Winds of Change

Early morning construction site, all day roar and whine.

Usually summers have passed modestly since retirement, as we spent a lot of time just sitting in our back yard, reading and enjoying birds and flowers. But not this year. Our Italian-heritage neighbors have decided they need a piazza in their own yard. Leveled, paved, cleared of ancient trees and shrubs. I expect the monumental Michelangelo statue to arrive any day.
Since town regulations are honored only in the breach lately, each morning began with vast crews of foreign-language workers and massive amounts of construction noise. Bulldozers, stone saws, jackhammers _ everything except blasting. Up to ten trucks on the road in front of our house. Like living next to an expressway, all day, every day, nearly dawn to dusk. I had to escape to New York City for some peace and quiet. And perhaps the most annoying thing is that this family _ if it maintains its usual patterns _ will only use this monument to nouveau-riche futility five or less days a year, when the lawyer in charge can impress his friends.
Of course the same horrors happen everywhere. The Hamptons are a prime example. America at her strongest defense of private property guarantees that residents such as this will spend a fortune on things that nobody can share, but will continuously vote against any public improvements in the local area. Lower taxes, they cry, as they pour money into backyard concrete and imported marble which will languish unused forever.
Ah, these old people, they complain about everything.

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Grasses slowly maturing into autumn colors as high tide swirls.

Strong erratic winds under broken purple clouds yesterday, but in spite of strong overnight storms, summer lingers. People are still wearing shorts and light shirts. Trees are mostly a jungle green, although salt meadows are half gold, and a few poison ivy leaves show crimson. Some flights of geese appear to be heading south, although since so many overwinter here now that is not too much of an autumn sign.
A few folks complain that the heat remains. Others are excited to still be able to walk woods, sit on the beach, or in some cases continue to do laps in the salt tide. Mostly though, everyone is too busy at work or school to pay much attention to the weather. The old agricultural rhythms die hard.

Sun burns through mist that enchants the most prosaic scenes

Heavy fog this morning has not stopped the neighbor’s bulldozers and stone saws, but it does indicate no wind. Wind and fog rarely exist together, except in social metaphor, when we can easily be buffeted about with change at the same time we are blinded by cultural mist.
I grew up with the typical American exceptional belief that we had achieved ultimate human stability. Things would get better, hard work would gain appropriate riches and fame, the rest of the world must follow us, I could confidently predict what others around me were thinking. All naïve and innocent balderdash, of course, until it metastasized into current political sloganeering and personal victimhood. Everyone seems to be truly becoming a rhinoceros _ there goes another one down the street now _ my neighbors metamorphosed overnight.
Knowing I will quit the planet fairly soon, I’ve had my share and be somewhat philosophical about stuff. I can’t affect the world which my grandson will inhabit. I couldn’t control my own.
And yet, as the winds howl, I maintain faith. Humans are remarkable, and mostly work together in social situations amazingly well. I strolled NYC sidewalks Monday, amazed at how well everyone gets along. I am amazed that our own culture is so little filled with actual violence. There can be hope. But sometimes the gales blow fierce, and all seems lost, and I worry if the storm will ever end.

Just In Time

Goldenrod signifies that surrounding green will vanish as chill settles each evening.

Joyous summer has been devoted to considering time, when considering anything at all. What should I mine from the richness of past memories, how should I conduct my present, what is the best way to deal with fears of the future?
Looked at in the broader view, the world continues to seem to spin out of control. I try to encapsulate all fleeting news into a category of “entertainment.” There has been an awful lot of such entertainment over the last few months.
At a small personal level, time has pushed its way to our forefront, as we once again encounter nearly instantaneous growth of a young grandchild. We are amazed at how much had been forgotten about experiences with our own children way back when. But such immersion in each fleeting moment, and the rapid changes of days and weeks, have been instrumental to my meditations on the nature of my own years.

Gentle chill rain highlights first leaves displaying autumn color.

Einstein famously tied time, light, and space into relativity. His theory does not match our experience. Science declares each second equal to any other, but our perception ignores some hours, stretches other hours endlessly, and sharpens certain moments into near eternity. We are left with nothing but memories of what we think happened as the clock ticked.
We learn to not worry too much about time, take it for granted more than the air we breathe. Yet without time, there is no existence. In fact, a case could be made that life is unique simply because it cruises through time in a manner different than other matter. Our consciousness of time undoubtedly is what truly separates us from other animals.
We cannot manipulate time. We can barely contemplate it. A marvelous, mysterious, and integral part of our being.

