Do you know where your eggs are?

 

Close Up of Unidentified Tree Frog on Pool Filter by C. Fickel

“How strange that Nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!” ~ Emily Dickinson

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.” ~ John Burroughs

So I was floating around in the pool this afternoon while Corey was vacuuming, and we have sad news: Apparently the tree frog that has been living somewhere in our backyard deposited her eggs in the pool unbeknownst to us. We didn’t find out until all of the tadpoles surfaced when Corey added the chemicals to clean the pool.

Close Up of Sun Sculpture by C. Fickel

One of the great things about having the tree frogs in our backyard is that I am certain that their singing probably drives our nosey neighbor nuts. She (the neighbor) is not a delightful individual, and I think that I can safely say that she finds our backyard habitats irksome. Oh well.

In case you are wondering why I have such an antipathy for this neighbor, let me give you a few examples of her less-than-neighborly actions: She once called the city on us because we had a compost pile. Her complaint? It was a rat harborage. The guy from the city who came to inspect our backyard was very nice and told me that he saw nothing wrong with our yard. When I asked who had complained, he said that he couldn’t really tell me, but if I watched where he went when he left our house, it would be pretty obvious who had called.

Yep. It was the nosey neighbor.

Another time, after a hurricane had demolished many trees and shrubs in the neighborhood and left most of the city without power for days, we had put the dead branches out by the curb as the city instructed. The city also said that there was no guarantee as to when they would be able to collect everything as there was so much destruction throughout the city.

Well, this particular neighbor didn’t like the fact that our branches were out for several weeks, even though we were following the city’s instructions, so she and her adult daughter took it upon themselves to place the branches in the back of Corey’s truck. We caught them in the act and asked them what they were doing.

Nothing. Like young children being caught stealing. Not us. Nothing. I don’t know.

Have to love the neighbors who spread that warm sense of community. Even kindly Mr. Rogers would not have liked these women.

But I digress . . .

“Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.” ~ Walt Whitman 

Squirrel Treefrog, Mt. Dora, Florida (rotated canvas), by Janson Jones

So the tree frog tadpoles perished, which is a shame. But the pool was very relaxing today, and I enjoyed my diversion, even though both Tillie and Shakes were trying mightily to engage me in a game of water tennis. Because I would not throw the ball for them, they took turns jumping into the pool after dropping the ball into the water. I’m sure that it was a conspiracy led by the fat one. It’s hard to ignore a Labrador who swims around you and drops a tennis ball onto your float, but I did my best.

In spite of the dogs’ best efforts to distract me, I enjoyed the sounds of lapping water, occasional birds overhead, and the sweet, sweet smell of the last gardenia blooms on the bush.

Other than that, I have yet to tackle the baskets of clean clothes that are still blocking my way to my closet. The shoes are still in a pile by my feet, and the stack of papers perched precariously on my printer has not been touched.

One thing at a time. And having just concluded a telephone conversation with my ex, I don’t really feel up to tackling much of anything. He exhausts me. There is no other way to put it. Even when he is seemingly in a good mood, our conversations always seem vexing, and I finish them feeling as if I need a strong drink or a hot bath or both. So I’ll just eat a few cookies instead and try to put his testiness out of my mind.

But why oh why does he tell me things and then insist that he never said them? I mean, it’s not as if he’s on medication that affects his cognitive abilities. I have a theory that he is still trying to get me to crack under pressure.

Bothersome neighbors. Trying ex-spouses. Irksome laundry. My personal axis of evil. And technically, that should be ax-es, plural, but hey, why be picky about a phrase adopted by a president who spoke of OB/GYNs practicing love on their patients.

So with that in mind, I thought that I would leave you with this classic SNL skit: Will Ferrell as President Bush on the Growing Axis of Evil . . .

  

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

More later. Peace.

more about “Will Ferrell “Axis of Evil”“, posted with vodpod

Grace in Small Things #40

 

Male Cardinal

Grace in Nature

1. Walking along the shoreline at dusk, and letting my toes sink into the sand as the water recedes, the white foam leaving tiny rivulets, an uneven line that disappears as soon as another wave hits the shore and pulls back again. This is the best part of the day: in the gloaming, that time between dusk and sundown, when all magical things are possible, and everything seems to be just slightly more tinged with the setting sun’s pink hue—red, pink, gold, and alabaster. This is the time of faeries and dreams.

