Hazy Horizons

Monday

Clouds float over nearby distance, watercraft shrink with perspective, vapor blends multiple blues.

Any window with a glimpse of sky offers a horizon, although some are building roofs only a few yards away. More traditional horizons are those from a mountaintop or on the beach, where the world ends in unachievable distance. Often in August humidity is high, pollution prevalent, and horizons become lost or blurred beyond a dim bluish line.
Horizons naturally lead our thoughts to infinity and limits. We perceive an immediate barrier beyond which we cannot see, but we also understand an implied universe of more beyond. This is an interesting contradiction, contraction, tension, or summary of existence itself _ a line between known and unknown, a statement of where our normal world ends.
For most of us, horizons are of little more than aesthetic value. We empty our thoughts and stare at pretty colors, perhaps picking out shapes in clouds. We vaguely appreciate extensions beyond the vanishing points, but it is too removed to worry about. If we are on the beach, we turn to more exciting local sights, and more immediately demanding concerns like shade and beverage and how much time is left for this particular interlude.

Tuesday

No photograph fully captures what we see; I can hardly recognize this harbor horizon as shown.

I’m not a bird watcher, so my normal repertoire of waterfowl recognition is gulls, egrets, cormorants, crows, ducks, geese, and an occasional hawk or osprey. Gulls are the least intimidated of the set and often dive-bomb unsuspecting beachgoers trying to snatch a bit of food. Sometimes they act as if they are about to become militant singly or in groups _ a minor version of Hitchcock’s classic.
What I enjoy as I sit is partially the unpredictable entertainment. However the most entrancing element is demonstration of perspective. A tiny bird down the beach or out on the waves heads towards me and magnifies immensely, suddenly looming huge. Then diminishes quickly to a dot as it swoops away. Reflections on how I regard my own problems _ tiny in the distance, giant when nearby _ is inevitable.
Then I come to my senses, stop thinking, and simply enjoy the view, all the way to the infinitely far horizon.

Wednesday

Canoes have become rarer than paddleboards and kayaks, all welcome alternatives to powerboats.

Somewhere, beyond the sea somewhere …
Romantics experience the unknown as hope.

Thursday

Reeds fully grown now, preparing grain seeds for next year, beautiful even though invasive in this area.

Thinking people have long realized the Earth is round, but everyone experiences it as flat. The horizon is the demarcation, in this case, between logic and senses. We may know there is something out beyond the farthest we can see of ground or water, but what is real is all about us, to be touched or smelled or used in some way.
Unconsciously, I think we carry this over to our perception of time. There is an almost invisible line between now and whatever may be in past and future. Yet we know the past contained more, and assume the future _ whatever future _ will as well.

Friday

Late yellow flowers grab their moment and rush to seed as the frantic pace of people during summer ebbs.

I look across the wide water and see nothing. Below atomic structure, immense eternal energies seethe, in tensions that eventually create the world of molecules we know. I remain ignorant of this infinite battleground all about me.
I likewise fail to notice the molecules themselves _ gases and water vapor and tiny chunks of every element known to man _ drifting on the wind. I cannot see the miniscule detritus of life such as skin flakes and bits of feather. My eyes fail to record viruses, bacteria, pollen and tiny seeds, arachnids, and insects.
I stare through the soup and all that registers is that the horizon is clear or fuzzy. All I decide is that the air is clear or somehow stained with vapor or pollution to impede my view. My ignorance of true reality is complete, but nevertheless the horizon I do notice and the effects of the air in between are all I really need to fully exist.

Saturday

Silver Lace Vine begins to shroud fences and neglected shrubs with a blanket of delicate white blossoms.

“Look at that beautiful sailboat,” my wife exclaims. The sun sparkles brilliantly on crisscrossed waves stirred by an inconstant breeze.

“Sorry,” I say, looking up, “don’t have my glasses on.”

“So you can’t see it at all? Has the horizon vanished?”

“Oh, I see a blur. I know something is there. I just can’t quite make it out.”

“Very peculiar,” she says.

“Not so much. It’s like your problem with reading.”

“I don’t see how that could be the same.”

“You know there are words on a page, for example, you just can’t quite make out the letters.”

“Oh, OK. Well, put your glasses on.”

“I’m looking for them now,” I say. I slip them on and the distant world jumps into focus once more.

Sunday

Glaring brightness blurs far and near, perhaps a metaphor for mindless meditation.

Perfect Shangri La I think

More lazy crazy hazy days

Far from all the madding crowd

While swarms surround me nearly naked

Contradictions fill my mind

I try escaping into breeze

And for this while, a fleeting calm

Allows ignoring outside worlds.

Isolated introspection

August Beauty

Monday

Spicebush at Caumsett smells infinitely better than it looks, and it looks pretty good.