Stormy sky along a deceptively quiet roadway shoreline.

Time closely resembles Western conceptions of God. It is mysterious, omnipotent, omnipresent, fractal, and unknowable. It begins our lives, permeates them, and ends them. The present forces itself into our consciousness of all we are and do. It even includes the all-in-one inexplicable trinity of past present and future.
An awful lot of religious arguments center on time. If God is master of time, is there free will or is everything predetermined forever? Can even time change the events that happen in time? Even now, we debate what is fated, what can we change, what is overwhelming.

Asters indicate the season even without support of swift cool breeze.

Science tries to pretend that each chunk of time is constant. I wonder. Was an hour in the Roman Empire the same as an hour watching news tonight? I know my evening and morning hours pass differently. Is my perception flawed, or is science missing something important?
Science claims, for example, that exactly when a given particle decomposes cannot be predicted. But maybe time, as well as the other properties of the universe, runs oddly at that level.
Science, in fact, has no meaningful logical grasp of time as anything other than the grand, mysterious, unknowable entity it has always been to human minds since the beginning of _ well, you know.

End summer, begin fall, late flowers and dry detritus, elements of reflection.

If time were classically worshipped, its center would be “this moment.” In spite of memories, incredible vistas of eons opened by intellectual logic, and imagining the future, each moment is all we experience. Relentlessly.
This moment is unique, and yet seamlessly embedded with all others. It is the only element we can truly know of time. It flows by and through and around and permeates our universes more surely than any physical phenomena.
Time remains so elusive that eventually we ignore its majesty, take it for granted, and just go along for the ride. As indeed we must, to exist. Like this essay, delving too deeply is basically futile. And now, I turn from such useless philosophy to a glorious day before me, grateful for its length and breadth and, yes, for its infinite and unknowable mystery.

Why Kavanaugh doesn’t matter

Our hibiscus, like our mosquitoes, has had a very good year.

A lot of well-watered vegetation seems to be clinging to summer mode as desperately as I do, this first day of nominal autumn.

Republicans and their supporters are fighting an “any means justifies the ends” battle to shape the Supreme Court for “generations to come.” That faith is misplaced.
Not much need be said about the candidate himself, a smarmy product of elite male privilege, other than that his shallow mind is focused on two social “truth systems” advanced as holy writ. About one of those, composed near the dawn of agriculture, little need be said. The other _ our constitution _ was written by well-meaning rich men who had no knowledge of electricity, steam power, internal combustion, women’s equality, modern science, evolution, medicine, and so forth. It is not bad, but each word is not so contextually immaculate that it need never be interpreted, as Kavanaugh rigidly postulates.
The country is changing. This is the last gasp of mean old white men and women, and a few scatterbrained younger folks who blame all their woes on something other than themselves. In a few years, the Republican Party will be one with the Whigs. Their gerontocracy will crumble, before or after it destroys our current political system forever.
But no matter what, a social “blue wave” _ which will no doubt fragment but which will shift power _ is going to be out for blood revenge against the current batch of senile bullies and young “freedom” punks. Lying under oath is the least of the real or imagined malfeasance which will end up impeaching any obstructionist judges in the politics of the near future.

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I am creeping back into this blog, pictures and text. During my self-enforced summer hiatus in composition I thought that maybe by cutting back on daily typing I would have more time for some other things. It has not worked out that way.
I miss my daily nature musing. I miss trying to snap an appropriate picture. It has been wonderful to let my mind clearly freefall, without conscious direction. But, like all vacations, that gets a little boring after a while.
I should apologize, I guess, for the old geezer rants on politics and the perceived ruin of the world. But if that is the fuel I need to restart, so be it.
I’ve managed to preserve my daily morning handwritten journal, which has devolved into a diary of activities. And the summer has been busy, with lots of babysitting, a few travels, and the usual round of walking, swimming, eating, reading, yardwork, and a lot of babysitting.
We shall see where this goes, if anywhere, but a journey needs to begin somewhere.

Supreme Court

Authors of the constitution worried about mob rule and dictatorship. For that reason they tried to set up a system of what has come to be known as checks and balances.

