Out, With the Sunrise

 

 It's hard to get a complete sentence written in September. I have to start well before it gets light. Because as soon as the light starts to rise, I'm running back and forth to the east-facing front door, looking to see if there's a sunrise happening. Luckily my hormones, such as they are, are perfectly in tune with my need to see the sun rise. I wake up well before the birds do and lie there thinking, waiting for the first faint traces of light to appear in the east. I consider it a great personal victory when I wake up after the light starts. Good going, Zick! You got six hours! For awhile there I was running on three to no more than five hours a night, a prisoner of my over-charged brain. I decided that, in prehistoric times, women my age must have been drafted for the wee-hours shift, stoking the fire and watching for the cave bear, while everyone else slept. It's a bore.

We've just passed the autumnal equinox, and the shortening days are already working their magic on us all, whether we know it or not. Those of us prone to seasonal affective disorder (SAD) go into compensatory mode. For me, that includes eating every dang carb that isn't tied down. I eat like a bear on its way to the den, grabbing as I go. I can't get enough. My pituitary is hellbent on ensuring that I have a nice reserve of belly fat to get me through the long, cold winter. I drive myself nuts this time of year. Apples and honey. Cereal. Bread. Crackers. Nocturnal ice cream. Aack! I have to quit! I'm telling myself that I'll clean up the carbs that are here and not buy any more. Time to switch to the high-fiber rye "crackers" that taste like pasteboard. No more Triscuit and peanut butter honey toast for you, Brenda Bear.

The weather hasn't been helping. We're completely saturated in southeast Ohio, with inches of rain each day lately. There's another downpour going on now. I'm growing everything hydroponically, whether I want to or not. It's all relative, of course, and there's nothing to complain about here, compared to the cataclysm happening in North Carolina. My heart's in my throat for everyone as the flood continues.

 

You'd think that running would help, and it does, but mostly with the mental state. I can't keep up with my appetite. But I figure if I cover some ground, I can burn some of it off. And man, do I see the sights. Running gets my head on straight. And how could I miss all this?

On this morning of September 19, the sky was iffy. I had an even chance of getting drenched. Which means that I took a Ziploc in my pocket for my phone, because you can't wear a raincoat running. The only thing that can't get wet is my phone!

I'll show you what I mean by "iffy." Panning left of the sunrise, there was a good shelf of rainclouds. I was planning to run right toward them.

 

There was a hopeful tinge of pink in the storm clouds, though, which gave me heart.

 

Here's a little video of the conditions as I started my two-mile run out from home. Leaving the sunrise behind, heading off into the mists of the unknown.

             

I decided to go for it. The clouds would be awesome, and worth getting wet for. And right off the bat, they were!

 

 I ran under the shelf and got to watch the sunrise behind me. The mists were still rising on the far hills.

 

I hope you'll click on the photos themselves, to get a larger version and more detail.

One of those rare times when plastic-wrapped haybales help the composition. They do smell pretty good as they ferment away inside.

I like to imagine this little cowshed is a writer's retreat. I imagine getting up and brewing myself a cup of tea so I can watch the sunrise  and think up the next transcendent essay I'm going to write. Isn't that what happens in writer's retreats?

It's probably full of busted tools and cobwebs, like my head. 

While you're admiring the pond, don't miss the cow on the ridge. Click on the photo to see her.  

  

I see things as I go, things you'd never see from a car. 

Not-so-lucky rabbit's foot. 

And an unlucky red eft who never had anyone to pick him up and carry him across.

I've found seven wooly bears this season, and ALL of them have been almost solid RED. You know what that means, right? Mild winter coming.

 

Being a Science Chimp, I couldn't help but wonder if the extreme heat wave that consumed most of September had something to do with their coloration. We were in the upper 80's and 90's for a couple of weeks. It was disgusting. And these caterpillars were growing up then, and red radiates more heat than black, so maybe their color has more to do with the conditions in which they emerged and grew than any prognosticating ability.

But maybe not.  We shall see!

It says, "BROMELAIN." Or CROATAN. You pick.

Speaking of prognosticating, here's a bit of folklore from the southern woodlands where persimmons grow. There's said to be a shape in the persimmon seed that foretells the kind of winter we'll have. You look for a knife, a spoon, or a fork.
A knife portends cutting icy winds.
A fork foretells light fluffy snow and a mild winter.
Watch out for the spoon: that means heavy wet snow.

  First, you've got to find a persimmon. Easier said than done this year. Ours fell almost two months early, fully ripe, and the possums got all but two of them. I was caught flat-footed. Dang it!! So much for the folk wisdom that they need a frost to be edible. Opportunities lost. I've never seen the persimmons fall in September, but this is an atypical year for lots of things.