In August, I wallow in mature beauty. Spring is crystalline promise, but late summer provides perfect culmination. We can enjoy all possible masterpieces completed. Early flowers may be gone, but their fruits continue to be displayed. Leaves do not yet show inevitable decay. Animal young flourish as they rapidly grow to prepare for winter.
It seems a good time to just sit back in appreciative sloth. Of course, most times are like that for an old guy like me, but August has its own relaxing potion filled with slow flavor. The world just is, marvelous and amazing. A time to almost forget what it was, what it will be, what might happen. Existence on most August afternoons simply could not be improved.

Tuesday

Centerport children’s summer camp echoes with laughter beyond the tidal flats as life goes on.

Painting landscapes has never paid well. Before photographs and movies, artists were paid to either capture portraits or to provide entertaining drama (like the Sistine Chapel.) Seascapes were either backgrounds, or thrilling illustrations of dangerous moments.
Perhaps that is because it is so easy to appreciate open natural magnificence. It hardly requires specialized training to be entranced by mountains, plains, or rolling ocean breakers. Nature helps by allowing each of thousands of viewers at a given location to focus on a thousand different things, something for everyone.
At the beach I happily gaze at sailboats along far shores, or sparkles on the wave. My wife watches children nearby frolic in sand and tide. When I was young, I eagerly scanned young women against the spotless sky. Tomorrow, should I return, it will all be different. But just as common, just as normal, just as rewarding, just as spectacular.

Wednesday

Grasses ripen almost invisibly in various nooks along a high stone seawall.

A rose is a rose…
A rose is also several trillion cells working together to impress my several trillion cells and trillions of companion bacteria.

Thursday

St. Anne’s Lace begins the ongoing parade of late flowers which murmur summer’s passing.

We rush about, doing almost anything to prove we have existed. Take a photo, talk to someone else, build or wreck something around us. Industrial culture is a culture of doing. Dig a ditch, fill it in. Prove your day has been well used.
I’m not completely sold on frantically merchandised varieties of meditation, but anything which slows us down is a good idea. Just as important are attitudes which allow us to feel accomplishment without affecting an external artifact.
I spend more time sitting and looking deeply, pause for a moment to engage with a bee or flower or cloud. Stop in the middle of a meal or a walk to appreciate my exact point in being. The young laugh and claim I am making a virtue of necessity. Perhaps that is so.

Friday

Perennial Hibiscus amazes us each year with such grand reward for so little garden effort.

There are many kinds of snobbism, as varied as people’s beliefs. Some, for example, dismiss cultivated flowers as less impressive than native ones, no matter how they look. Others refuse to enjoy anything which is too common, or too easy to enjoy. “Oh,” they exclaim, “that’s just a cheap variety of red rose.”
A newspaper story recently queried some “floral professionals” on flowers they claim to hate, and as might be expected, the answers were always common flowers that everyone else loves most. How otherwise could they maintain that their own expertise is valuable?
But I love whatever blooms I can find this month, after the midsummer annuals have gone to seed. If the hibiscus and rose of Sharon and geraniums march on in brilliant beauty only with human help, I am content. It is just as much a mistake to pretend people are not part of the environment as it is to ignore our environment entirely.

Saturday

Marigolds compete with kayaks on our misty public beach, a scene which will probably vanish within twenty years.

Shadow from a hulking twitchy young man falls on a woman lounging back in a beach chair. Gulls fight for bread which small children throw at them. “Hey Mom, doing nothing again, I see,” he laughs roughly.

“Ah, Justin, this is just so beautiful and perfect. You should try it sometime …”

“Waste of time, beauty, What good is it? What is beauty anyway?”

“Deep questions from you? I guess college has broadened your mind more than I thought. You guys get into heated discussions like this over beer at the bar?”

“Not hardly!” he exclaims. “But we have one teacher … Anyway, I’m sure you can’t answer the question.”

She thinks a moment. “Well, whatever it is, I think it requires variety and change. And people. You’ll never convince me a bird or dog experiences beauty.”

“Is that all?” he snarks.

“Enough. Anything more just gets muddy. But this, right now, is beautiful. Now, Justin, you sit down right here and tell me everything that is happing with you.”

“Aw, Mom.” In resignation, he flops on the towel next to her and begins his story.

The gulls flop off to panhandle further down the sand.

Sunday

Fish clustering in thousands at head of harbor presumably trying to advance up streams that have been dammed.

August moon fills harvest songs

But now we harvest all year long

Summer sand and beach once rare

We visit year round through the air

I take for granted all my days

Hardly note late summer haze

My mind as emptied as the sky

August simply rushes by

Firmly Middle

Monday

Ho hum, just another pleasant view on another normal day, nothing to be excited about, unless I am alive.