Mob rule was to be curtailed by only allowing direct citizen elections for the house of representatives _ local voting qualifications determined by each state. The senate was to be provided by state legislatures, and the president selected by a committee of wise men. Assuming that these three branches would fight tooth and nail for power and money, the judiciary was provided as a non-elected referee. Regardless of what originalists may fantasize, our current government does not resemble that designed by the founders. Majority mob rule directly elects executive, senate, and house.

Federal checks and balances are now provided by three conflicting power centers: (1) elected mob-rule formal government (president,senate, and house), (2) ongoing immense bureaucracy implementing accepted laws and rules, and (3) corporate plutocracy headed by the military-industrial complex. The judiciary still tries to referee, but recently politics has become weaponized into strict party mob rule which threatens judicial independence.

Note that the number of justices is set by law, not by constitution. There have already been attempts to “pack” the supreme court _ simply appointing new judges until a majority favoring the current mob is in place. It is likely that packing will become commonplace over the next decades until a new consensus of political boundaries is reached.

Conservative principles used to mean something important about preserving individual rights.

An “originalist” who refuses to understand the founders’ proper fears of executive power is no traditional conservative. A “textualist” who does not understand that power centers now reside in massive international corporations never conceived of by the authors of the constitution is no traditional conservative.

And a judge who believes eighteenth century beliefs should not be modified by the realities of modern technology, philosophy, and being should be rejected by real conservatives concerned about the imperial direction this country is suddenly rushing into.

Fragments of All Fears

A septuagenarian should be grateful to wake up each morning, and the first order of business is inventory. Increasing age means declining vision, hearing, memory, and endurance. Each new pain brings fear of catastrophic illness. Any moment might arrive with life-changing heart attack, stroke, or any of a thousand other ailments. Death is always near, as is reminiscence about what might have been done and what might yet be done. But an individual can deal with all this, must deal with all this, with as much control as possible, or acceptance when control is futile. Each day, after all, might be the last “normal” day of my life.

For a few weeks our region has experienced unusually high heat and humidity, echoing record-setting summer temperatures throughout the northern hemisphere. Media warns everyone to stay inside and drink fluids, avoid heat attacks, solar cancer, mosquitoes delivering newly arrived tropical diseases. I ignore all that _ take my walks, sit outside _ nothing much can add to my precarious position in life anyway. But I do think such attitudes ignore the likelihood that the earth’s global warming is indeed at a tipping point. I am well aware that this may be the last “normal” summer.

Ocean and bay beaches should offer some relief, but people fear those as well. Sparkling water, like hazy air, is thickened with miscellaneous pollution. Bacteria thrive in the warm temperatures, and frightening varieties are featured on the internet every week. Algae blooms, red and green, are gross. Again, however, this minor stuff missed the main point that oceans are warming, rising, losing environments and life, and are filled with poisonous invisible plastics which may never go away. Innocent swims in public salt water may very soon be a nostalgic memory from the past.

Folks react to all this uncertainty and actual discomfort by attacking or trying to reform what is near and local. They swarm to meetings about food, water supplies, chemicals, housing. I find that very similar to attacking clerks in the old USSR, who handed out rolls of miserable toilet paper one at a time. The problem was not the clerks, it was the system, but the clerks were available for abuse. Our local water is fine. The only thing that will fix pollution around here would be banning all lawn chemicals, outdoor pesticides, and internal combustion engines. That won’t happen, and even if it did, would have no effect on terrestrial demise.

What bothers me most is the misuse of science. Those who scream about food and water and other local issues are usually (from personal experience) fairly ignorant on the proper use of statistics, experiment, theory, and basic facts of chemically physical existence. It is impossible to argue with someone who thinks GMO means tainted, “organic” is less poisonous. I refuse to try to educate someone who simply shouts that double the part per billion of some obscure substance will lead to disease and death because such a claim is posted on an internet site. Dr. Oz or some other fad freak is their current witch doctor, slick advertising their solace, a magic pill or obscure practice their guarantee of practical immortality. It’s a free country, they have a right to do what they want, but I will not join them. Common sense and common courtesy are too much in short supply.

Not A Nation of Laws

Nation of Laws?