Next, you've got to open a persimmon seed. Far easier said than done. They're small, slippery and hard as marble. The first time I tried it with my X-Acto knife, I cut a finger and thumb, and I'm still enjoying those nice gouges, every time I reach for a pinch of salt as I cook. I was determined to see the mysterious formation, though, so I set to paring away the brown seed coat and the rock-hard cotyledon. I could see the little piece of silverware formed by the embryo (the epicotyl), though, and that kept me going. Finally I got it pared down enough to see that I had a spork.

So I figure the winter will be somewhere in between nasty and nice.  Just like a spork. Not a good spoon, not a good fork. Just a spork. Sporky often describes our winters in southeast Ohio. If you're curious about the other shapes and want to know more, this is a good link from the University of Missouri.   (where my brilliant, funny maternal uncle Robert Ruigh taught Tudor history!)

Onward! Mist was rising in the far hollers, and goldenrod lit the foreground.

I came upon the beautiful farm of my friends. Phoebe and McKenzie were good friends all through school. Now McKenzie is working on her masters in speech pathology at Kent State, and Phoebe's teaching school in the Canary Islands. Shaking my head in slow wonder. I remember them giggling at the dinner table together.

It was this morning that the clouds and the light and the silver maple leaves and the barn with the star on it aligned perfectly. Click on this one and run through them all, because this is the scene that started it all, got me heading northeast, toward the high ridge with the skies.

 

We'll come back to this beautiful farm in the next couple of posts.

On a Late Winter Day

 Shila and I had been planning to get out for a hike one mid- February afternoon, but it was so gray and dreary that we slogged away at cleaning our respective houses instead.  Hours after we'd decided to scratch the hike, I saw a broken sky coming and called her. "We've got a broken sky. Not much light left. Let's just get out and drive around and look at clouds, cover maximum territory."

She was up for that! She raced up from town and we piled into my Subaru with Chetty. We sought out several dirt roads that I'd been driving by for a couple of decades and had always wondered about. I wanted to find out how they all connected. 

The first one we took led to a fabulous dairy farm. I have since learned from helpful Facebook friends that the white bags that I had surmised might contain spare rainclouds, saved for a dry summer day, actually have silage or haylage inside, fermenting away for the cattle to eat. I prefer to think of them as cloud storage, so I will.

 Instead of fretting that they were spoiling my photos, I decided to love the giant white plastic bags. They sure looked cool in this panorama. Please click on it to embiggen.

Shila and Chet and I lingered as long as we could in a small German churchyard, where the stones were all auf Deutsch. 

The clouds stuck together, the wind turned sharp and the temperature plummeted. We had barely worn enough clothes. I love these hands and the fonts on this stone. Also, this is a classic Chet Baker photobomb. Does he see dead people? 

 The font and the image on this monument get me.  GATES AJAR GONE HOME. They remind me of my new friend Bobby Rosenstock's amazing work at Just A Jar Design Press here in Marietta.

We fled from the biting wind and gloomy skies of the German cemetery, turning onto a very strange road, knowing not where we'd end up. As I drove, the terrain began to look familiar. "I think I know where I am!" I said.  Sugar Run...the name was so familiar, I'd seen it before, so I knew it would come out on a road I drive. Sure enough, we came out at a bizarre backwater of trailers, shanties and outbuildings where, as far as I can tell, large numbers of junked cars are generated to be spread for miles through the surrounding countryside. Geesh! We broke out onto some familiar rolling hills and the sun did, too. We had trees to visit in the last light of day. 

I have long since fallen in love with this row of white ashes, only to find them losing their bark this winter. Emerald ash borers are devastating our forest. Hey why not? Everybody else is. So, knowing these ashes are doomed, I take their portraits at every turn, because they will probably be gone a year from now. I call them the Samba Dancers. I particularly love the one who leans way out over the road, shaking her thing. All good things must pass, I'm told.

Just up the hill from them is my wee sassafras, the one who reaches and reaches without finding anything to stop her questing twig-fingers.

That crazy branch starting at the middle of the right side of the trunk and meandering its way into the sky makes me smile every time I see it. The other branches lean away from it as if they know it's crazy, and maybe a bit dangerous. It seems not to care that it could soon spoil the proportions and outlines of its mother tree. That branch is going for it.

The sun peeked out from behind its cloud-curtain and slammed golden light into the scene, throwing some branches into relief. I realized, looking at them from another angle, that the two branches on the lower right were going a bit wacky, too. That whole tree has got it going on. That sassafras is feeling itself.