“Jack of all trades, master of none” is the pejorative version of “renaissance man” who is, presumably, master of everything. A renaissance person is now conceptually impossible even for an immortal _ who could possibly know nor use all the knowledge that has accumulated over time? We could, of course, select categories _ a master flute player who is also a Nobel physicist and industrial tycoon _ but even the most outrageous of such fantasies ignore all the rest of human possibility.
So the common wisdom is to give up breadth and simply be the best at some specialization and let everything else fall as it will. I think this is a disease of our culture, not merely in careers but also in daily life. Folks who narrow themselves into pure categories to fully enjoy the essence of perfection are giving up a large part of the simple joy of being. It is possible, for example, to enjoy wine or food without becoming a connoisseur of vintage and cuisine.
Perhaps time spent in carefully cultivating nuance could be better utilized for modest appreciation of other worldly miracles. We resist this thought because then we would simply be one of the crowd, like everyone else, and this culture pushes hard to terrorize us about not being uniquely worthwhile.

Tuesday

Rose of Sharon, like goldenrod, is an early reminder that summer is slipping away quickly.

Darwinism has been twisted into all kinds of pretzels to explain and justify almost anything. “Survival of the fittest,” which is a perversion of “natural selection” attains the status of holy writ. We automatically think of “biggest” “best” “most agile” “best adapted.” Of course, most of the really specialized magnificently focused species are evolutionary dead ends, and die when their environment changes. Like some job categories these days.
Consider our most successful evolved companions _ mosquitoes, cockroaches, rats, bacteria, fungi. Hardly specialized. Mosquitoes are pretty pesky things and seem not to care too much about which blood they feast on. If a particular bird species dies out, mosquitoes don’t starve. We should recognize that like them, we are happy generalists, and it is our lack of specialization _ not our ability to focus narrowly on problems _ that provides us true freedom.

Wednesday

Under billowing overcast skies, water grasses dance delicately amidst reflections and shadows.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
But perhaps “well” should be defined as “just good enough.”

Thursday

Abstract light and dark form phantom compositions only my mind might notice.

Everybody wants to be special, we are told. It’s a pillar of social control. Blue bloods always preach that they are in charge for a reason, even if that reason is simply that god or fate has been on their side. Lately they claim they are smarter. It’s always a justification for why they have more and everyone else has less. Once upon a time their needs were insatiable, but now there is a bit a trouble as all needs have generally been overfilled.
At this point, elites sprouting ever more plumage look like sickly extremes of a genetic bell curve. How many pretty (expensive) tail feathers can they display? How does that make them more fit?
Humans do not generate peacock feathers or saber-tooth fangs. Our singular adaptability for survival is our individual mind and our social skills, which we can adjust internally. Being happy with what we have, at least in an affluent society, may be a better survival strategy than frantically and neurotically racing to be at the head of the pack.

Friday

Vegetation reaches its peak, in this greenest summer in memory.

Seagulls seem to be among the least specialized birds, or perhaps they are simply the best adapted to human environments. When other avian species that none of us ever encounter vanish, seagulls will still be around. Like most animals that exist near humans, their specialization is that they have none.
As our current culture evolves, I believe our current high-strung never-sleep desperate patterns will self-destruct in either chaos or burnout. As machines replace all the necessary slavery of the agricultural age, the apparatus of that era _ which has now run amok _ becomes useless.
I like to believe that our descendants, if any, will be more like sea
gulls than cockroaches. Flying free, always finding enough, enjoying mock crises, and strutting independently or riding tides peacefully however and whenever they wish.

Saturday

Colors hinting at autumn are beginning to creep into leaves here and there.

“Lurk, you’re looking a bit thin these days.”

“Yeah, Vlad, I know. The trouble is I think I’ve developed a bit too fine a palate.”

“Not sure what you mean,” whines Vlad, hovering as he scents the air for stray carbon dioxide trails.

“Suckella dragged me into a fine blood tasting event, last week, and I discovered I was able to tell the difference between various samples. Fish, for example, is awful, and bird’s just cheap. Humans vary an awful lot but a few are simply delicious.”

“Ok, but what …”

Lurk holds up a few of his six legs. “Hear me out … The fact is the only food I can stand right now belongs to that sweet littlest child that comes out only once in a while. I’ve been waiting for days now, but I’m still not hungry enough to go back to _ ycch _ bird.”

“But there’s a big guy now!” yells Vlad, whirring in excitement. “He won’t even notice me under his knee until I’ve finished the feast. Why don’t you try his forehead?”

“No, no,” sniffs Lurk, pretentiously. “Common sour stuff. I’ve tried it before. No, I will just wait and hope.”

“Suit yourself,” says Vlad, zipping off, as Lurk alights on a nearby hemlock needle.

Neither could comprehend the big human when he called to his mate “I hope little Sue Ellen has a great vacation upstate.” It’s doubtful Lurk will survive the week.

Sunday

Flooded marshes gradually recover from centuries of being channeled, drained, and harvested.

Middle is infinite.

Around, below, above, within, without

Extend endlessly.

The farthest is too far.

Deepest is too deep.

All directions are pursued futilely.

Middle is perfect.

Liquid Trance

Monday

Low tide quietly lapping on exposed spartina grass.

