fickle fingers of ...

low down on lower case

Why do we all use upper case letters or initial caps (the contrast in the height and shape of letters which often, but not always gives greater meaning to long strings of words and follows the traditional writing conventions)? The lack of capital letters, writing in all lower case letters can be rather liberating – in the poetry of e.e. cummings for example. Or in the typings of a cockroach (the tiny fellow pounding out a scroll of verbage, hunched in front of the garbage can containing a cat sniffing a sardine tin in the illustration above) or friend Peter's e-mails.

Archy and Mehitabel were characters Don Marquis concocted in the early 20th century. Mehitabel was an alley cat who'd seen better days (and lives), who balanced hardship against freedom with independence the victor. Archy (who would have typed "archy"), was a poet, considerably more conservative than Mehitabel and also a cockroach – a "persona extraordinaire" of Mr. Marquis' stories (there was some question of earlier bad karma). As a result of Archy's limited physical capacities, striking the shift bar along with a letter on his office mate Don's typewriter – couldn't be done – limiting Archy's verse to all lower case. If e.e. cummings had extremely short fingers, I really can't say. True – physical restrictions or "special" environments often greatly influence creativity (to those inclined), suggesting Don Marquis had something rather interesting going with insects and/or feral cats. I know a little about this subject myself.

I imagine a laptop would have made composition easier for either a typing cockroach or an e.e. cummings. One ponders the state of literature throughout time if laptops had always existed. Can we trace the source of the blogosphere, in part, to the emergence of the computer which makes it so easy to write as we sit in a recliner? At last count over 70 million blogs are being created/in production/exist. laying in wait to be read. - One can only wonder how many blogs are being composed by decendents or relatives of Archy. If you find a blog in all lower case letters...well, I'd start wondering about the creator (not THE creator...but the blog's creator.)

What does the current outpouring of rhetoric mean when someone as significant as Don Marquis (and with him, Archy and Mehitabel), easily one of the most popular humorists and his creations – have faded so completely from view? The man is credited with over 70 printings of his Archy and Mehitabel books in the U.S. (and he wrote other stuff too), a couple dozen more in G.B. and I had trouble finding 3 to bid on on eBay.

Will the ravings of current bloggers fade as completely? Can or should one hope? Why is culture so fickle? Perhaps a few of those 70 million bloggers truly are cockroaches. Can or should one hope?

Do you think it's going to rain?

Weather and Culture Woes

efore I moved back to the country and even after I returned to upstate NY...I could not imagine why so much thinking power was wasted on discussions about the weather...what the forecast was, how the possibility of a good day invited activity, how the cold affected my mother's (and now my) joints, how the hail shattered the tulips, how weather took on personality and invaded our lives like an uninvited guest. The "talk" was extremely tedious.

These days, Global Warming, hopefully creates a place for "weather awareness" within every household. But on a local scale, during my several year initiation back into country life, I wondered...did anyone think about things not tinged by the weather?

Slowly, slowly the country seeped back into my structure as if, as I breathed in cleaner air - I became infected (again) after a long hiatus in warmer (and much dirtier) climes. I came to understand that in moving from a place (NYC) where people were too busy to notice if or when they were walking in puddles or slush or sunshine... that noticing and discussing the rain or snow or the fairness of a day...was part of the good news of country life. Suddenly I had the time to notice more of my physical environment.

Country Madness

Now, these ten years after, in the full bloom of the country madness ...I ponder the next rain, pity the birch's lack of water, irrigate the garden with a timer thing and little dribbley hoses to make sure everyone collects at least a small drink...watch the leaves fall, get the bulbs in the ground (no, not the ones requiring electricity –yes, the ones which will blossom) and anticipate next Spring before Fall is even in full swing (which is, by the way, a topic of debate in the most particular detail in the Yankee world – everyone has an opinion about when the leaves are in peak color) and so on and so on.

the rose cottage backyard, photo credit: j.golin

Nearly everyone around me is totally infected with the beauty and complexity of the ecosystem they live within. In part, this is why country folk (yep, and me) are often obsessed with the weather. We love it. Our perceptions are totally linked to the sun shining or the sky leaking. Here at the rose cottage (the 200 plus year old house I live, work and blog within) we do a lot of stopping to smell "them" (or at least think about smelling them) year in, year out.

Personal history it seems is always about contrasts and anticipation and balance, good days, bad days...the record of our own internal weather systems.

Can we enjoy Fall without glimpsing the future?

photo credit: Winter Oak Leaves Free Photos


On that period of "time held captive between December and March..." *

When first snow appears, when nights are snappy and crisp, air tight, clear...without an iota of pollen or dust or mold.... not an insect, not a molecule of anything but air in the air....with every leaf off, with the needles on the evergreens holding great dollops of white and the skeletons of the surrounding trees drawn in snow...with the brown of the sleeping lawn finally covered in a white down blanket...with little tufts of the garden poking up here and there – heads not quite ready to bend down to the mounds of snow at their feet....with a full or partial moon shining on all of this and etching it on my retinas.....every year I think, "this is the most beautiful sight in the world." Could I give up this beauty – not forgive the earth its need to freeze over and renew itself? No, no, impossible.

