Lessons at the Full Moon
Posted: 04/28/2010 Filed under: Favorites, Mojave, Photography, Stories, Thoughts | Tags: California, gratitude, Kelso Dunes, lessons, Mojave, Mojave Desert, Mojave National Preserve, teachers 5 Comments »
Highest ridge of the Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve, San Bernardino Co., California, USA. Night hiking without a light; full moon bright as dawn.
12 April 2006.
We all have lessons to learn.
In some cases, years pass between the time a lesson is given and the time it is taken to heart.
The spring this photo was taken, lessons in the following presented themselves to me:
- How sharing yourself can be wise, and how holding back can sometimes be wiser.
- How self-possession can bring people near to you, and how neediness can drive them away.
- How happiness comes when you embrace life, and how sadness stays when you sit on its sidelines.
- How Nature can make you whole, and how Modern Living can take you apart.
Only in the intervening years did these lessons sink in, reiterated by new teachers.
For each of the lessons, I am grateful.
To the author of that first springtime primer, I say, “Thank you.”
The older I get, the longer the list of people to which I owe such thanks.
Almost all of them: the folks who made me uncomfortable, the folks who questioned me, the folks who – wittingly or unwittingly – challenged me to take a hard look at myself, my actions, and my true motives: the way I really was rather than the way I thought I was.
The folks who took my cherished and carefully protected view of myself and tested it for verity.
Always, these people are our best teachers. And to them, we become grateful.
In due time, of course. In due time.
* * *
Enjoy the full moon tonight, everyone.
Vista, Interrupted
Posted: 04/23/2010 Filed under: Favorites, Mojave, Nature, Photography, Science, Stories | Tags: BLM, BrightSource, California, development, heartbreaking, Ivanpah, Ivanpah Dry Lake, microbiotic crust, Mojave, Mojave Desert, Mojave National Preserve, Nevada, New York Mountains, New York Peak, Primm, San Bernardino County, solar, solar development, solar installation, solar power 23 Comments »
New York Peak (7,533 ft), New York Mountains, San Bernardino Co., California, USA.
23 April 2006.
New York Peak: the first summit I ever reached without a trail.
The East Mojave view that spreads out below it is breathtaking. California to the west, Nevada to the east. Sun and sky. Bajadas and mountains. Dunes and dry lakebeds. Creosote and cactus.
Nearly unspoiled, except for the black snake of I-15 and the gaudy spectacle that is Stateline Primm.
Nearly unspoiled, that is, until later this year, when one of the largest solar installations in the world is erected near Ivanpah Dry Lake.
I am in complete support of solar development in wise places: already-degraded lands near the communities that will use the power.
But I am NOT in support of solar development on remote, vital BLM land — habitat of an endangered species, the desert tortoise — chosen for its relative lack of red tape rather than for the long-term sensibility and sustainability of its location.
Deserts are old places. But that does not make them dead places. Deserts are not wastelands. In the desert, the ground is alive. Life — plants, animals, insects — is everywhere, if you only look for it. Deserts persist on a time scale different from the rest of the world. They grow slowly. They recover slowly, if given a chance.
But from this development, that land will not recover.
The next time I climb that peak, oh, how different the view will be.
It breaks my heart.
America, let’s remember: these lands are our lands.
Why are we letting corporations plunder them for profit, when viable alternatives lie elsewhere?
Old Lilacs
Posted: 04/20/2010 Filed under: Nature, Photography, Poetry, Stories | Tags: April, Delights and Shadows, Lilac Lane, lilacs, May, Old Lilacs, swallowtail, Ted Kooser 5 Comments »
In college, I lived on Lilac Lane, a road true to its name. By early May, the perfume of lilacs wafted in through every open window. Oh! How wonderful it was.
Here in Virginia, the lilacs have bloomed (the swallowtails loved them!) and are now fading, but back home and further north, they are still quietly gathering their strength.
Old Lilacs
Through early April cold,
these thin gray horses
have come near the house
as to a fence, and lean there
hungry for summer,
nodding their heads
with a nickering of twigs.
Their long legs are dusty
from standing for months
in winter’s stall, and their eyes
are like a cloudy sky
seen through bare branches
They are waiting for May
to come up from the barn
with her overalls pockets
stuffed with the fodder
of green. In a month
they will be slow and heavy,
their little snorts so sweet
you’ll want to stand
among them, breathing.
- Ted Kooser, from Delights & Shadows (2004)
Dissertation Milestone
Posted: 04/19/2010 Filed under: Academia, Photography, Stories, Work | Tags: 6 Steps to Completing Your Dissertation, AAAS, albatross, data entry, distractions, finally finishing, finishing data entry, hallelujah, internet, perfectionism, procrastination 10 Comments »
You might not recognize it, but this is what the end of six years of procrastination looks like.