This time of year, depending on tide tables clouds and heat, we often grab towels and head for a local beach on Long Island Sound. Retirees doing nothing at all to help the planet. On the other hand, we are not aggravating it nor anyone else. The waves roll in, sparkles fill the wide bay to dark trees on the far shore as randomly placed boats glide or race about.
Waves flow hypnotically. All identical, each unique, close to eternal. They have rolled onto similar sand and pebbles and rocks since the oceans formed, billions of years ago. Well before life, they were cresting and swishing. No matter what happens to life from here on they will continue until Earth itself ends in barren cold or fire depending on the type of death of the sun.
Watching them easily fills an hour or more. Pure mindless meditation, no possible meaning, no logic, simply being. It looks like there is a pattern, but that too is illusion. Blink eyes and everything might appear totally different. I accept this pleasant trance and feel my soul being restored.

Tuesday

Almost dizzy just trying to make sense of this.

If mosquitoes are not too thick, chased by moderate sunset breezes, we sometimes sit and watch the sun _ the bloody sun in most travel literature _ slowly drop below the horizon, outlining trees on hills rising above puppy cove. Rather than becoming blinded by staring at the direct spectacle, I concentrate on the constantly moving abstract spectacle of reflections and colors on the water’s surface.
We could claim there is no art here, for there is no human creation. But I am involved, so I represent the human element, the artist who chooses what to see as well as the audience who appreciates what the artist has shown. Perhaps it illustrates how complicated the idea of art may be … but then I am drawn back in, watching distortions and sparkles and sudden patterns that mean everything and nothing. The dominant colors change with the minutes, and finally the glow dies and we scamper back as tiny thirsty creatures of the night regain their territory.

Wednesday

Just back from Rochester, where the high falls are full following months of plentiful rain.

What a day for a daydream.
What a moment to consciously appreciate

Thursday

Canandaigua, one of the finger lakes, provides a slightly different aspect of water meditation.

I wish to praise stages in life, which is hardly in fashion any more. Infants are preplanned into trajectories before they leave the womb, children are prepped to be adults by hovering parents, adolescents fear permanent failure if they stumble. And then each individual fights a long slog of conflicts while trying to pretend they are growing better and not older until the day they die.
Perhaps it is better to try to accept the wonders of our changing condition. An infant is potential glory, but also a miracle as itself. Childhood should if possible be a time of play and joy and lack of responsibility, adolescence should be carefully matured with grandiose dreams, young adulthood should be a time of excess and exuberance, later adulthood through middle age a time of mastery and accomplishment. And finally accept later years to retire to a life of contemplation and providing advice.
Once upon a time such a route was a worthy goal, for those fortunate enough to live past forty or fifty. One of the aggravations of our current culture is the belief that each unique individual must freeze identity from year 0 to 100.

Friday

As temperatures climb into humid high nineties, an excursion to open water more inviting than a woodland hike.

Classic movies show the bows of majestic sailing ships cleaving water smoothly and quietly, perhaps encouraged by surfing dolphins, while wakes roll out from ponderous sterns. Such wave actions are less prevalent along our shores, more likely to catch high chops from racing cigarette boats, all sizes of pleasure cruisers, and speeding jet skis. The tiny perturbations of small sailboats are lost in wind crests. And the gigantic swell of tankers or freighters passing along the sound vanish into tidal rhythms.
Even the momentary surface appearance of such bodies of water is so comple
x as to be frightening. And that ignores what really happens beneath and around _ huge volumes and actions nobody can truly appreciate. But the surface is what I see _ spray and sparkle, roll and whitecap, infinite, eternal, transient, momentary, and only meaningful this second because I happen to be looking at it.

Saturday

Reflection perception presents multiple puzzles to be solved by how we focus.

Water, Air, Sand and Rock are discussing permanence with the Sun.

“What are you talking about, Water,” asks Sand. “I keep my shapes a lot longer than you do.”

“That makes me laugh,” snorts Rock. “I’m here millions of years, you know.”

“I’m around forever,” claims Air.

“Nobody sees you, you don’t do anything, wind lasts less than Water here,” replies Sand.

“Well, so have I, in that sense,” says Water.

“Children, Children,” calls out Sun. “We all have our own times and moments, all the same, all the time.”

“What?” they chorus.

“It’s only those pesky humans who notice time,” Sun tells them. “My billions of years, Rock’s millions, Sand’s minutes, Water’s seconds, Air’s moments _ all the same thing to our way of being. It’s only those foolish people who live in time. We just are, forever.”

Unknowing.

Sunday

Amazingly we can easily separate reflections from objects to make sense of our jumbled visions.

Swish in, flow out, ripple, reflect, lie still

Immerse myself in great floods outside

Conscious of larger ones within

Attempt full awareness

Calmly accept

Impossibility

Sultry Apathy

Monday

Still waters and my own mind almost as tranquilly empty as the calm moist air following overnight showers.

