Nautical Necessities

Sunday-

• Someday the weather will break and our neighbor will get this back in the water.  He has been busy these last few weeks, getting off the tarp and fixing everything he can.  A boat is a lot of work.  There’s a saying that “the second happiest day in your life is when you buy a boat.  The happiest is when you sell it.”
• Any hobby can consume us.  That is part of being fully human, and makes us feel more alive.  I have had my own passions and enthusiasms for which I am grateful.  There are far worse ways to direct your days than to dream of open waters and strange shores.  Nevertheless, each of us, blinded by inner certainty, finds it easy to ridicule whatever that other guy is doing.  I try, often unsuccessfully, to keep such an attitude under control.

Saturday-

• Another boat about to be lowered to join the recreational fleet.  In spring, under the right conditions of luminosity and humidity, lichen can glow with almost supernatural fluorescence.  Contrary to myth, it does not grow only on the north side of trees.  Around here, trying to navigate out of the forest using green on trunks would simply lead to frustrated madness and eventual starvation.
• I’m frankly surprised that neighbors _who frantically, expensively, noisily, and chemically attempt to turn their lawns into rugs without a leaf or dandelion blemish _ allow lichen to remain.  Surely there should be yard crews scraping and scrubbing the stuff off, maybe polishing the rough bits of bark as well.  Corporations like Ortho and Scotts are probably ramping up such an ad campaign already.

Friday-

• Work will have to be done, but sometimes a beautiful day is just a beautiful day, a lovely scene need not mean something more than itself.  Traditionally, perfect days are sunny and warm, but there is a bewitching softness in cool light fog and the luminous grey light that coats everything in silver shades.  Heavy air damps sounds of machine civilization, so that birdsong is more penetrating and remarkable.
• Even though I know all this, there is sometimes a difficulty in getting on all the necessary gear and leaving the warm bright house into dark dank soup.  Once I have made the transition, the experience can be wonderful.  Making that transition out of a comfort zone is the problem.  Make of it what deeper spiritual metaphors you will.

Thursday-

• Like visions from Ahab’s nightmares, shrink-wrapped leviathans congregate along docks and are beached in every square yard of available flat land.  Perhaps all that plastic, soon to be removed, will be recycled, but the extremely wealthy who play with these toys are not known for ecological awareness.  Admittedly, none of these are quite on the scale of Moby Dick, but some which dock later in the year would be well worth harpooning.  Needing to have something really big to prove worth has been a human characteristic since at least the time of the Pharaohs.
• More by necessity than virtue, I have rarely been so afflicted.  Lacking the means to own, I learned to enjoy simply by observing.  That gained me the additional delightful ability to regard a leaf floating along in the current with as much pleasure and enthusiasm as if I were roaring about swiftly in a mechanical monster.  Like all people with no real choice in the matter, I think of my own behavior as morally superior.

Wednesday-

• Twenty-odd degrees plus harsh wind _ no matter _ the calendar declares the buoys must go out.  From now on weekend mariners want to believe they could take their boats for a spin anytime they get the notion _ even though they will not really ever have the time nor inclination until nearly July.  A lot of maritime work must be done in nasty conditions, at least these guys will be able to motor over to Halesite and get some coffee and hot chocolate.
• Technology frees us from being slaves to the weather, which is on the whole a good thing.  But that also means that artificial requirements and inflexible calendars encourage us to ignore the weather altogether, except when it slaps us in the face with a big storm.  How often have I been trapped in an office during a fantastic spring morning, only to find that by the weekend dank chill driving rain trapped me inside my house!  Even now, I find myself too driven by schedules when I should be open to serendipity.

Tuesday-

• With typical Gallic overstatement, the French have just celebrated the “tide of the century” (which comes every eighteen years) and hordes of onlookers watched places such as Mt. St. Michel surrounded by higher and lower water than normal.  There are no forty foot differences here, but anyone tied to the bottom of one of those pilings would not survive the next cycle _ the depth varies more than it seems at first glance.
• Communities along this shoreline must pull floating docks up on the beach each fall to avoid the ice, and refloating them in the spring requires a keen coordination of high tides, acceptable weather, and weekend mornings when residents are available to help pull the ropes.  As the harbor also continually silts up _ well evident here in the mud flats _ mariners must be also aware of the times of day they are likely to run aground.  I love the varied panoramas presented by newly exposed seaweed or high waves slapping against bulkheads, a continuing drama without end, always the same, always different.

