Memories of breakfasts past

I have been scrolling through my photo archives to find images of breakfasts shared. It seems I have always seen breakfast as a photo opportunity. The morning light pours in, the colors are good, and everyone is enthusiastic about eating the first meal of the day.

I may not have been a great sailor, but I did enjoy the meals on board...especially because David was the chef. New York City is a great place for breakfast. The top photo is vintage, eight years ago at Pain Quotidian!  The photo above taken at Sarah Beth's Kitchen on the Upper West Side a few years ago.  Add to that John, our breakfast guest, who was willing to eat yogurt and  granola for breakfast and most recently served me the same healthy meal when I visited in Fort Lee! yum.

What did you have for breakfast today?

I love breakfast!

one week ago

 Eliza leading a ten day expedition through the canyons of Utah  in her role as wilderness instructor at The High Mountain Institute in Leadville, Colorado.

Carrie with women from Afghanistan, members of the Afghan Women's Network,  who traveled to Islamabad to attend the training she was co-leading on peace building sponsored by The Institute for Inclusive Security.

And to think that about one week before that, they were giving me a sixtieth birthday party in Lincoln! These women get things done!

the day!

Earth Day today!!

April Chores

Jane Kenyon

When I take the chilly tools


from the shed's darkness, I come
 out

to a world made new


by heat and light.



The snake basks and dozes


on a large flat stone.


It reared and scolded me


for raking too close to its hole.



Like a mad red brain


the involute rhubarb leaf


thinks its way up


through loam.

So many great things about April!! 

In 1970 Earth Day was created. 

Remember the touch points; The Whole Earth Catalog, Love your Mother, 

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle?

The issues related to climate change are more complex now, the need to take action so much more urgent. Turns out those early proponents were right. We had to take action. 

Look at the world now where solar panels on the roof, wind turbines and recycling at home and in public places have become common place. We have come very far.

 Let the natural world seep into your bones. 

I assigned the topic of Wild Things to twenty writing students this week. I learned that so many of them rely on nature to soothe their souls and reinvigorate their lives.

The daffodils and forsythia blooming are a comfort as we remember the tragic events of the past week here in Boston.

Go outside, take a walk. Breathe deep! It's Earth Day.

The Next Chapter

I had the great good fortune to be celebrated by local friends and family a few weeks before my birthday.

Many thanks to Eliza and Carrie for planning a bang up party for me.  I feel truly blessed to have two wonderful daughters who conspired to create the best ever 60th birthday party for their mom.

And as for my friends, what a great bunch rallied around. And the cake was a BOOK! A book for a cake. Thanks to Irene for that truly remarkable creation.  Can you see the page numbers?  The second half of the book is longer than the first half as you can see, so I have many pages to fill before this story is complete! 

So Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare, my grand nephew Niko Elmer and to me.

With love,

B

Solace

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

—   Wendell Berry

The flags were at half mast  in Wood's Hole today. I noticed them as I got off the ferry, coming back from a night with Laura on Martha's Vineyard.  I went down yesterday  to see her and we set off immediately to pick watercress in a hidden stream. We have done this before. We walk down a path and there below is the greenest green you have ever seen. The first green of spring.  We picked enough for a dinner salad and some for me to bring home for David.

Then we took a two hour walk through woods, past ponds, over board walks flushing out a pair of black  ducks and two  turtles, we heard the squawk of red wing blackbirds and saw a few turkeys amble by. We went across a field, crossed the road and finally strolled along the sandy beach back to her house. I put a few flat stones in my pocket and two tiny pieces of green sea glass. The sky was robin's egg blue, the Atlantic a deep slate blue. Her two 15 year old black labs came lumbering down to meet us. By now it was five o'clock. Her daughter called to tell us the news. There had been a bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It is a place that is so familiar to me, right across from the Boston Public Library. How many times have I walked along Boylston Street?  Everything changed after that. We put on the radio to hear the news and reluctantly turned on the television even though we weren't sure we wanted visuals of this event.

One thing led to another. Her husband Whit came home, her daughter Lila came over and Sam called from Brooklyn. Are we all okay?  So many questions. So much sadness.  As the evening ended, we realized how lucky we were to have had that walk earlier. To have been in the presence of wild things before having to absorb such sad news.

Burn Pile

Does anyone love a fire as much as I do? We have burned a brush pile every year.  Spring comes along and our two acres are littered with branches that have been brought down by  wind (nature's way of getting rid of dead wood) and the weight of snow.  The brush pile has our Christmas tree on it, two wreathes and the results of last fall's rhodo pruning project.

Today was a good day to burn.  It was cool.  The ground was damp and there was no wind. David went to the fire station, got a burn permit (no burning after May 1), turned on the outside hoses, raked the oak leaves away from the pile and lit it.  There was a conflagration!

Over the years, the burn pile has been an important family event. The girls used to invite friends over and as the coals turned a deep orange at the end of the day, we would roast hot dogs and  marshmallows, pull up a bench and eat by the fire. Today Eliza is leading a trip in the canyons of Utah with eight high school students and is out of communication.  Carrie is in Pakistan leading a conference for women on Peace Building and is also pretty much out of communication.  So I sent Tim a text message and photo of the fire.  He was on his way home from surfing (brrrr) in York, Maine, taking a day off from his work, and stopped by on his way home.  He got caught up in the thrill of a fire as much as we did.  What a way to warm up after being in the Atlantic Ocean on a very cold day!  I can't begin to describe the intense heat of this fire!

Fire brings life and takes it away. It is such a powerful element.  We stand and stare at it, unable to avert our eyes. It is ever changing as wood and leaves turn to smoke.  As I write this at 9:30 pm it is still smoldering down there, warm and red under the grey ash. Pretty soon we will have to douse it with water.  The sizzle and hissing and dense smoke associated with this gets me every year.  How mean it feels to put out the glowing embers.

Crossing the Hudson River...on foot.

It was windy.  As we walked, my brother the historian told me tales of George Washington crossing this very river.  The American Revolution unfolding up and down the east coast.  And to think I thought it all happened in Morristown, New Jersey and Concord, Massachusetts.

As a kid traveling with my family across this bridge in the family car, I remember craning my neck to see The Little Red Light House at the base of the George Washington Bridge. I got a good glimpse this time, trying not to let the wind whip  my iphone out of my hands as I leaned over the railing to get a photo.

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge was a children's book I knew as a kid. Many others knew it too, so when it's usefulness as a lighthouse on the Hudson was over, it was slated to be demolished but the many readers who knew of this story fought back and saved this now historic lighthouse.   Amazing to learn that it once provided much needed light to steer boats away from a piece of land that jutted out from the shore.  Read the book by Hildegarde Swift for more info.

Thanks for the great visit, John!