Would Robert Frost have written "stopping by woods on a snowy evening" if he had lived anywhere except in New England? And where would we be if he had not?

In the most bitter weather, when I wait and wait to go out and shovel out my paths, when I worry for the feral cats and hope they are in their shelters, when the birds need suet and seed, when the lawn guy who's the snow plow guy in the Winter is long gone and pushed the snow from the end of my driveway...when the warmth of the house is shattered by tiny drafts and cold floors and I am forced to don socks and even shoes...when my joints ache and refuse to bend...the Winter cold is still warmed by the years of happiness it afforded me as a child, as a young adult and even as an older one.

What is it about snow? I rather it snowed than the earth lay bare and frigid – that emptiness I find terribly depressing and dark and unforgiving. Nasty. Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is cast in the bleak Winter of Massachusetts and paints the picture of what it feels like to function in such a place. For a Yankee, Winter is as valuable as any other seasons if only for the contrast of dark to light or (near) death to life.

But still, brrrrrrr. as the Earth warms unnaturally and our Winters become less severe...there is a part of me that thinks...great! Is that terrible or what? That same part of me eats too many cookies at one sitting, spends money on extravagances that lie in waste or concocts all sorts of other behavior for which I am not proud. I will work tirelessly to effect change to reverse Global Warming (hey, I just bought a hybrid car); I'm a good Al Gore soldier....but in the meantime, is it so awful that my neighbors and I enjoy a little less shoveling, a few less blizzards, and save a little money by using a little less fuel to stay warm?

One's personal emotional contrasts are none-the-less dramatic as black is to white. Can we record the storm more clearly from the day the sun shines or must we be cold to understand snow?

photo credit: leaf in snow, travel.webshots.com

*(again quoted from friend Peter)

c o n t r a s t . b a l a n c e

b a l a n c e . c o n t r a s t

Friend Peter wrote recently (in discussions about why Fall is embraced so heartily in New England – although technically his abode is not in New England but lies instead on the dump of rock and dirt [a terminal moraine] New England's glaciers placed in the Atlantic Ocean a long, long time ago. As a result, Friend Peter lives on New England's soil, but doesn't get included in New England's map. He lives on Long Island, by the way. Much of the North Shore of Long Island, which is part of New York for the geographically illiterate was/is considered part of New England by its inhabitants beginning in the mid 17th century when the first settlements were built. The descendants of those early settlers and their friends still consider the North Shore part of New England.)

Here's what friend Peter had to say: i'll pick one thing of many to mull upon. i was in San Diego once for a trade show; no time to sight see. the weather was fine, but fine in the way that it is always fine. sunny skies need to be framed with clouds and rain. not just for the plants, but for our sense of balance.


Nicely said friend Peter.

Contemplating a friend's (or a stranger's) view of the same things I waffle about daily (and here on this blog)....puts light to shadows I haven't cast myself; becomes - through assimilation - part of the dialog as if this thing we call blog is sitting in my head instead of on my laptop prior to its journey into the cyber jungle.

The view that contrast (or differing opinions) brings added value to the shape of an idea, of a place, of a phenomenon (like the weather or this blog), even of time itself (like a season) – will never find argument with me – big believer in contrast and shades of gray. Big believer in balance too. Mine is a visual perspective and its basic principles – like balance and contrast are part of how I view the world. However, oddly, as a result, how I then am viewed (or more precisely – reviewed, ) is the one out of kilter, a little out of step, on the path less followed, etc.

the leaves we love

in case you don't notice...for my graphic artist colleagues and others, this is a Pantone color guide to sugar maple fall leaves.


Juicy.

Sugar Maples

The Sugar Maples offer the most spectacular colors in Fall. I am partial to the nearly iridescent reds to orange that shimmer in the hills., www.mapleorchardfarms.com.

Last Fall, near Lee, MA. I drove up into the Berkshire hills through Beartown State Forest.

I parked at the side of the road at a little rest stop next to a 35 acre lake named Benedict Pond. The Sugar Maples and other trees that lined the water bank and hill on the other side of the lake were reflected in the water with such incredible clarity and intensity – reality was jeopardized. The water glimmered me into submission. It was that beautiful. I was forced to choose the reflection over the trees themselves. Exiting that place left me grateful and denied simultaneously – knowing the image would no longer be in front of my

eyes and it's memory forever a thought without the picture. But mine, nonetheless.