Monday-

• March, like February, has been exceptionally frigid and snow filled.  But as farmers always knew, there is no use waiting for weather to match mood.  Chores must be done in anticipation of seasons, regardless of the day.  So around here it is time for the docks to be repaired, or in this case rebuilt from scratch.  The activity is not unlike that of little European fishing communities in the old days, each boat club and neighborhood pitching in on common work for a while.  Up next, naturally, will be working on the boats themselves.
• I did a lot of this when younger, but like so many things I have had to give up some of it with age.  For me at least, age is not an illusion, and overdoing something can require a long recovery.  Pushing too hard can lead to long-term ill effects.   As a spectator, I enjoy the hard work of the younger crowd, and remember when I was involved more completely.  Then I walk on with nothing more to do but think and eventually write.  Not morally better, not worse, just as it is.

Welcome Equinox

Sunday-

• Spring usually accompanied by breezes and winds of various degrees, so reflections from a relatively calm bay surface are rare.  Reflections are easily ignored in the need to select what is important from a field of view _ after all, they will never interact with the “real” physical world.  In fact, they are more easily admired in pictures than in life, and used to be a staple for cardboard jigsaw puzzles.
• That is why I find that photographs tend to lie.  This house is not so near, when seen from my vantage point, without the use of the zoom.  This selected scene does not jump out of all the surroundings.  Just about everything in my field of view is cut out, and other senses are missing entirely.  Like much of what I focus on, I have created a beautiful lie.   

Saturday-

• Four inches of heavy white.  California and Brazil are dried out, the rest of the world is overheated, but around here it has been a winter like those of the mythic 1800’s.  All that has been missing is a horse and sleigh to compose a Currier and Ives print.
• A half-empty guy would declaim how much better things could be.  Being more the half-full type, I’m glad it’s not worse.  For example, if any of the trees had seriously leafed out yet this kind of storm could be a disaster.  It’s sometimes hard being Pollyanna in a Cassandra epoch, but at least it works for my daily life.

Friday-

• Crystalline air, brilliant sun, sharp wind.  The range of pure blues and soft browns is fabulous, each breath is delightfully clean.  Maybe the temperature does not quite meet expectations for the season, perhaps the season itself seems a bit nastier than normal, but on its own terms this day is another miracle.
• I hide too much behind polarized sunglasses, tinted windshields, or double-paned glass.  I stupidly miss the incredible clarity of color unless I consciously strip my eyes and spend long minutes trying to see.  I become so wrapped in remembering the past, fearing or anticipating the future, that I ignore the core existence in this moment that is what I really am.  My lament is all the more foolish by being entirely my own doing.  The world is always there in all its glory, but I must make the effort to engage.

Thursday-

• Deep freeze has returned, but there are local escapes such as this greenhouse at Oyster Bay Arboretum.  Wonderful in all seasons, it is especially (nicely) shocking in mid and late winter.  For anyone impatient with the pace of Mother Nature this is a fine rest stop along the way.
• Like everyone else, I take for granted the civilized miracles around me _ fresh flowers and food all the time, light and heat at the touch of a button, easy rapid travel to places like this, and on and on.  Ancient and not-so-long-ago kings, emperors, and potentates would have given large chunks of the kingdom for comforts we almost ignore.  Sometimes I reflect too much on nature _ which it is absolutely important to reverence _ while forgetting the daily conditions that allow me, especially at my age, to be able to enjoy it so completely.