Today, I finished a huge block of data entry that had been on my permanent to-do list since 2004.
(Remember when I wrote about the link between procrastination and perfectionism? Yeah. I’m a perfectionist-in-recovery these days.)
There’s still much to be done with and to these data, but the data entry part — which, for very complicated reasons, was the most difficult hurdle for me — is complete.
Hallelujah!
Thanks are due both to this coffee shop and also to my forgotten laptop power cord, the combination of which taught me (through repeated lessons on several occasions) that the only way I’m likely to finish this PhD is to get myself out of the house and away from an internet connection.
The coffee shop is free of the distractions of home, and without a power cord, I cannot get on the shop’s wireless internet because doing so drains my old laptop’s battery too quickly. No internet equals no e-mail checking, no blog reading, and no following my random, stream-of-consciousness thoughts through the interwebs.
For example: Working working working working. Do-de-do. Then, suddenly: “Hmmm… That plant’s genus name sounds kind of like that Greek goddess. What was her story again?” Googling. Distracted by Greek mythology… Fifteen minutes later: “Well, that was edifying. Kind of. Now, where was I?”
Yeah, the internet. A dangerous, dangerous thing for those of us in the “Drudgery” steps of this brilliant graphic from this AAAS T-shirt (thanks, again, mcmurph, for discovering The Six Steps):
In Memoriam: GK on the Dunes
Posted: 04/12/2010 Filed under: Favorites, Photography, Stories | Tags: accident, death, Harley, Harley Davidson, highway, highway accident, in memoriam, It Involves You, Kelso Dunes, Mojave, Mojave National Preserve, motorcycle, motorcycle awareness, motorcycles, Share the Road with Motorcycles, stepdad, stepfather 8 Comments »
Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve, San Bernardino Co., California, USA
12 April 2006
My family had four parental cornerstones.
This man, my stepfather, was one of them.
He was not a perfect man, but he sure came close. He was the kind of person who made the world a good place to be. He grew up a farm kid and possessed the work ethic, sensibility, and useful practical skills that type of upbringing often confers. He was patient. He was kind. He was forgiving of mistakes. He gave others the benefit of the doubt. He trusted. He was curious. He was smart. He was generous with his time and talent, volunteering them wherever they were needed. He was modest. He listened. He was more interested in hearing about your thoughts than he was in telling you all about his own. He made people feel good about themselves and the work that they were doing. He loved his family, home life, woodworking, blacksmithing, the sound of old country tunes, the making of bluegrass music, Lewis and Clark, red wine, and good cigars.
He also loved motorcycles (a common devotion in my family). He was the most careful rider I’ve ever known — no traffic law was too small to follow to the letter.
Seven months after this photo was taken, riding home on a bright autumn afternoon, he was killed on the highway on his Harley by a teenage driver who, distracted by friends in the cabin, did not look for traffic before pulling his truck out onto the road.
This photo of my stepdad on the dunes, pointing into the light — taken four years ago today, on the one trip he and my mom could make to visit me in the Mojave — appeared on the cover of the program for his memorial service.
When you are driving, please, don’t text. It is more dangerous, even, than driving drunk.
Please, don’t talk on the phone.
Please, don’t watch movies or television.
Please, don’t goof with your passengers.
Please, pay attention.
Please, be mindful.
Please, be alert to your surroundings.
Please, watch for motorcycles.
If you feel so inclined, check out the website of It Involves You, the foundation whose motorcycle awareness campaign we extended to our hometown with my stepfather’s memorial fund.
And, if it appeals, consider becoming a fan of one of the motorcycle awareness groups on Facebook. I am partial to this one, Share the Road with Motorcycles, founded by my stepbrother.
Springtime is prime motorcycle weather. Keep your eyes open, and be safe out there, everybody!
Chairs Reborn
Posted: 04/11/2010 Filed under: Favorites, Photography, Stories | Tags: chairs, DIY, family history, generations, passing down, reupholster, reupholster chairs, table 6 Comments »
These chairs have been reborn many times over.
Their origins we do not know. But we DO know that in the 1940s, as my grandparents moved into their first home, they bought the six chairs and matching table — stained a dark mahogany then — at a used furniture shop in Illinois.
For my mother and her siblings, the table and chairs were the setting of many a family meal, from childhood through adolescence. At some point in the 1950s, when faux antiquing experienced a surge in popularity (as it does now and then), my grandfather decided to treat the set to a coat of white paint overlain with green streaking. Though this particular look was not universally loved by all family members, the dining set nonetheless sported it until the 1970s, when my grandparents passed the table and chairs on to my mother (their eldest) and my father as they moved into their first rental house.