I detest claims that we are primarily a “nation of laws.” The letter of the law is the final refuge of scoundrels. I was brought up in a “nation of principles.” A nation of laws is a short step towards fascism. My parents fought a war which proclaimed that merely obeying laws and following orders was no excuse for reprehensible acts.
The United States was founded in rebellion against unjust laws unfairly applied. A fierce civil war raged against laws which violated human moral principles. The Civil Rights Movement successfully resisted Jim Crow laws put in place by southern whites. In my own lifetime protests expanded personal liberties while questioning the Vietnam War and prohibiting massive water and air pollution. Our literature and movies glorified not those who blindly accepted any awful situation, no matter how legal, but those who fought for the right.
Conservatives used to believe in the “higher values” of religion, family, community, country and even humanity itself, no matter what the temporary local law stated. We did not prosecute others because they stole a piece of bread or slept under a bridge when they were starving. We left that to the kings and dictators and bureaucracies of Europe and Asia. We curtailed the force of laws with individual rights embedded in the Constitution (without reference to citizenship.) Until the current administration, we insisted that all human beings deserved similar rights.
Laws are a tool of civilization, but like any tool they can be misused intentionally or unintentionally. Police enforce the laws but also interpret their application, and we should always distrust such naked power even though enforcement is a necessary evil. Our excessive veneration of the equally problematic military is an invitation to a future coup d’etat.
Liberty often consists simply of the right to resist injustice. Blind belief in becoming a “nation of laws” is the slippery path to despotic majority tyranny.

May Mix

By average statistics, May _ not April _ is the rainiest month for Long Island.

Spring can be frustrating on Long Island. Ocean waters which moderate summers and extend fall overlay fog and chill even as inland areas warm quickly. For residents, the season brings hyperbolic hopes and overwrought disappointments.

No need for abstract paintings when wet flagstones shine through overlaid maple spinners sown by strong thunderstorm winds.

By mid-May, the visual tease has climaxed. Early floral bulbs have popped and vanished. Most trees are in full leaf. Shrubs are violently displaying colors, birds have aggressively nested, grass demands to be mown. Human cycles require a return of noisy yard crews and extensive beginning building renovation. Birdsong fills perfumed air, chipmunks are out of hibernation, bumblebees lurch overhead. And yet _ each morning is often clammy and dark, some noons never rise above fifty degrees, and rain arrives more frequently than trains to the city. Meanwhile, summer visions sparkle in all imaginations.

Geese aggressively defensive with newly hatched goslings and they do not care if you are big or not.

Each day delivers impossible, beautiful, affirming change. Animals _ including humans _ are in love and ready for love. Ducks have paired off, swans have hatched grey cygnets, squirrels chase mates around the yard. Fish begin their annual cycles, while osprey swoop overhead determined to find food for their families. Turtles at Hecksher pond climb into a warming sun on island banks. A season of saturated hormones, as life continues its primary business of continuation. A stroll through parks and malls reveals people young and old holding hands or enviously looking at those who do.

Abundant wisteria drapes trees everywhere, an unusual purple in landscape filled with red, pink, green, and white.

More practical inhabitants begin chores and check off chore lists. Maritime areas are frenzied with boats splashing into water, docks and pilings undergoing repair, buoys anchored in place after onshore winter storage. Garden centers stack fertilizer and soil conditioners, while at home remaining layers of leaves are removed from flower beds. Tree trimmers frantically chainsaw old branches before heavy new foliage makes such tasks much harder. And there are always the repairs to buildings and roads after harsh snowy winter.

Bleeding hearts have been appropriate on nasty wet mornings, but will soon depart as the warm weather arrives for good.

On relatively mild days, children are sprung loose as if a dam burst. The playground is filled with noise and rushing small bodies. But it is all so new, so welcome, that even the oldest grumps are not complaining at all the commotion.

May is an active working month for our maritime industries; barges and floating cranes are a common sight.

Spring in Huntington. Not Paris, perhaps _ well, not Paris, certainly _ but magical enough to cause even the most depressed misanthrope to smile in spite of himself.

Azaleas in full glory, unfortunately cut short by a week of cold drizzle and thunderous downpours.

Intuition and Logic

Spring arrived suddenly riding four very hot days, a blink from nearly brown bare landscapes to nearly subtropical lush brilliant colors. Then metrological reality returned.

Complex humans create marvels, make mistakes, socialize wonderfully, and act badly. Autonomous humans judge each other nearly randomly _ friends and neighbors dispute our own crystal clear rationalizations and conclusions.

Azaleas near our front porch have survived and thrived for more than half a century _ suddenly I feel pretty old.