Stepping closer, I looked over the hill and found a new scene beyond the little tree. 

I'm going to walk back there someday, see where it goes. 

How lucky can you get, to be able to seek out such landscapes whenever you please?

Just down the road is my Cold Mountain sassafras.  The scene looks like something from Antietam to me. A place where the rifle balls flew so thick and fast that what few trees remained standing had their branches blown off. It's timeless.

I love it in every light. Big clouds coming up behind, well, that's fine, too. 

Shila and I shot cloudscapes all the way home. There's another Civil War scene on our road, but this time the big oak belongs to us. That's a good feeling, to know that nobody's going to cut that tree but you, and you're never, ever going to lay a blade on it. This oak has some interesting branching, too, some lower limbs that are a bit out of proportion to the rest. I think that's what makes it beautiful.

Back home by the mailbox, the best was yet to come. Creamy sunset clouds and more white plastic. Plastic never looked so good, as Hodge has observed.

The light was bouncing from the clouds to the puddle to the plastic and back, and the hayrolls were floating somewhere in the middle of it all.

Another successful photo-expotition had come to its conclusion, by far the best three hours of that February Sunday.

The Sunset Club

 I'm pretty frugal. I spend most of my money on food, a good safe car, and excellent optics. Sure, I'll do a therapeutic shop every once in a blue moon, but you can bet it'll be at an outlet store (Hello, Eddie Bauer Outlet and Warehouse, thanks for dressing me top to toe!) I pretty much loathe movie theaters, paying lots of money to watch something ehh, and standing in line for anything. Drag me to an amusement park and I'm likely to spend my time watching people and the house sparrows, scrambling for crumbs.  I don't like to sit down to do anything but draw or write, and half the time I'm standing at the drawing table. So: Frugal and restless.

One of the things I absolutely loved about Sanibel Island when I visited years ago was the sunset culture that thrives there. People actually plan for sunset. They walk or get in their cars and carry lawnchairs to the beach to watch it, sort of loosely together. I thought that was the most wonderful thing! A whole community gets that the best show they can watch is free, and they gather to watch it together.

So it is entirely in keeping that I've become attached to watching sunrises and sunsets. Sure, we all enjoy a good sunset, but how many of us actually make a date with them, and get up while it's still dark to assess the cloud/sun/sky potential, or prep dinner at 3 pm so as to be out for the 5:45pm February matinee?  I ask this rhetorically, knowing that too many most excellent nominees for the Sunset Club are likely to be on a conference call or otherwise locked inside when the show starts, and for that I apologize. Long summer evenings are coming!

The first thing we do when a meeting of the Sunset Club commences is get outside somewhere picturesque. The regularly meeting Club currently consists of a President and Vice President. Here is the Veep, reporting for duty. We have members in Maine, Whipple, and Marietta, Ohio as well. You can join. I don't even have to know about it. The only requirements are that you be mindful of good sunrise/sunset opportunities, pay attention, and are properly appreciative of the shows.

Tip: Try to attain a high promontory before the show reaches full intensity. The climbing is good for your heart, and the view is good for your soul.

Dress warmly. Temperatures can plummet near sunset.

Pay attention to the main show; i.e. the one going on, Stage West, around the fabled star upon which we depend for all life.  This goes without saying. BOOM.

However, you must make sure to spin around to take in the auxiliary show, which is often as good or, in its own way, better than the one on the main stage.

Yes. All of these photos make me want to lie down and roll around in the cold damp grass. Perfectly permissible, if you're dressed for it. See where the "high promontory" comes in? It's best to get up so high you've got unobstructed views both west and east.

East views can be gentler, less dramatic, but so powerful, too.

Don't forget to whip around and see what that star of our is up to, though!

In the Sunset Club, we do a lot of spinning around.

Watching sunsets is all about gratitude. It's about feeling very small and humble as something much larger and more grandiose than anything you could dream of goes on all around you. 

It's about paying attention, too, and setting your body clock to 4:15 pm, to look outside and notice whether there are nice clouds floating over, clouds with the potential to dazzle when lit by the matchless spectrum of the low setting sun. It's about situational awareness: not letting such a thing slip by because you were otherwise occupied. 

The Sunset Club is founded on seeking out your joy, and making a conscious effort to connect with it, no matter what else may be going on in your life.

It's about being thankful for all we are given, every single day. And that includes every moment of every day. Each one is a gift. It's up to us to use those moments well. 

Counting your blessings is an excellent use of moments. Phoebe told me to name them every night before I close my eyes. Good exercise. The child shall lead...