After a number of years, when my mother could no longer stand the white-and-green paint, she stripped it all away and refinished the chairs, allowing the beauty of the wood beneath to again shine through. My father collaborated with her on new seat boards and upholstery. For me and my siblings — as had been the case for my mother and hers — the table and chairs became the setting of many a family meal, as well as art projects and homework sessions.
When my parents divorced, Read the rest of this entry »
Amaryllis Rescue
Posted: 04/09/2010 Filed under: Photography, Stories | Tags: amaryllis, bulb, bulb kit, neglect, pot, rescue 4 Comments »
Two Decembers ago, Matt and I were at a big box store, rummaging through the after-Christmas offerings (oh, how we do love a deal), when we saw a sight that plucked at my botanist heartstrings: shelf after shelf of forlorn amaryllis bulb kits, struggling toward life with varying degrees of success.
Their sad, pale, sunlight-deprived leaf tips poked through cracks in the packaging, reaching toward the overhead fluorescents. Their straggly roots peeked out too, searching for soil that was not there.
We rescued five of the sorriest kits from the box store’s neglect, took them home, and potted them up. Weeks later, we were treated to gorgeous red, white, and pink blooms — a midwinter pick-me-up, for sure.
When the amaryllis were nothing but bulbs and leaves again, we followed all the care instructions to ensure they’d bloom the next season — EXCEPT, that is, the VERY IMPORTANT instruction to remember that you have pots of amaryllis sitting in the garage that will need to be put in a warm, sunny place and watered 8 weeks before you want them to bloom!
Fortunately, a fit of spring garage cleaning reminded us of their existence. We were relieved to see green leaf tips emerging from the bulb tops, despite the bulbs’ parched and shady location under our Weber grill.
Amaryllis, apparently, have a strong will to live.
Thus, after finding them in much the same state we had originally, we rescued them from OUR neglect. Out onto back porch they went — red and white pots staggered up the back porch steps like little ceramic sentinels.
If they do decide to flower — and not just leaf out — this year, we’ll have amaryllis in June rather than December. But amaryllis any time of year are just fine with us!
Pollen, Pollen Everywhere
Posted: 04/07/2010 Filed under: Nature, Photography, Stories | Tags: allergies, conifer, conifers, headache, lake, Lake Pasbehegh, maple, maples, pollen, sinuses, Virginia, Williamsburg, wind-pollination Leave a comment »
Some deciduous trees, like maples, rely not on bees or beetles for pollination, but on wind. These tree species make flowers before they sprout leaves, so that the pollen is unimpeded by greenery as the breeze blows it to a ready-and-willing female flower some distance away. (Pollen, for those who haven’t botanized in a while, contains the trees’ sperm.) Conifers like pines also rely on wind pollination — they don’t technically make flowers, but the sperm-distribution technique is the same. And let me tell you, maples and pines are gettin’ busy these days!
The human residents of our town are now bystanders in these mating rituals. We walk about in a hazy cloud of pollen. It coats our vehicles; it sifts in through our open windows, filming across every surface in the house; it wreaks havoc on our sinuses.
It floats on the surface of every open body of water, alighting on algae and detritus. Around the edges of our lake, it forms a grainy yellow ring. At the inlet, it forms a thick layer (above).
Yesterday, a combination of warm temperatures (it’s been in the 90s!), dehydration, and pollen brought me a pretty incredible headache that took me to bed rather than to the keyboard to post. Glad to be back today!
Sprouting Leaves and Other Glories
Posted: 04/05/2010 Filed under: Photography, Stories | Tags: Canada geese, deer, First Colony, flowers, geese, Greensprings, Greensprings Greenway, Greensprings interpretive Trail, leaves, new buds, pigmentation, pigmentation anomaly, season, seasonal change, snail, spring, tree knot, Virginia, white-tailed deer, Williamsburg 1 Comment »
Over the weekend, the camera was busy. The fruits of its labor are now up on Flickr, starting right after yesterday’s catkins: sprouting leaves, fresh flowers, beautiful bark, a tree knot that looks just like a snail’s face (do you agree?), log-hopping Canada geese, and perhaps our strangest finding: a white-tailed deer that looks more like a pinto than a deer, due to a pigmentation anomaly.
For months out on the walking trail, we’d heard murmurs of the deer’s existence. Finally, yesterday, we spotted it! We felt like we’d seen the Loch Ness Monster, or a Yeti. Wild!