Each day brings tales of the aspirations of important cultural players. People who are elected, appointed, anointed, or who make more than the average Mr. and Ms. Jones. They have rigid ideas about what you and I should be doing, and how they will force us to do it, to make us more like them. Except of course they do not want us ever to be actually elected, anointed, etc. etc.
I never could quite work up envy. I believe those minds are closed to the truly finer aspects of existence. Summer happiness has fortunately soaked away even minor irritation _ I sit on a beach or walk the woods immersed in beauty and meaning and constant joy. Apathetic, I wantonly ignore where such self-declared leaders imagine they are steering society.

Tuesday

Deadly nightshade tangles along the road, glistening with imagined malevolence based only on its name.

What better place to contemplate reality than a warm sandy beach on a hot summer day? I riffle through a thick book, periodically glance up at boat traffic piloted by those too juiced to relax, listen to laughter and screams of children, watch a few others just like me. Almost all of us, surprisingly, fully untethered from the electronic web which tries to make our lives so insistently worried.
This lethargy does not help our GDP. I’m using public space, spending no money, directing nobody else to do some chore for which I will pay them. I might as well be an ancient ancestor lazily contemplating our universe in between chipping stone hand axes. I guess I should feel shame while shirking the necessity of constant intrusive progress.

Wednesday

Chicory lovely blue blossoms before noon, brightening a chill moist stroll.

The busy bear went over the mountain …
Maybe he should have spent more time examining his own.

Thursday

Quasi-professional clam bayman gets ready to try his luck beyond the inlet.

There is a dawning realization driven by current economic conditions that the United States in the 1950s was in many ways a golden era never likely to happen again anywhere. At the time and in decades of later mythology it was seen as the normalized dawn of utopia. Science could cure all ills. Jobs would constantly become better and higher paying. There would be time for recreation, second homes, infinite wealth. And people would become good and make the world perfect.
It all felt that way, of course, because at the time the US was a uniquely undamaged industrial state, and moreover had just gone through a few traumatically unifying events (the depression and WWII). Theorists and leaders have sought to maintain or recreate that for years.
For me and my boomer peers, such was normal life. What happened, we keep asking. Where is utopia now? High taxes? Government deficit? We easily forget that in the 50s taxes were extremely high, especially on the wealthy, and industry grew anyway. The government spent money like water on the interstate highway system, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and countless other projects and the boom went on with no end.
The dream of the 50s has turned into the curse of our times, and has broken society into brittle little pieces absolutely certain that everything has gone wrong, and somebody must be to blame.

Friday

Summer blues surround pale bindweed blossoms, pretty enough here, an alarming menace in my garden.

Summer has returned as I melt here on the patio. High humidity, lots of insects including mosquitoes but mostly during the day just various harmless insects. Birds visiting the birdbath and feeder. Flowers wilting, and me happily dripping as I read some interesting new work from the library.
We have been visited by frequent intense storms, so many and so often that we wonder if global warming is part of the reason. Birds and flowers don’t seem to mind, but we worry. There have been storms before, high heat before, but …

Saturday

High eighties, burning sun, no breeze, a fine day for fishing even if nothing bites.

Two older folks set up chairs on pebbly beach, inhale deeply of salty breeze, stretch in hot sun. One turns a radio low volume to an oldies station. The other looks around, surprised.

“Eddie?” asks the woman. “Is that you? My God, haven’t seen you in …”

“What?” He squints and blinks. “Oh, hey, Brender. Yeah, been a while.”

“Where you been, anyway? Surely we should have …”

“Well, been living on the West Coast since forever. Just visiting a trade fair in Melville. Thought I’d look in on some of the old places, see what’s changed.”

“A lot and not much, same as everywhere, I guess,” Brenda smiles.

“You certainly seem to be doing well,” laughs Eddy. “Still looking pretty damn good.”

“Why, thank you, sir. And you as well. What you been up to? Jeez, what is it _ 40 years on?”

“Yeah, I think … summer of 75? Me, I’m just killing time until retirement, a few years from now. Selling pools, actually, at my father-in-law’s place. I hate it, but college for the kids you know.”

“Ah, how many?”

“Two girls. And you?”

“Good, good. Stopped work when I had my knee replaced last year. Jack still covers everything, and I have Heather living down the street with her kids, so I babysit a lot.”

“A lot happened after those highs and lows back then, eh?” smiles Eddie.

“What we didn’t know …” replies Brenda. “I remember thinking it was the end of the road.”

“Both found a way to survive, though,” he notes.

“Survive hell, I’ve had a blast. Still enjoying myself.”

“I see, I see. Yeah, me too.”

They sit back carefully and begin to stare out at constantly sparkling waves as white sails outline against the far dark hills. The radio tune has run its course, tale frozen in time, but life continues to unroll and complicate and surprise everyone.

Sunday

Except for crowded boats in distant marina, this could be a scene from sixty or more years ago.