2. The flower garden in early morning when everything is still covered with dew, still glistening with dawn’s light shower. The only sounds are bird song and crickets, the frogs in the pond and cicadas beginning their low hum.

Female & Male Cardinals

3. The almost crimson cardinal and his mate as they dart from the top of the fence to the nandina bush on the side of the house, its berries muted red in contrast to his unmistakably deep blush and crested head. He is always careful to dive first; she follows. Mated for life, they dance this dance from bush to fence to tree to water—he first, to clear the way, the lady to follow.

4. The softness of a lamb’s ear plant, its silvery foliage, smooth as velvet. Small purple flowers call to hummingbirds and bees as this mat of fuzzy foliage spreads through rocks, lines borders, and encircles trees. The lamb’s ear, so sweetly soft, invites touch, hence its whimsical name.

5. Wisteria is perhaps the most beautiful of vines with its arches of violet-blue flowers that cascade like multiple waterfalls, one atop another atop another, creating the perfect stage for butterflies to perform their air dances in search of honey-sweet nectar. Long associated with the beauty of the Orient, wisteria bears exotic names: Shiro Noda, a Japanese Wisteria; or Kokuryu or Black Dragon, a Chinese Wisteria. Every spring, I anticipate the flowering of a magnificent wisteria vine that has insinuated itself into several trees on a vacant lot. The vine has climbed perhaps 20 feet towards the sky and claims three trees as its own. When it blooms, the smell is heady, and the hanging clusters are magnificent, reaching almost 18 inches when in full bloom.

I love that no one touches this vine, that it grows freely, with pure abandon. I have watched its blooming every spring for years now, each year praying that no human has interferred with its manifest destiny to own the trees, the bushes, anything and everything that grows in its path. Nature, unaltered, is powerful and resplendent to behold.

Nature in all of its wondrous forms always amazes me. I am always finding new things each time I look with a careful eye. More later. Peace.

“The ‘ancient enmity between life and the great work.'” ~ R. M. Rilke

“The Rose” by Cy Twombly (acrylic on plywood). Twombly has used phrases from Rilke’s poems on this series and a previous series of paintings.

“Build Your Life In Accordance With This Necessity” ~ Rilke

In 1903, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote 10 letters to a young man who was considering entering the German military. The young man, a poet, asked Rilke to criticize his poetry. Rilke’s correspondence lasted over five years. Upon Rilke’s death, the young man took the letters, omitted his own side of the correspondence, and published a valuable compilation of Rilke’s personal aethetics on poetry, the creative process, and life.

Letters to a Young Poet, written in Rilke’s native German, has been translated several times over the years, and is a favorite of poets and writers, particularly because of its honest depiction of a solitary artist’s unedited thoughts on writing. The thing to keep in mind, though, is that each translation bears the mark of the translator. In essence we are not supposed to see the translator, but that is a very hard feat to achieve.

The passage I have included below comes from a 1999 translation by Stephen Mitchell.

I chose this passage because it addresses the questions that I have been asking myelf of late: Do I have what it takes to be a writer? In response to Rilke’s question of whether or not I must write, the answer is a definitive yes. I must. I don’t know what would happen if I were forbidden to write. If my computer were taken away from me, it would be a hardship because writing by hand is harder on my hands, but I don’t think that it would keep me from writing. Not after coming this far.

It would slow down my output. But now that I am this disciplined about writing every day—every day—something I never imagined I would be able to do, I cannot imagine going back to not doing this. It is as natural as breathing to me. But I wish that I had a Rilke to look at my work and say, “Yes. You must keep doing this. It is outside you as much as it is inside you.” And then I would know that I have a chance. That May Sarton wasn’t the only late bloomer.

Enjoy this selection (emphasis added mine) from Letter #1, written in Paris in 1903:

You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you—no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: Must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.

Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose. Don’t write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: They are the hardest to work with, and it takes great, fully-ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty—describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity, and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds—wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance—And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: For you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it.

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can’t give you any advice but this: To go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take the destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.

But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this self-searching that I ask of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say.

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to question that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer. ~ RMR

Perhaps tomorrow, my outlook will be more positive. More later. Peace.