Holiday Cheers

Mon-

What?  This hardly looks cheerful.  Rain (not snow this year) due any second, no sign of happy shoppers, just another drab day in an increasingly drab season.  Solstice passed, we assume the sun is making his way back, but it will be a long journey until spring.  Meanwhile, all our instincts are to burrow in somewhere for the rest of the winter.

These are the times when I must force myself outdoors, to follow the normal routines of walking about, enjoying the few bird calls that are there, watching the play of light and feeling the grace of the breeze.  If I dress appropriately, the world is still an immense playground.  And, of course, there is the added bonus of gatherings of friends and family when I return, warming my soul while my fingers and nose catch up.
Tue-

I drone on about the subtle harmonies of browns when it suits my purposes, trying to contrast how I feel now with my emotions in summer.  But conifers are here in profusion, and their green needles quietly insist I am mistaken.  The white sand, the grey sky, the blue water all join the chorus.  And that is without getting into the brash colorful chatter of manmade objects no matter where I look.  My carefully constructed observations are, inevitably, founded on falsely narrowed perceptions.

The world is too infinitely diverse to describe.  Much of what we could know, we never do.  I suspect there is even more that we are unable to comprehend.  But even in that narrow band of what we think we do know, based on what we think we do perceive, our limitations at any given moment are only allowing us a frozen impression of what our mercurial minds will eventually realize as they slide along and about.  Consciousness is a miraculous gift, reborn each moment, an appropriate thought for these days of solar renewal.
Wed-

Suspended moment, almost unformed, misty and cool and waiting for rain or clearing or something besides the transience of suspended droplets.  Waiting, as it were, for birth, which is really the theme of this season.  The birth of a new year, or the return of the sun, or the religious encapsulation of Christianity.

It is appropriate to have a celebration of being born, for that is hope and future and genetic or cultural continuation.  Bring out all the bright lights, exchange gifts, devour feasts.  The old will soon enough have their day of reckoning, but for now it is all about the bright promise of what will be, and being grateful for what there is.

Thu-

Ah, Christmas skies clear with the dawn.  Lovely symbolism.  Except, like many things, this clearing comes from an unexpected direction.  The east, where the sun is presumably rising, is covered in thick dark clouds, and the light is all from the west.  How silly we often are, to think we know where to look into the future.

I insert here the standard prayer for peace on earth and goodwill for all.  Optimistically, I think that still has a chance to happen, and that after our difficult cultural transitions there may yet be a golden age for all.  It’s a good dream to have.
Fri-

Very mild holiday week _ no snow, in the fifties, verdant lawns.  When I escape the rush, there are quiet unfrequented places in the woods, such as this, where no delivery truck nor yard crew roams.  That may all change in a few years, as the drones frequently given as presents yesterday become common everywhere.  The world continues to change in unexpected ways.

All I can do is be grateful for having lived now, for living now, for still having enough of the wonder of a child to appreciate my existence.  As I grow older, I realize that has been greatest gift of all, and no mere bauble from the mall can produce nearly such happiness.
Sat-

Children’s happy laughter and loud adult conversations have died down, overwhelming anxiety gives way to calm.  Perhaps after New Year’s there will be resignation, perhaps anticipation of all that is to come, but for now it is enough to relax and forget about what was and may be.

Normal life gradually returns as do all the visitors.  The sun continues to rise and set, the ducks and geese swim in the cool, and media inform us of new storms on the horizon.  I am simply happy to look out and be grateful for everything.

  

 

 

  

Solstice Stops By

Mon-

Harbor activities wrap up rapidly now.  The weather has been moderately bad, but normal.  Everyone knows at any given time, it could become horrible for quite a while.  So the boats that are going ashore have gone ashore, and their moorings are now being picked up and stashed in parking lots.  That’s what this little work craft is doing _ in fact, in another week it is likely the docks themselves will no longer be available.

Mornings don’t seem all that different _ well, colder, of course _ but noon sunlight is never all that brilliant, and the outside workday comes to an end surprisingly fast.  Most of the folks who are putting up holiday lights have them blazing by the time the sun goes down.  Judging by the frantic traffic, most of those same people can hardly spare a glance to notice any of this, immersed as they are in last minute necessary tasks.
Tue-

Remove the possible snow, eliminate the fancy flashing lights and eccentric lawn decorations, turn a back on the constant auto traffic and the season has a feeling of free emptiness and quiet.  The birds are often quite hushed, except for a shriek of alarm here or there.  When the wind does blow, its echoes are subdued with no leaves to disturb.  The eye rests on seascapes free of human activity, not even implied by boats bobbing patiently awaiting use.   Docks are tied down, expecting the worst, but the worst is a while off yet.

