Save the Last Dance for Tree 01/19/2012
Hundred-mile-an-hour wind gusts are fairly common in Boulder, Colorado, at least since I moved here. The gusts last night started around dark and walloped our cul-de-sac without mercy until noon today.  I slept approximately not at all. The house shook, the windows howled, the fireplace flue played the pan flute all night long. This morning around five thirty I heard a little tap, a dainty scrape outside. When I walked out my door at eight thirty, I saw this--  being held up by this--  engulfing both cars like this--  as nearly 8,000 pounds of pine tree blocked our driveway.  The arborist from Blue River Tree Care was already on the scene. He called in the largest crane that I have ever seen (and I’ve installed landscapes for 14 years)   which dropped a daredevil down into the crown of the tree who chopped two branches out with a hand saw, attached the cables and while we gaped from the upstairs landing window that two-story pine tree   danced like a baby ballerina up over our heads  and touched down in point, where the crew promptly undressed her.  This miracle surpassed the miraculous activity indoors: my final day polishing the last draft of my novel Tributary, 19.6 years in the making. Sharing the very last hours on this my magnum opus with the flight of the bumblebee pine tree--  I may have to take up the pan flute. And play it hiking in the pines. (For those of you smitten with pan flute fever . . .  check out this crazy website!) 1 Comment Happy Holidays! 12/14/2011
 Happy holidays, dear readers! May you live in the flow, however chilly.  May your newest seeds claim good soil.  May you find meaning in scanty times.  And comfort in unexpected places.  Shelter from the storms . . .  And please buy books, give them away, pass them on and cherish them.  Because, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." “The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.” --Dr. Samuel Johnson, Preface to his Dictionary  Authors: Keep believing till the carrot falls off. FruGAL 10/30/2011
One way to combat a faltering economy is to indulge in your frugal side. Frugality actually puts you in contact with a realer reality anyway, so it’s good for the spirit as well as your net worth. The more you interact with the world to meet your needs, the better. I don’t mean society or cyberspace or created culture, when I say world.  Tonight, walking the dog with my sweetie after dinner, we passed a field of blackbirds perched on cattail stalks in a field empty but for one person in a royal blue rain jacket playing a recorder to them and only them. Every bird in that field, all musicians themselves, sat facing the flutist. (It was dusk, so photos weren't possible.) S/he played for the twenty minutes it took us to circle the field, and played on after we’d departed. Earlier today, walking the dog with my sweetie after breakfast, we met a frisky pup on a mountain trail who wanted nothing to do with her owner’s brisk goal-oriented workout run. Lily came pouncing off the trail to meet my dog, whose age and temperament yell NOT ME, I’M NOT PLAYING, but lo and behold, right nearby lay a pile of bear poop and Lily snapped her jaws on a firm dark morsel and couldn’t be persuaded to part from it. We called to her owner, “She’s eating poop!” and chased her in the friendliest way, knowing the gastric results of a dog on a scavenged diet, which of course Lily took to mean playing and poop, too? Fantastic! All this fun didn’t cost her a cent.  This afternoon, I hauled out the crockpot and combined two recipes to use what ingredients I had to make slow-cook red beans and rice. We get to smell this luxurious concoction for five whole hours while it simmers. And eat it tomorrow. Simple as simple. You can’t buy that at Sears.  I’m knitting a hat for a baby gift for Christmas. I’m writing a novel that may never make a dime. We’re still eating the chocolate frenzy birthday cake we made for my sweetheart’s daughter five days ago. And for her Halloween costume, she needs “hillbilly teeth.” No stores came through, so her father took a black straw we’d saved from dining out one night,* clipped off 1/3”, disappeared into the bathroom and came out with the most convincing hickabilly act I’ve ever seen, broken front tooth and all. Did you love playing with oddments when you were little? You can do it old, too. Create the world you inhabit rather than buying it at stores. Or buy the parts and pieces and remake your life into a self-made interesting one. Get your hands on life. Play with nothing till it’s something. Play for blackbirds.  Frugal need not be stingy or austere. And always take photos. *That black straw serves double duty—it's extra wide, perfect for shooting popcorn kernels at the neighbor's sometimes noisy dog and the brazen squirrels who hog our birdfeeder. We shoot, we miss, the miscreants scatter! Keep Searching 12/14/2010
 Happy Holidays!  Keep searching  for that path  to the deep creek within you where it is always always  a beautiful, clear day. Thanks to Dreamstime for the final photo. Red, White and Blue 04/13/2010
 Red: The color amaryllis blooms turn when they crumple in on themselves after a week-long fantasy display of peachy pink in your south-facing bay window. The amaryllis bulbs you’d left for dead from last year--stuck under an entry table near a heat vent which seems to have done the hibernation trick. Buds poked up late March and, with water, the exhilarated flower stalks grew two inches a day heading for the ceiling! Red begins decay and yet you’re thankful for it. White: The color of apricot blossoms under April snow. Who can say which is better? Who can tell them apart? Blue: The refracted valley light at base of Little Cottonwood Canyon when you’ve just pushed off the Albion chairlift and your goggles haven’t fogged. It’s an inky blue unexplained by weather patterns or the elevation or descent of moods. It’s what you’ve left behind. It is congestion. Three hundred twenty-five thousand minds can disbelieve they impact the earth at all and you know in that distant ink-dark blue floats three hundred twenty-five thousand pounds of wrong. Spring snow is heavy but forgiving. It slows you down so that you see red, white, and blue. The Art of Going Dormant 12/18/2009
 What if you could spend an entire day doing nothing but appreciating your whole life? Take a wintry walk and ask trees how they do it. Trees aren’t stupid. They hold their places all winter long using fewer resources. Dormancy is an art many of us have forgotten. “To everything there is a season” and the winter season bodes rest. Despite lost limbs, occasional drought, low light, crowding, windstorms, beetles, blight, and all other hindrances to growth, trees individuate beautifully. Let yourself draw from this visual reminder all winter long. What trees say when we are not listening: Slow Down Soak In Give Without Trying Ah, A Changing Wind Less is More Love What You Have Use What’s Closest Shelter Everyone | All Lit Up:
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