Molasses summer, vast and free

I rest unbodied, drift in time

While insects flit, some bother me

Break concentration on this rhyme

Where should I go, what must I do

Or simply sit as life spins by

Quite content my lassitude

Let others preen or sell or buy

My years are flowing rapid gone

I’ve loved each one, and still admire

Achievements, memories, every one

Wish little more, from this retire.

True Olds

Monday

Egrets enjoy a light meal on tidal flats in rising heat.

“News” should be naturally opposed to “Olds.” The sun came up today, I am still alive, the world is full of marvels _ these are not news. When the sun remains dark, if my arm aches, any unusual event anywhere _ these are supposed to grab our attention as curious primates.
Fake news is the current meme, which some call lies. But it really stands for irrelevant entertainment that has no bearing on our daily life. Can I affect a dying sea otter population on the far side of the world, what does it mean to my daily action today, how does it help me survive better? Honestly, most news from our vast media sources is useless to how each of us lives.
The olds are good and bad. The climate degenerates slowly, but the environment temporarily at least remains vibrant. My trillions and trillions of cells are still miraculously working well to support a consciousness, although perhaps less vibrantly than forty years ago. I am now spending a lot of time trying to appreciate the olds and to be less concerned with superficial novelty.

Tuesday

Intimations of late summer as dock shines reddish brown in shimmering heat.

This morning’s olds is that there are lots of chipmunks in our area. News is that we have two in the back yard taking advantage of sunflower seeds falling from the bird feeder. Cute little things, and probably this year’s crop since they show too little concern for big creatures like us lurking about. Fun to watch, even though we are quite aware that they carry ticks that spread lyme disease.
If our chipmunks vanished, the olds would not change at all, although the news might distress us. If all the chipmunks in our area disappeared, or if, like that bats, all of those on the North American continent were threatened, it might be a different story. But it is so hard to tell which is which, and most of the time the news we are aware of is of our purely backyard type, from which no conclusions are possible nor valid.

Wednesday

Some public beaches in Huntington can occasionally resemble deserted Caribbean isles in travel brochures.

A bell clangs in the night: “2017 and all’s well.”
Not quite.

Thursday

Smog, beauty, bright leaves, shining water, and artifacts of our civilization everywhere.

We like to believe that our culture is changing more rapidly than any other in history. The jury on that is out, I have seen studies claiming the 14^th century in Europe was even quicker. Certainly the “long static unchanging lives” which some people tell us happened long ago have never been true in “civilized” places for the last two thousand years. In all that turmoil, survivors mostly contended with “olds” _ getting food, shelter, clothing, and following the routines of normal life.
What has been true, and continues to be so, is that our local lives are affected by distant events over which we have no control at all. It might be technology, or war, or plague, or simple bad luck, but something we dread may be coming over the horizon every morning when we wake up. Such news is too often bad.
That jars our explorer and pioneer myth. Explorers and pioneers, by definition, left the cozy confines of routine old life and set out into a wilderness where they controlled everything that happened to them. They ignored everything else and took care of everything that came along. Each moment became a form of “news.” We wish to retain a spark of such rebellion.
Each morning, like molasses, we are embedded in the “olds”, which is a good thing. As soon as we power up our electronic devices, shrill salespeople try to convince us that mostly irrelevant “news” is somehow important to what we do next and how we will think this moment. Most of the time it is wise to ignore such chatter, and deal with normal local reality.

Friday

Forgotten except by birds, entangled deep in poison ivy and thorns, wild berries ripen with hidden beauty.

Weeds are particularly good examples of the news cycle. Normally, we never notice them. They are just roadside greenery, or more leaves in the garden, or once in a while an unexpected flower. Sometimes we even take notice, for a moment, that they help define the landscape, such as when ragweed looms waist high where there used to be hard-caked dirt. Who cares about the growth of weeds, anyway _ they just take care of themselves.
But once in a while I wander around our
flower gardens in July, and suddenly I am amazed to find that weeds have been overtaking the carefully cultivated displays. Bindweed strangling the taller plants, pigweed carpeting the ground, the tentacles of crabgrass grasping everywhere, and all kinds of unknown interlopers grabbing nutrients, water, and sunshine. On that day, at that hour, weeds are news, and I become consumed by pulling them out and clearing what should be a nice civilized space.
For a few days I watch vigilantly, and tug something else here or there. And then time passes, the flowers are pleasant, and once again I notice nothing until some other morning ….

Saturday

Early light, quiet breeze, an almost false tranquility as birds chorus loudly.

Old Man River and Father Time recline on a crimson cloudbank, casually contemplating a possible game of checkers as they sip their craft beers. Athena bounds in, glowing with enthusiastic happiness.

“Hey, you guys should get out in the sunshine. Dianna and I just saw the most amazing deer racing by, and all the summer flower fields are too beautiful to believe.”

“Seen it all,” says River, slowly.

“Every year,” adds Time with a slight croak.

“But you’re missing it all. Why the butterflies alone are …

“Been there, done that,” replies River.