Western tradition formulated binary division between soul and mind. Man’s (sic) soul ruled by ineffable God, evil devils, unknown impulses, preordained instincts. Mind carefully controlled with reason, based on facts and logic. Soul and Mind in constant strife, the defining line between saint and sinner. Freud invented a “more scientific” subconscious to replace the soul; others followed with differing constructions of how consciousness worked. Today we are awash with popular explanations centering on body balance, instinct, genetics, gut feel, intuition, logic, fact and strange weird fantasies of all sorts. “Sober Intellectuals” claim we must follow fact and logic. Political discourse proves we do not. The devils are still in the details of mundane life.

Ferns are usually among the last perennials to unfold from winter hibernation, but this year they compete vigorously with everything else.

Technology seems to promise fully rational lives and societies just around the corner. Like religious millennia, “just around the corner” recedes constantly. I find myself irrationally happy, angry, sad, depressed or elated and entertained _ sometimes all of them nearly simultaneously _ throughout the many moments of each day. Trying to be rational rarely helps. I am, of course, grateful for my mind with its logic and facts. More of my daily existence seems concerned with emotions and visions and illogical streams of consciousness. As for facts, whatever I may believe is quite frequently challenged by the opinions of others who think differently _ and by myself as time passes.

Massive fir trees rerobe in heavy new green each year, somehow surviving impossibly strong winds.

Our universe and umwelt are fractally complex. Even “solid” facts arrive with exceptions and challenges, resulting from environment and situation. As for humans and their society _ well, infinity is just plain infinity. That we can agree about anything _ let alone most things _ is a true miracle. That we can get along pretty well even without agreeing on many things is an even greater one.

Modes of thought can be overcome with determination. Monks learn to ignore hunger as warriors ignore pain. Instinctive behaviors can be reworked. Intuition is constantly modified to allow us to get along together. Reason becomes rationalization _ nor is that necessarily a mistake.

Lilac festivals are nearly as numerous as lilacs themselves. The few blooms on our backyard specimen are all that are needed for heady perfume as we walk by.

A half century ago, when I thought as a child, reason appeared ascendant. Conclusions logically based on scientific fact would automatically match intuition; truth was a zero-sum game with one winner. As I aged, gut feelings often override cold logic. Now I construct rationalizations to support intuitive decisions. I treasure my intuition as an amalgamation of experience into quasi-instinct. My “fight or flight” reaction when I see a tiger is well underway before I logically enumerate “this is big animal. With teeth. Claws. Run!”

Leaves are even more miraculous _ and sometimes more beautiful _ than blooms. Because they are so numerous we sometimes take them much too much for granted.

Intuition is often correct. Pretending that all we need is more education, more facts, more logic _ and then agreement will descend as manna from heaven is just another utopian fantasy. I don’t claim to know an answer. However, I will say that lately I am more likely to trust my “gut” than pure logic. Rather, I view both as equally fallible. Whether I make a snap
moral judgement or follow a thread of thought to a logical conclusion, I know I must recheck conclusions in the other mode. Even when both sides of my reasoning agree, I mistrust myself. Perhaps that paralyzes my actions at times. Or, perhaps, that feeling itself is only a rationalization of aging .

Breathless displays of dogwood float everywhere to convince us how inadequate we are compared to the expansive beauty of this season.

Discontinuous Prediction

Better late than never, I suppose. An essay from a month ago, with its prepared pictures. Back to current photographs next week.

April seemed a little more fickle than I remember or hope for

Ubiquitous computers have allowed crackpot ideas to be presented as convincingly as normal truth. It is a trivial task to find supporting documentation for any notion at all on the internet. Spell and grammar checking programs screen away what used to be telltale illiteracy. Social media allows wide dissemination _ and sometimes viral acceptance _ of idiotic rumors throughout the world.

Forsythia finally blossomed despite the challenges, welcome addition of gold to the landscape

Worse than that, computer programs allow experts to distort even scientifically valid data into dubious projections. Any selected statistical points can be stitched into a convincing graph or two to illustrate a pet theory. I am sure I could come up with a chart showing how phases of the moon affect the results of coin flips, if I were able to cherry pick the time period or carefully ignore conflicting results.

Mist settled on Oyster Bay, where already clam boats are plying their trade.