Wednesday-

• The differences between early and late winter can be subtle indeed.  The only real clue in a picture like this is the color of the grass.  Of course, in actual experience, there are a few more indicators such as birds and, for that matter, people.  By the end of the winter, many folks and their dogs have adjusted to just waiting out the dark and cold days and taking advantage of any nice ones.  At onset of snow, it was all exciting and “invigorating.”
• Humans are instinctually pretty unaffected by season _ I am part of one of the most adaptive species that ever lived.  We don’t depend on weather sun or moon for mating or much of anything else.  A few are affected by seasonal disorders, and we all experience flu or pollen and other specific maladies often associated with a given set of months, but for the most part we get up, do what we must, and deal with whatever has been spread out before us.  My main difference is psychological _ what is spread before me here seems a harbinger of warmer and nicer mornings soon to arrive, simply because I know it is equinox in a couple of days.

Tuesday-

• No ballplaying here!  There have been reports that in various parts of the island geese and ducks are starving because the marshes froze over so long and so completely.  The huge groups here apparently decided to try the comforts of civilization.  While the surface is waterlogged and the subground solid ice, there will be no competition from the softball leagues that pop up like crocuses with the first warm days.
• Informally, it seems to me there are definitely a lot fewer birds around than there were back in January before all hell broke loose meteorologically.  Our backyard feeder attracts a fraction of the swarms it once had.  Yet there is plentiful birdsong and a few unfortunate victims still run into our windows each week.  These guys seem fat and happy enough.

Monday-

• In just about a week, harbor is practically ice out.  Still parts frozen over, but any boats that want to go somewhere have clear channels cleared by others, and certainly nobody would try to walk on the treacherous half-frozen slush that is left.  The hills have basically cleared back to brown, so each sunny day raises the ambient stored warmth.  Not too many new craft out yet, but that will change soon, and the buoys that usually wait for official spring will be settled into place in the next few weeks.  Activity keeps picking up, both natural and man-made.
• It’s hard to say which is worse _ a long hard winter with a sudden spring or a lingering one which teases forever.  I have no say in the matter, so I accept whatever comes along.  It certainly seems that this year the astronomical calendar is racing ahead of the seasonal one _ this could be a typical mid-February many years.  Maybe there will be a sudden jump and blossoming as April rolls around, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

 

 

Anticipated Thaw

Mon-

Huntington likes to retain a small-town atmosphere, some of which involves periodic parades.  This is the annual St. Patrick’s Day setup, a bit early so as not to conflict with other, later, grander ones around the region, particularly in New York City.  Children like the excitement, parents like the generational connections as they remember other parades they attended with their parents, only the motorists on the closed major highways are really upset.  Vendors (none of Irish descent) sell various green trinkets appropriate to the occasion.

Parades are one thing that has surprisingly not changed much since I first remember them.  There are still marching bands, decorated cars, walking functionaries.  People have a few beers and cheer whatever may come along.  Everyone is glad to celebrate almost anything as a break in what has been a dismal winter.  Thank fully,  these events have not yet been invaded by electronics other than too much amplification of the speeches of those who think they are important.  But that, of course, has also always been traditional.
Tue-

Icebound boats are rare, especially this late.  Usually, some enterprising clammer or other has cut a path out to the inlet, seeking riches while the supply to market is relatively restricted.  Either the ice is too thick this year, or the baymen are discouraged by the unrelenting cold.  This picture will be fully changed in one week, already the pack is breaking up from the end of the harbor, ducks and geese and swans flocking into the open waters.

It’s been nice flying in from somewhere else, having missed the daily drudgery, only catching the last glamour of what was hopefully the final snowstorm.  Not having had to endure the hardships _ like most tourists _ I am free to be enchanted by the beauty.  Since I am not planning to fly out again, I can confidently state that after only a week of this I am also about to cry “enough already!”
Wed-

Snowpack remains deep and hard to walk on, but dogs and their (nominal) masters have packed parts of the hill here at Coindre Hall into solid ice.  With warmer temperatures, the inlet is completely open, and the rest of the harbor covering is quickly receding.  From the picture alone, it could be late December or early January, but actually standing outside there is too much solar radiation and other subtle signs that this is late in the season.