It’s a good time to reflect on the rhythms of the universe, the tides of my life, and the majesty of each day I am permitted to experience.  Some, apparently, regard such vistas and ask “is that all there is?” seeking a secret logical meaning or imagining great hidden treasures in an inconceivable eternity.  I know I know nothing, but “all there is” in my world and life is infinitely more than I can possibly appreciate properly.
Wed-

A mild spell has everyone who can do so out walking.  Mist softens the harsh outlines of bare branches.  Sienna, ocre, umber soften to grey in the distance, while the muted greens of remaining grass accent the composition.  The same moisture mutes the various constant noises from last minute yard clean-up and road crews getting the pavement ready for the worst.

In a week, there will be jolly festivities, enforced merriment, tense truces in family relations, and the constant requirements of following tradition.  A week after that, everyone will take stock of themselves,  shake off the disappointments of the last year, make resolutions for the new, and gird themselves to get back to “normal.”  Then the decorations come down, cold settles in for good, snow and slush and ice rule the grounds, and I return to life simply being. 

Thu-

Nice effects from the sun low in the sky even near noon.  Without any instrumental change in the temperature reading, simply having the sun and no wind this morning felt warm and fine, no direct sun and a brisk breeze this afternoon feels raw and cuts deeply.  No matter how bleak it may seem, however, the beauty of everything is undeniable.

Day after day, paragraph after paragraph, I drone on and on about beauty and wonder.  Do I not realize there is evil in the world, that people are hungry and children die and pollution pours into the seas?  Am I ignorant of the thousand and one calamities that surround us all?  Mea culpa.  All I know, shallow as I may, is that at my time in life, in my situation,  moments in the world are magical and glorious and worthy of praise, and perhaps that is what I must add to the noisy bedlam.
Fri-

Water is chilling down fast, although it looks the same as always _ I can tell because my warmth is ripped by the steady northeast wind blowing across the empty expanse.  The barnacles on the pilings and the shellfish unseen go on with their normal lives.  Fish _ well, I don’t actually know any of their cycles except for the bluefish, all gone out to deep sea.

I could read up on all this, try to become a naturalist, relearn all the names of the plants and trees and shells and other things I once knew, be amazed by studies and meditations others have produced.  But the tattered remains of my memory are enough for now.  They add to my enjoyment and pleasure, without intruding or overwhelming the experience, and that for this afternoon is exactly where I want to be.
Sat-

Monochrome only slightly broken by the crane, done working for five or six months.  Boatyard activity has slowed considerably now _ well, actually the action moves indoors and out of sight.  Even the yard crews have scraped the last of the leaves off every surface and rarely visit.  Once again, sound is dominated by wind, birds, and an occasional jet plane or siren.  Not exactly ever quiet, but about as much so as it gets until a deep fresh snowfall.

Contrary to expectation, such days can cheer me up.  There is a certain perverse streak in looking at a monotonous landscape settled in depressing chill and just going with the mood.  Nothing to be done, it is all futile, we are lost.  OK, that means it is truly a holiday _ I have no responsibilities, no hopes, no urgent must-be-dones.  Adjust and enjoy the world as it is.
Sun-

At least six geese, more swans and ducks, but as far as I can tell no golden rings.  This avian gathering in a sheltered cove goes on all winter,  out of the wind and with plentiful fresh water seeping through the sand from the hillside.  The worse the weather, the bigger the crowd. 

You would say that other creatures hardly notice solstice, but of course that is wrong.  Now that they have dealt with migration instinct anxieties, if any, males are already preoccupied with mating in the coming spring.  It’s fun to watch the chasing and pairing.  Humans like to feel they have a monopoly on emotions, and also like to believe they have tamed their more primitive behaviors, but some of the actions in this area closely match the plots of many of our soap-opera entertainments.

  

 

 

  

Stormy Weather

Mon-

Harsh blue stretching almost uninterrupted by watercraft, except for the Harbor Master boat which has to remain available all winter even if it eventually gets icebound.  This year the bets seem to be on heavy freeze and nasty storms.  Today is below thirty, and a northeaster is due tomorrow, so I suppose the early season is reinforcing those predictions.