Scientifically-oriented twentieth-century historians debated fiercely whether civilization was driven by great men or the inevitable sweep of circumstance. They assumed that if we just knew everything at some point, our predictions as to what would happen next would be logically infallible. Aware now of subatomic uncertainty and chaos theory, we no longer trust that notion. Next year’s weather cannot be predicted accurately except as averages _ maybe.

Hardly the view one would expect as Easter passed by and May loomed nearer.

“Black Swan Events” such as individual assassinations or accidents have always been recognized as disrupters. There are longer-term cultural disrupters as well. No one surveying 13th century France could anticipate the effects of the Black Death, or of the end of the “medieval warm period.” It remains hard to understand how a small chunk of Europe _ enduring brutal fratricidal religious clashes in the 16^th century _ could within 400 years come to dominate the world politically, economically, and culturally.

Never sure if I am feeding feathered friends, falcons, or furry feral cats. Or all of them.

Unexpected massive social upset caused by gas-powered automobiles has been extensively documented. In the future, equivalent theses will be promulgated concerning a ten year period during which both information and disinformation became instantly accessible to everyone in the world via smart phone. Now I wonder what happens when supermarkets and private transportation vanish, when privacy is eliminated, when gene-editing roils the very meaning of life.

Roses inched towards blooming spectaculars, but emerging leaves were lovely accents.

I distrust cherry-picked statistics. I do not believe fancy graphs projecting future “likelihoods.” I assume there will be Black Swan events and shocks of which I can know nothing at all. I do not think I can predict anything that is likely to occur within the next 20 years.

Snow glories, originally planted elsewhere, transferred by squirrels in seasons past

Others quaintly seek to retain the past. Saving even the present is impossible. Knowing what is good or what is better outside of what we do today or tomorrow (and I mean only the real day after today) is much more complex than words and graphs can tell.

View down our hill in dormancy could be anytime in the last four months.

Patch of woodland daffodils on a south-facing hill at Caumsett

Here and there a burst of green brought hope for the coming weeks

Local Appreciation

Tiny bright daffodils are an early joy whenever they bloom

Almost every day, fabulous color brochures arrive in the mail begging me to travel to some of the seven million wonders of the world. They promote an implication that it is a sin to avoid what “I must see before I die.” Naturally, for this religious benediction, they also expect a “modest” remuneration.

Rose briars and other thorns leafing out as the sun grows stronger

I have instead decided to be a starry-eyed tourist beyond my own doorstep. I strive to gaze upon the glories of Huntington and Long Island as if I had never encountered them daily. I want to delve into history and current upheavals. To be as amazed or appalled by what happens within a mile or two miles or ten as I would be if I voyaged to Timbuktu or Hong Kong.

Species not endangered, but local wetlands skunk cabbage is threatened by a huge nasty nearby condo development.

Huntington events occur that are as praiseworthy or disgraceful as anywhere else in the world. Unique heritage is destroyed to make way for modern monotony. Wetlands are converted to shoddy condominiums. But simultaneously parks are upgraded and modern marvels are created and sometimes what has always been manages to drag itself into the future. People increasingly frequent public beaches while children chase geese and swans with ancient instinct.

Massive renovation in Wyncoma as Versailles-wannabees replace more modest dwellings of yesteryear.

My local memories are as vivid as those of distant lands. Unfortunately, at my age all memories fade quickly. Friends protest “but you will have photographs.” That is true, but my pictures are no different than those I can view of anywhere anytime anyplace on the internet. Why bother with the inconvenience and expense of going there?

Melting town snow dump evokes jagged mountain ranges, at least for those with no real mountains nearby.

Local concentration embeds the wisdom of trite old sayings: “the farther you go the less you know”, “see the world in a grain of sand”, “think globally but act locally”. Each day renews and sharpens my understanding of this universe. Wildlife cavorts on our harbor as amazingly as on the Serengeti Plain, and I can watch it every day, with quiet time to appreciate and contemplate. There is no need for me to waste infinite dollars, infinite time, infinite aggravation, to trek somewhere that I may soon forget.

Maple belatedly beginning to flower, probably has been a good year for syrup

So I strive to constantly remain an out-of-towner with a fresh (if not quite innocent) mind. There are aggravations and exultations each moment. Success arrives as an innocent and excited eye when I spot the first crocus in bloom or the last leaf drifting down.

April, but the hits just keep on coming