Naturally, by now I am very anxious for any signs of spring.  The first green shoot appearing above the first cleared garden soil, the first hint of grass, the slightest swelling of tree buds.  Meanwhile, it is impossible to miss the increased birdcalls, although this year even their mating activities seem subdued.  Nature will take its course and all will unfold into glorious bloom, but meanwhile we try to fast forward and are simply frustrated.
Thu-

It’s a certainty these hydrangeas will not bloom again this year _ the buds have been blasted once again.  Now there is simply the question of whether the roots survived or not.  The same with the fig trees and many other ornamentals and invasives _ plant and animal.  The coldest month in almost a hundred years will cause some problems in what has been a long and slow extension of growing zone over the decades.

I keep hearing people exclaim that they are ready to move “I can’t take this any more.”  Fortunately, our society will permit them to do so without much aggravation.  But I wonder what they will say if hurricanes hit three years in a row, or heavy flooding, or deep drought.  How many times should we fly from the aggravations we know to those we know not of?  Perhaps it is generally better to stay put and adapt yourself as much as possible.  Easy for me to say _ I escaped the worst of it this time.
Fri-

Yes, this represents melting and breakup, but it is late and the ice floats are so thick that boats still cannot punch their way through here nor on any of the other near bays.  No icebreaker has been called, although I did see one frustrated clammer walking out to his boat and attempting to chop a passage out.  A few less hardy boats have been crushed and sunk, only their masts showing through the crust.

One day in the fifties, and the rest deep freeze at night, thirties during the day, and in spite of the best efforts of the sun, winter is taking its time.  A few areas have now opened on the ground where the drifts were lower, and in these I can sometimes see a green or red shoot.  A few birds have come back to the full feeder, but the numbers are less than a tenth of what they seemed to be in January.  Last year there were robins everywhere, and not a sighting so far.  But, on the bright side, no snow has fallen for a week now _ I guess that’s progress.
Sat-

Spring advances here and there, the natural world begin to stir to its mysterious rhythms of duration of daylight, warmth, and internal clock.  High up, the pussy will buds are swelling red, soon to open into soft grey.  Where snow has melted back, there are leftover blades of greenish grass.  I imagine that could I peer beneath the waters alongside me, I would be amazed at the activity.  Lichen is glowing brightly whenever the frequent rains arrive.  If I dared to walk through the still deeply-piled woods and perhaps dig a bit, I would surely find fruiting moss and skunk flowers in bloom.

The trick, I find, is not to keep waiting and hoping for a perfect day, with brilliant sun and no wind and warm air and life just so, but to start by assuming each day is perfect and then find reasons that it is so.  What is, just is, and that is the wonderful and amazing world we are privileged to inhabit for a while. 
Sun-

 

Fog can be interesting not just for its blurring effects but for the many metaphors our minds manufacture concerning it.  Somehow it can come to represent the future, or the state of our knowledge, or the meaning of our lives.  Once in a while it seems almost evil, hiding what might be threats.  Other times it seems a soft cocoon against the harshness of the outside world.

Fog is also prevalent as seasons and weather patterns change, when warm and cold collide, one way or another.  I find it a useful marker of changes to come, a separation from what was to what will be.  That is my own mind’s metaphor, of course.  One of the deeper questions I can ask about life is whether the fog itself is more real than my perception of it.

 

 

 

Flash Frozen

Mon-

“Relax, you’re here!” goes a local slogan, and “Just another day in paradise.”  Truly the weather has been gorgeous, the green vegetation relaxing, the flowers beautiful.  Logical thinking and planning is banished as the mind concentrates on the possible patterns of randomly breaking surf, the interesting jiggles of various lumps of flesh, the happy laughter of folks of all ages.  The biggest question each day is “what will we eat for dinner?” and the greatest plans involve avoiding painful sunburn or hangover tomorrow.