Otherwise, of course, nobody notices.  Up the hill from this tranquil scene, hundreds of kids are standing outside the Halesite Fire Station with their parents waiting for Santa Claus.  No matter how bad the snow wind and rain the malls and stores will be open all week.  Schools and businesses might as well be underground or on a spaceship.  All in all, stormy weather is not what it used to be, hardly cause for concern, surely never life and death, and rarely even an inconvenience.  That is, no doubt, a good thing. 
Tue-

As usual, these pictures run one day prior, when I was walking after my writing routines.  It was twenty five degrees with a raw east wind off the not so distant ocean that cut to the bone and made it feel much colder.  One of my acquaintances, who was stationed in Alaska in the sixties, claims that this cold is worse than anything he experienced at forty below out there.  Of course, he was a lot younger then, and memories tend to blur with the years.  On the other hand, that wind cuts quite bitterly.

Slate grey is in any case the color of the week.  Today it is pouring, with more to come, and you almost need a miner’s headlamp to venture outside.  Here the sea almost seems brighter than the sky.  One clamming boat, whose owner works in all weather to bring in a fresh harvest around the holidays, when prices are often at their best.  Tough way to make a living, lest we forget how just about everyone used to have to live _ and without the warmth and light to come home to that we now assume is our right.
Wed-

No walk in the rain, flooding highways and setting records, so just fall back on an older picture.  Is this dishonest?  Not showing what should be a moderately current photograph with some little idea inspired by it?  I don’t know.

As I get older rigid categories have relaxed a bit in my mind.  I no longer see nature and humans as quite so distinct, nor good and evil, nor truth and reality.  Sometimes the world seems so complicated as to leave me completely confused and helpless.  Why, then, should I find that the same realizations also provide hope and a possible path to wisdom?

Thu-

Swans ignore or do not notice a cold freezing drizzle that dims everything in the distance.  I’m always amazed at what a change of a mere twenty or thirty degrees Fahrenheit can do for our perception of the world.  Suddenly, in weather like this, it seems hostile and distant.

Nevertheless and regardless of my mood, everything is beautiful beyond description.  That is a decent thought to begin each day, as the shrill worries of fragile civilization intrude endlessly. 

Fri-

 

Light snow dusting covers the kayak racks at one of the private neighborhood beaches.  The entire week has been cold, dark, and wet, with an interesting surprise each morning for anyone who must go outdoors.  The overall mood is little helped by the late sunrise and early sunset, if there were a sunset ever to be seen behind the clouds.

Yet I walk along with a smile, quite happily, greeting other regulars out to get a breath of fresh air, or walk their dog, or just enjoy the world.  Most of the crowds who were around for a while trying to work off their Thanksgiving pounds have vanished for a while, although they will surely reappear with new year’s resolutions for a couple of days eventually.  Dressed adequately, this is as rewarding a set of moments as any other, and certainly much more of an experience than trying to understand the world through colored LED screens.
Sat-

Reeds already looking a little bedraggled dark against the sky.  Noticed the sun is rising far south this week _ of course.  It can be a strain to try to notice stuff all the time.   I am grateful I now have the time to do so.

There are many philosophies of life aggressively floating about these days _ purpose-driven or hedonistic or wealth-related.   The “good life” has lots of definitions.  Our consciousness and experience is insanely complex: no single philosophy fits us at all times, in all situations, for each of our ages. But just as once in a while I now like to break out of my relaxed mellow vacuousness and achieve some goal, so back when I was always driven to accomplish tasks I fortunately found moments to breathe in the beauty of my existence. 
Sun-

Caumsett State Park is busy even after a snowstorm in deep winter, but there is room off the beaten path.  Here on the trails through the woods, the leaves are all down and in place _ without the noisy help of yard crews and blowers and rakes and vacuums.   The browns and blue of the sky are relaxing and integrate the cycle of the year with the rest of our memories.   A few green briars or yellow leaves stubbornly resist the elements.

These trees, of course, are all new new growth.  The ancient forest primeval was cut down in the 1700s by the first enterprising settler here, who sold the logs to Europe and the Indies.  It grew back. The jazz age millionaire who wanted a farm leveled it once again.  So little here is even a hundred years old.  And yet, it is woodland, it is thick, and unless someone cuts it down yet again (or the oceans rise to cover these hills) it will be thick primeval forest once again.

  

 

 

 

  

Edged Anticipation

Mon-

Sticklers for detail remind us that true winter does not arrive for three more weeks, but for most people in this area, winter begins with December as surely as March begins spring.  Although there has been cold, snow, and ice, it has all felt temporary, and is often followed by pleasant days in the fifties.  Suddenly, we are ready for the real stuff _ weeks of freeze, never-melting slush, dangerous storms always on the horizon.  And, of course, the almost unconscious awareness of less and less sunlight day by day.