“Year after year,” grunts Time.

“Old news,” they chorus together. “We just want to sit back and relax.”

“Stupid lazy old men. I think you have entirely wrong approach to the miracles of the day.”

“Moments are just moments, we hang out for eternity.”

“So do rocks. Lot of good it does them.” Athena flips around and bounces out and over a billowing cumulus, dwindling as she slowly falls.

“Silly whippersnapper.”

“No sense at all.”

Sunday

Last willow standing along our harbor road shimmers in early misty sunbeams.

North wind cools, south brings warmth,

East wind chills, west drives rain

Big thunderstorm always unexpected.

Born, live, die, each constant fate

isolate, enmeshed as well

Not to know deep what nor why

(unless escaped to insane dream.)

Each moment new, each memory old,

Unbalanced hopes and fears

Constantly surprised

Northeastern Lights

Monday

Humidity dims distance, as usual heat clouds pile up along Long Island Sound over the far shore.

Surprisingly, as twilight lingers into short nights and late darkness, I become more aware of the moon, stars, and lights in the heavens. Milder temperatures encourage me to pause a while when I take out the trash, and to look overhead.
Of course, there are few stars to be seen, around here. When the night is absolutely clear there is the moon in its constantly changing phase, if it happens to be overhead in its complicated journey. And a few of the brighter stars from the few constellations I remember. Then it is almost a game to pick out Venus, Mars and Jupiter from hordes of approaching and departing jet aircraft.
Writers use terms like velvet black. Huntington skies are always an orange glow. Town and increasing suburban electric illumination reflects back from clouds and vapor, so much that no night is truly dark. There used to be only dim porch bulbs on houses, but now harsh security beacons either blind constantly, or switch on at every momentary sound and motion. Cars blaze along each few minutes, actinic blue in front, trailing flaring crimson. More and more, annoyingly tiny twinkles of solar-powered junk line walks and driveways.
All of this, all the time, and only I seem to notice, for nobody else is usually outside. The final rays breaking charm of dark evenings are multicolored flares emanating from windows where huge screens provide something to look at which is more interesting than moons, planets, and stars.

Tuesday

Clear air all the way to low satellite orbit, too early for much smog.

Volcanoes, pollution and _ presumably _ massive asteroid strikes create spectacular sunsets. Turner’s exotically flamboyant paintings, once thought the product of an overactive imagination and exaggerated romantic senses, were recently reevaluated and declared quite realistic based on the documented effects of the massive 1815 Tambora eruption (which also caused the “year with no summer” in New England.)
Huntington is graced with marvelous sunsets lacing and luminescing through the soot, gasses and general industrial activity of New York City immediately to our west. Once in a while an inversion will extend contaminated air all the way to our part of the island, but mostly we know it by its evening sky signature. As with all such phenomena _ oil sheens or explosions come to mind _ awful causes can have beautiful effects.
I would be foolish not to enjoy them. “Taking time to watch a sunset” is a cultural meme. But I would be amiss not to realize that they are the result of a high price we are paying to allow our civilization to continue its ways.

Wednesday

Beach roses are infallible markers of warmer days when a dip in salt water is a perfect experience.

Hey diddle diddle …
If the cow tried to jump over the moon these days, it would probably bump its head on a communications satellite.

Thursday

Last evening’s thundershowers are boiling off to form interesting patterns soon cleared away by sunshine.

For the last two centuries, it has been almost impossible to take a panoramic photograph without catching at least a few of the poles and wires on the horizon or nearby overhead. Poles and wires are a definitive marker of this culture, which future archeologists can probably use to identify this particular layer of civilization in their digs. They are so common that we unconsciously filter them out of sight, so that we are frequently disappointed when our carefully composed pictures end up being spoiled by lines and blockages we didn’t really notice at the time.
I can’t claim that such ruin the skyline. They are just there, and frequently have a complement of birds sitting high up, and don’t block much of what I want to see. But surprisingly often they put the lie to some composition that tried to capture nature at its raw best.
In the future, solar and other local technologies will probably make them obsolete. Already, many thick cables and their supporting structures are dinosaurs. Massive imposing beasts, soon to be vanquished by off-the-grid solar power and invisible airwaves. Undoubtedly in some future parkland or designated city area they will be as carefully recreated for historic nostalgia as gas lamps and cobblestones are now.

Friday

Pollution welds sky to sea as Connecticut shoreline vanishes.

Dawns are different, for me at least, than sunsets. For one thing in the summer I’m rarely awake in
time for them, certainly not dressed and outside. For another, leafy trees to our east hide direct beams until around nine or so. By then, if the weather is warm and dry, I can ditch this computer and eat out on the patio dressed in pajamas while waiting for my wife to wake up.
Morning sunlight is usually clearer than that of the evening. Eastern Long Island has less factories than exist to our west, and local pollutants have temporarily settled down. Bright sunbeams set off brilliant blue sky, while birds proclaim their supposed mastery of the air.
Mornings are another part of Northeastern Lights, even when we have fog and mist. Dew often sparkles back fractal reflections. Cobwebs trace amazing patterns. Sharp shadows cut around me. Maybe it is all only so surreal because this time of day I am fully awake and aware.