Shallow Randian conservatives fear such wallowing in lethargy, believing people must be lashed to do great things with striving driven by harsh necessity.  Vacation provides a necessary antidote proving we are also pure animals, with happinesses, experiences, and appreciations that are incomprehensible to words and logic and plans.
Tue-

I sat on the warm balcony and watched the expected sun rise, through clouds, as we prepare to return home tonight.  Tomorrow there will be no balcony, no warm breeze, but certainly a sunrise.  Our lives are filled with expectations we scarcely notice _ the sun will come up, the airplane will get us home, the house will be fine, electricity will be on.  For that matter, an expectation that I will wake up tomorrow to deal with a driveway that has apparently been covered by a developing glacier since we left.

It has been nice, for a while, to let go of the expectations and plans and worries and just take each moment as if there were no other, wasting time watching the water go nowhere, sifting sand through idle fingers.  It will, I suspect, be equally nice to start doing what has to be done once more, with expectation and outcome and consequence.  All part of the balance of things.  Right now, we have a few hours to enjoy so we shall do so.
Tue-

Jets take us thousands of miles in hours, from one climate to another.  Barefoot in the sandy shore in the morning, home to snowbound landscape at midnight, looks like a foot of heavy cover. 

I marvel at the convenience of energy all around and used promiscuously _ the jet, the lights of Ft. Lauderdale under us as we left, the car getting us back from the airport on plowed roads, the house warm and well lit.  I’m too soft to survive as an aborigine, too old to have made it as an Iroquois in this landscape some five hundred years ago, and I am grateful every time I accept the bounty of modern convenience.  I know our usage of resources has consequences, all profound, some unimaginably horrid, but can I stop?  Would I even want to?  And, if I did, what would it accomplish beyond making my life experience immediately miserable?

Wed-

Settled in and with some effort back to normal, when we are hit with another storm.  Beautiful this morning, fresh white on branches.  No doubt more magical to those who have been away from it all for a month.

Only last year did I give in and get a snowblower, reasoning that hiring a guy to plow the driveway had changed economics significantly _ at today’s rates three heavy snowfalls pay for my machine.  I knew I could no longer do it by hand,  the back had begun to hurt a little too much afterward, and massive unusual exercise could become scary itself.  So I join in my little bit of making our neighborhood unlivably noisy.  Guilty _ I actually enjoy using my new toy.
Fri-

Snow just keeps coming _ although a respite is promised soon.  Those who have lived through a month of this are very very tired of it.  The novelty of fresh white on everything can wear off pretty quickly, especially if it makes doing everything else more involved and difficult.  Yes, it’s beautiful, but….

I’m amazed at my adaptability.  Three days ago it seemed normal to watch the sun come up as I sat in pajamas on an outside balcony,  to walk a sandy shore barefoot, to sweat on hot palm-lined streets.  Yesterday seemed normal also as I cleared the driveway of its seven new inches, or this morning as I wandered in down parka to get the morning paper.  It can be almost frightening to become aware of the massive changes I take for granted, day by day and over the years.
Sat-

With the coldest February since 1934, the harbor has frozen significantly.  Old timers insist it is still less solidly blocked then when they were young _ probably the ocean water is much warmer now.  Compared to recent winters, however, this is pretty unusual.

The sun shines brightly now, melting ice even when the temperature is in the teens.  A slight change in wind patterns and the great thaw begins.  Some of spring should be pretty rapid this year _ my mind is certainly ready for it.  Already I anticipate the Andromeda, snowbells, and red leaf shoots.  Running a bit too far into the future, but equinox is only a few weeks off.
Sun-

Sunset and sunrise occur everywhere regardless of climate or season.  If not too obscured, they are always beautiful, even in Siberia or the Sahara, if there is anyone to see (whether anyone will notice is a different matter.)  Cosmic realities are far beyond the trivial worries of whether it is cold or warm.

As all philosophers eventually discover, cosmic truth has little to do with individual daily life.  Whether it is warm or cold does in fact matter a great deal to me, and a lot of other “minor” things too, such as if I am decently fed and happy.  We may try to transcend this mortal shell, but mortal fragile shell it remains, and it reminds us constantly.  I try to remember to pause and appreciate sunset, for it is good to do so, but not at the expense of ignoring the everyday mundane world that I inhabit each moment.