I'll leave you with a thought that Shila gave me when I was struggling. 

"What we focus on expands. Which is bad when we focus on fear and lack."

So I'm making a conscious effort to focus not on what I long for, but on all that is joyful and abundant in my life, the people and things, big and small, that I'm so thankful for that it raises a lump in my throat.

See you at sunset?

The Essential Dog

Been mighty busy lately. I've got this jigsaw puzzle (see button on right sidebar) 

that kinda blew the doors off my little home studio fulfillment center. 

I didn't know what to expect from a jigsaw puzzle, but there are a lot of puzzlers out there who need a fresh challenge, methinks! It's been a blast.

Three times now the studio has filled up with puzzles and just as quickly with white boxes, all addressed and ready to go. Some folks order two (bigger boxes) so they can give one as a gift.

This is one day's work. I figured out that I have to arrange things so I don't bend over a lot. So I stack the puzzles on the big oaken flatfile and box everything while standing up. Then I can get all the shipping done without hurting my back again. I was laid up for a week after the first flush of orders.  You can't do a heck of a lot when you can't bend over, I found out. I never knew how much bending over I do in a day.

One woman band here. I'm Creative Director, Staff Artist and Designer, Head of Advertising, Comptroller and also sole Mail Room employee at Indigo Hill Arts. And there is no Workman's Comp.

Here, I've just loaded 60 puzzles into the car to take them to the post office, and the UPS truck has dropped off 40 more (in the wagon). Add Longshoreman to my job description.

Of course that little Chet Baker is with me every minute. 

He gets very excited when we load up the car with boxes, because he knows we are going to the Post Office. He loves the Post Office because he gets to run inside and greet everyone!

We drove all the way there last Wednesday only to figure out that it was Veterans' Day, and it was closed. D'oh! 

Now what are we to do with all these boxes, Mether?

We're not loading them again, I can tell you that, Chet. We'll drive around with them and come back tomorrow.

So we got up early Thursday morning, took Liam to the bus at 7, and waited until the Post Office opened at 8 AM.  Chet had to ride on Liam's lap, because the car was stuffed with boxed puzzles.

I dropped Liam off, then drove up to the top of a hill to watch the sun rise. 

It was very beautiful, and I was engrossed watching big lines of clouds scud across the sky. 

And then someone turned the lights on. 

Man, I hit it just right. What an incredible daybreak.

This stuff goes on all the time, and we go down our rutted paths far below, sometimes barely noticing the pageant in the sky overhead. 

I try not to let it be lost on me, ever.

I have hundreds of photos of clouds. I love clouds. I've looked at them from all sides now. And I never tire of clouds. Well, the gray flannel solid ones, yes, I get tired of those. Give me a broken sky, any day, over an overcast one, or even a clear one. Give me clouds!

There were several dozen Angus bellerin' away at the farm in the photo. Their lowing was a perfect soundfile for the dark, ponderous clouds floating overhead.  I remembered loving to sing "Ghost Riders in the Sky." 

Their brands was still on fire and their hooves was made of steel

Their horns was black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel

 A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky 

For he heard the riders comin' hard, and he heard their mournful cry...

We got to the post office but Cynni the Postmistress wasn't ready for us just yet. A truck pulled up and a lady got out and Chet Baker trotted over and by gum she guv him a bikkit!

Now what are the chances of that, that a stranger in a truck would have a bikkit for Chet?

Mether! That was the most excellent thing ever! She guv me a bikkit out of the clear blue air!

Chet stationed himself by the door so he could intercept anyone else coming to the Post Office. 

While we waited we counted turkey vultures on the big roost just up the hill. This is a fall gathering spot for them. They won't stay the whole winter. 

Between the main roost and another big emergent tree just down the road, there were at least 100 birds. It was wonderful to watch them doing a little vulture yoga in the warm morning sun.

Finally it was time to go inside!

Miss Cynni greeted Chet warmly. Though she had no bikkits, she said she will fix that very soon.

Chet Baker! Stop rooing at Miss Cynni! 

But she should have bikkits! The lady in the truck had bikkits! Why doesn't Miss Cynni? That is the problem! And that is why I am rooing at her! So she gets me a bikkit!

Chet Baker is very bad, but people seem to love him anyway. 

They love him at the office, too. Even though he scratches in the vinca. 

When I have errands to do in town I leave him at the office. He is just a little too cute to leave alone in the car, even when the weather is cool.

I worry someone will try to take him.

 

Neither of us would survive that. 

I need my co-pilot, always.