Color/Collection/Connections

Around my home, as Fall waves its artifacts around me, I go about collecting the most spectacular leaves – as if any one could be prettier than the next. I am rather fussy about who is chosen and who is left behind. Each leaf tenders a sophisticated abstraction beyond the skills of the best expressionists.

I place each masterpiece in a very old wooden bowl that sits in the pride of place on my long country tiger maple table. The bowl has seen years and years of service. My great aunt Marcia used this bowl on her farm table to chop and mince the ingredients of her life. She used the long curved broad blade that still sits in the bowl. The bowl was used so long and so well that it has places in its base where it's worn thin and through. The leaves I place over this scar are sadly, within a day, faded and twisted upon themselves.

My cats find the dry, crumbling leaves most acceptable and steal them during the long, quiet night of Columbia County, NY. Teddy and Naboo chase the leaves about the kitchen floor and attempt, like Wilbur and Orville, to persuade them to fly once more before they shatter. Every morning I find my Sugar Maples' end of season dreams in broken fragments on my kitchen floor.

My inability to capture the colors of Fall in its true objects is always a disappointment. Two years ago I pressed leaves in wax paper just as my mother taught me long ago. The trick is to iron the top and bottom sheets of waxed paper through plain paper with a hot steam iron without burning the paper or the leaves. The process allows the wax to transfer from its paper sleeve and melt around each leaf, coating its surface and sending warm, sweet aromas throughout the kitchen. When the remains of the waxed paper backing is peeled away, the leaf remains intact – encased like a funereal body without soul but allowing preservation of near life-like form for a few additional days.

Fall is the earth's system to prepare for the long sleep with the promise of rebirth merely months away. Is there any wonder the same concepts have been exploited for thousands of years to eliminate human fears regarding our ultimate and eventual big sleep?

For a lifetime I have been briefly in possession of the colors of Fall; the snippets of technicolor time give further meaning to the lush complexity of existence.

Fall in New England

This year Fall has arrived quickly, as if someone forgot it is supposed to happen at this time of year and quickly accelerated events to accommodate the season – dropping temperatures and coloring leaves and adding snap to the air.

On a drive to Bennington, Vermont about ten days ago, only minor splotches of color were dabbed on the hills. By a week later, the hills (the Taconic and Berkshire Mountains) had succumbed to serious coloring. Strangely trees are dropping their leaves nearly as soon as they've changed from green to rust, gold, reds or some combination. The lawn is already littered catching wonderful colors on the too long grass. Within a day or two, the colors fade and brown, curl and begin to crumble. Apparently early leaf dropping is due to drought. Some lesser lucky trees had brown leaves which fell to the earth in mid Summer. Hopefully, they all will survive to see another Spring.

In living in the North East, Fall is a season which every Yankee anticipates and enjoys. Perhaps our collective dread of the impending cold, wind, snow and freezing Winter temperatures is part of what makes this time of year all the more significant. It's hard to say. But many of us could not live here (or anywhere else) without an annual downsizing of the long days of Summer into a prolonged and beautiful Fall. We count on it to nourish us until Spring. It's said a true Yankee's blood is part orange, gold, rust and red.

The leaf peeping trade depends on the colors of Fall invading our landscapes. As wood stoves begin to send their woody smells into the air, and the pick-ur-own apples signs go up at the orchards, and the country stores begin to offer cinnamon spiced hot cider, fresh apple pie, apple butter and apple sauce...it is impossible to not stop and sample the fruits of the countryside. The bonus is the jams and jellies and maple syrup and maple fudge and apple donuts...with gourds and pumpkins and mums and late sweet corn and fresh large beefsteak tomatoes and heads of garlic nearly as large. The harvest is never so sweet as when you can chat with the farmers who are supplying your table.

Quintessential New England towns such as Stockbridge, Mass, just over the state line offer themselves as what a proper village should look like. Its Red Lion Inn offers dark orange butternut squash soup this time of year to dining rooms full of appreciative day trippers. If you drive in any direction through the lesser known villages of Berkshire County, MA or Columbia County, NY or North to Bennington, VT, one can see why generations of hearty souls have clung to this land. It's spectacular in Fall.

Global Warming

The lesser temperatures of our Winters (the effect of Global Warming) are beginning to harm the Sugar Maples of New England. Without the extremes of temperature, the sap of the maples will not flow and an entire industry is in jeopardy as well as the lives of the trees themselves. Could there be a proper Fall if the Maples began to die out? Would the collective heart of New England be broken? The rusts of the Oaks and the golds of the Ashes and Birches are nothing without the reds and oranges of the Maples. I worry for my old sugar maples who provide shelter and have lined the dirt road for the past hundred and fifty years.

If you could save the colors of New England by turning off a few lights in your home...or coordinating errands to use less fossil fuel...wouldn't you do it?