garden*

*tawny (?) skipper on unidentified flower*

*wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia), Hillside Park*, *Arlington, Virginia*

*Sometimes I find it difficult to be hopeful without sounding like some superannuated, prissy Pollyanna. I really don’t think I am a Pollyanna; I think I am more of an inveterate idealist. Whatever I might be, I still find myself sad and angry quite often. For example, yesterday I discovered that someone had ripped out the two pink fuzzybean plants off a trellis in Hillside Park. I had transplanted these plants from Arlington’s native plant nursery last fall. I watched the plants as they came up in late spring and cheered them on as they grew up the trellis and spread wider and wider flinging out their green leaves to the wider world. Did someone think they were getting rid of noxious weeds? Was some person or persons just wreaking a little casual cruelty on the park? I don’t know, of course, but I was sad and angry. It was a petty little anger amid the current sorrows of the world and of humankind. However, the hopeful part of me is wondering now whether the plants will grow back from their roots in another season. I wish them well.

Spring 2021

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*spring near the Arts and Industries Building, National Mall, Washington, D.C.*

I started writing a post in early April–it is still in my drafts file–but I got annoyed by WordPress’ new publishing format and let my words and photos dangle in the airless vault of the Internet. Even though “technology” was featured in two of my most recent job titles, I am somewhat of a Luddite. However, I do think that as programs, platforms, applications, and what-all become more streamlined and standardized, it is possible that creative work can become overly lockstep. Enough of my carping excuses for my procrastination: I want to write about spring before Memorial Day!

I might have shaded the truth a bit (above) about the reason/s for my procrastination. What is slowing me down is that I keep thinking about the almost 600,000 people who have died of Covid-19 in the United States and the millions more around the world, and about those who loved and cared for them. Also, I live 4.5 miles away (by foot) from the U.S. Capitol and I was under curfew on January 6, 2021. That spooked me and saddened me. Before the Inauguration, Tom saw an armed gunboat patrolling the Potomac River near Georgetown. When the celebratory fireworks began on Inauguration night, I worried that our country and its institutions were under attack again. I continue to be gobsmacked by lies, disrespect, viciousness, and what-all. Also, I feel somewhat discomfited about how lucky I have been through all this mess and about the–mostly–good spring I have had.

Some Paragraphs

I have been wanting to tell you this for awhile: For months, I got through each day by getting the next day’s coffee ready ridiculously early, like at 1 p.m. I wasn’t sure I had the emotional energy to get the coffee machine ready before bed, let alone the next morning. Not a solution to any problem, but, and this is the truth now, having the coffee ready to go helped me feel ready for whatever might be coming the next day.
I don’t usually pray, but I do try to send good thoughts and love to our children and their families every night. Some nights, I fall asleep before I finish my good thoughts.
It has been almost nine weeks since our second vaccinations. Tom and I have been lucky to see and hug many family members and friends. We have been to Shenandoah National Park, Williamsburg, Pittsburgh, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. We have more jaunts in the works. Now, we are staying fairly close to home. Later, we don’t know where we will go. We are still waiting to find out which way the wind is blowing.

We have had a beautiful spring here. I think we always have beautiful springs wherever we are, but this season has been another one. On April 26 on Theodore Roosevelt Island I noted these flora and fauna: Carolina wren with oak catkin in mouth, another C wren?, another wren or warbler???, mallards, heard red-winged blackbird, several birds I couldn’t identify, turkey vultures, robins, sparrows, lots of minnows from bridge by the marsh, cabbage butterflies, other butterflies–slight possibility of a zebra swallowtail?, pawpaws-no flowers, tall meadow rue, lots of garlic mustard, Virginia waterleaf, Hartford fern?, horsetails. As usual, I had a few questions about what I observed. I can report that I have now seen some blooming pawpaws and that the tall meadow rue is going into flower. Note: All these nature words aren’t just small items on a useless list; they keep me close to the ground where–even in difficult times–I feel safe.

*Virginia waterleaf, Theodore Roosevelt Island*

*trees and sun, Theodore Roosevelt Island*

Spring did come after that difficult winter and now summer is about to follow. The 17-year cicadas are tuning up around here and the roses are coming out. I hope to see some of you soon. So long (as my Dad would say) and best wishes.

Winter 2021

November 21, 2020

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Thursday morning, I thought of a title for my latest (this is it) post: Hope in the Time of Pandemic. At 9:30 A.M. while Arlington County staff and volunteers were restoring native habitat in a corner of a little park [Benjamin Banneker Park) formerly covered with invasive bamboo, this self-assured title sounded about right.

Benjamin Banneker Park, Arlington, Virginia

getting ready to plant, November 19, 2020

planting, Benjamin Banneker Park, Arlington, Virginia

A few hours later, I decided that my nod to Garcia Marquez was too flippant when more than 250,000 people have died in our country. So, I thought I would call this article Hope and I wished that word would be appropriate and accurate.

Then, Thursday afternoon the news came about the mess in certifying the Wayne County, Michigan presidential votes. I took this issue to heart; I was born in Wayne County. I did not feel hopeful at all. Now, I didn’t have a name for this piece I was trying to write.

And so it has gone these last months: I am hopeful; I despair. My mind, heart, and gut seesaw.

Friday and today, Saturday, November 21, I feel more balanced. I am seeing the hopeful signs again: in my family and friends, in nature, even (sometimes) in the news.

I realized, again, that I do better when I am close to the ground. When I tuck in the native plants, cold soil invigorates my senses and my hope revives. The fall palette–heavy on yellows and browns–calms my soul. In the evening, the early darkness comforts me. The concurrent bonus for this early darkness is that Tom and I watch beautiful dawns from our living room almost every morning.

Amsonia (bluestar), Freedom Park, Rossyln, Arlington

strawberry bush (Euonymus americanus), November 20, 2020

stonecrop I planted in Hillside Park in late summer

dawn from our window, Rosslyn, Virginia

My condolences to the families and friends of those who have fallen ill and died. My thanks to all those helpers out there. Like Mr. Rogers’ mother told him to do, I do look for the helpers and I see them out there all around.

Happy Thanksgiving.