Yet by the same token, the worst tends to take its time.  We expect deep blizzards, horrible wind chills, all the nastiness that Christmas cards try to sentimentalize.  Like the holiday itself, they often take time materializing, and we are left in edgy anticipation.   I try to shake off this lassitude and enjoy the experience of each day as fully as I do in midsummer _ one of the hardest tricks, I admit, that I normally attempt.
Tue-

The white humps above the dock are boats wrapped in plastic.  I suspect future generations will view such profligate waste of unrenewable oil with horror, but who knows?  Anyway, I think it is kind of stupid _ I wouldn’t mind if they could somehow save the stuff, but this is all a kind of one-use shrink wrap that they mold to the boats with hair dryers on steroids.  In the spring it all heads to the landfill.

Part of the human landscape of this century.  Not the worst of what the civilization does, by far, but indicative of the excesses we all entertain.  Anyway, at least, for the moment, the breeze seems fresh, the sky is lovely, and the trees hold their own against the upcreep of the mean tide level.  The sand more clearly represents the destiny of everything.
Wed-

Season of subtle brown has arrived.  Many of the weeds and reeds and grasses are simply drained of other colors, although the trees reveal branches now that only a few leaves remain.  The storms have not yet battered anything upright, the winds have not yet torn the ever more fragile remnants of summer foliage, snows have not flattened the fields.  Very lovely, if I concentrate and relax and ignore the raw chill.

Some might claim I could leach out all the color, turn this into a black and white shot, then print in sepia and it would be the same.  Those same would say this is, within limits, an accurate picture of being there.  But neither statement is true.  A photograph is not an experience _ like any art it is most successful if it recalls an experience, and possibly challenges our memory of that moment.
Thu-

Beginning a period of dreary rain with occasional cold breaks of brilliant sun.  Everyone just happily chortles “lucky it’s not all snow.”  In some ways, scenes like this can be taken as grim, depressing and extended to terrible melancholy about fate and life.  On the other hand, the mellow merged tones are kind of soothing and non threatening, we can relax and just let the world go on its way. 

The hardest part of December is adjustment.  Once I have accepted the deeper cold and dressed well for the biting wind, it is invigorating.  But until my body and soul have accepted the switch as the “new normal” I find I can resent it as much as the next guy.  That insolence in the face of reality is also part of being fully human.
Fri-

Other surrounding waters _ such as these at Cold Spring Harbor _ have also emptied of craft, leaving the increasingly jagged waves to flocks of ducks ready to overwinter.  Perhaps because of the lack of other color, the blues of sky and sea seem more vibrant this month, the few notes of color such as the boat more memorable.  I suppose the tones are much influenced, also, by how low in the southern sky the sun remains even at midday.

Inevitably, but swiftly, nature rushes into cold and snow.  This week is easy, relatively warm, free of ice, only a bit removed from lovely outside weather.  Yet it seems part of what is coming, when even standing here on this dock _ even getting to this dock _ will be an exercise in will and fortitude (well, what I call will and fortitude in these tranquil and easy times.)  Today, I luxuriate in the feeling of time with no regrets at its passage.
Sat-

Strong raw East wind off the ocean, twenty miles away.  Darkness in the morning only slightly lifting through the overcast some days, in any case dusk falling by four in the afternoon.  Holiday lights everywhere, of course, as we seek to make the solstice transition a festival. 

Winter solstice was only a big deal to people in the northern temperate land masses, but those cultures have come to dominate the planet.  I think these days most of the synchronized lights and fireworks and holidays at year end are there simply because an accepted universal global year end exists.  Only a few stubborn people or cultures _ who which to ignore and be ignored by all the others _ cling to other equally arbitrary calendars.  For everyone, the passage of a year is meaningful, a time for both regret and celebration, memories and plans, and it is fun to share the experience.
Sun-

Full calm before a rainstorm.  These ducks will be unperturbed no matter what.  I try to cultivate the same attitude, but often fail. 

Fitting way to end a week of thoughts on slow changes and intermediate weather.  Too many people seem to be focused a few weeks away, and ignoring the moment except to get through it as quickly as possible, sucking its possibilities dry in a vampirish need to “get things done” before the end of year holidays completely arrive.  I try to keep out of their way and avoid being angry if they intrude on my calm _ as, I suppose, these waterfowl treat us humans.