Saturday

Deceptively tranquil puppy cove, like everything connected to troubles of our wide world by wind and tides.

Somewhere, physicists maintain, in impossibly infinite mathematical spacetimes, Prometheus and Orion are arguing about our night time skies.

“It’s all your fault, Prometheus,” Orion complains bitterly.

“What have I done now,” Prometheus sighs.

“Nobody pays attention to me any more. They can’t see me,” replies the constellation.

“And that’s my fault? Why?”

“Gift of fire, remember.”

“They don’t use fire much, and certainly not overhead.”

“Yeah, but it led to technology and now look at this place. They can’t see anything any more except their own nocturnal pollution.”

“Not fair, that. You might as well blame Vulcan for letting them learn to chip rocks to make stone-age tools and expand their brains.”

“Well, yeah, but you owed me after I rescued you from that stupid boulder you were chained to.”

“OK, I’m sorry. I admit it was a mistake. The rest of the planetary ecology has been raking me over the coals as well. Guess the Gods knew what they were doing when they punished me.”

“Ah, it’s all right, I guess,” says Orion. “After all, humans took care of the Gods themselves some time ago.”

Sunday

Solitary clammer tries his luck on Oyster Bay, hard work in hot conditions with a beautiful view.

Bright light night, such easy rhyme

Freely used by poet scan

Always a part of each day’s time

They think that all will understand.

But night is gone from human ken

Banished by electric flares

What was once feared is now ignored

Day or nighttime, no one cares.

Most ignore Northeastern lights

There’s better things to see

I’d cast aspersions on my peers

Except they’re just like me.

Fretful Fourth

Monday

Hot sun and warming water has enlivened the beach scene considerably.

My late spring depression was bracketed, not coincidentally, by patriotic holidays. Somehow what they represented seemed far grander not only in my youth, but as little as a quarter-century ago.
Now we endure the worst government since Buchanan, possibly heading for the same social upheaval and disaster as followed that one. The president thinks any adult without at least a million dollars is worthless. The supreme court dwells in a fantasy ivory tower, examining ancient words and punctuation of godlike founding fathers, all anachronistic and irrelevant to this modern world. Congress is controlled by a party and fanatic hacks who truly believe as much in the aristocracy of wealth and the blessings of poverty for the masses as ante-bellum southerners believed in an aristocracy of land and slaves. And, worst of all, the electorate has allowed itself to be dumbed down to the point where it believes anything that supports its peculiar prejudices.
Jefferson famously heard “alarm bells in the night” as he grew older. One of the hallmarks of current conservatives is that they pay no attention to any thoughts of the founders after 1800. The current plutocracy is so out of touch that they may be truly surprised at the backlash created by hopeless conditions they praise and enforce as a capitalistic god’s will.

Tuesday

My personal fireworks are these brilliantly bursting lilies in my back garden.

Each year, the Beachcroft community celebrates the fourth of July on its private beach. It usually resembles a scene from the fifties, with children swimming and splashing, a few organized games with prizes, residents discussing life over beer and soda while hamburgers, hot dogs, and Italian sausage sizzle on the charcoal grill. Numerous platters of various foods have been provided by each family, there are red white and blue tablecloths and bunting on the dock as the large American flag waves in a breeze cutting the hot sun.
This year there will be reportedly fewer people because Tuesday is difficult to handle as a singular holiday. In any case, lately our area has split into the old-timers who want to keep up the traditions, and the newer, wealthier folks who see no point in hanging out with those who can’t give them more financial contacts. The elders view it as a breakdown in civility and morals, as elders always do. No matter what, if normality holds, nobody will get into political discussions.

Wednesday

Rare bucolic view high on a sand bluff above the harbor; mcmansions are popping up all around.

“We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!”

Less than two decades after quaffing ale while lustily bellowing this song in 1900, patriotic Brits had no ships, no men, no money, and were about to endure over three decades of misery, disaster, and despair.

Thursday

Midsummer flowers in full bloom, early grasses loaded with grain, harbor packed with pleasurecraft.

We used to refer to ourselves, almost proudly, as descendants of the dregs of Europe. That expanded recently to include wretched refuse of shores everywhere. But we also stubbornly thought we were special, an alloy formed of a magic melting pot, a proof that humans shaping their environment could become better than their history. Surprisingly, many in the world believed us.
But that boomer generation is dying, often as bitter old men and women who cling desperately to whatever power they can muster after breakfast. What is left is _ depending on which ancient Cassandras you listen to _ either vapid hedonists, or cynical incompetents. In any case, younger generations are doomed by machines, environment, terrorists, and themselves. Elders huddle before cable news, gather furtively in corners, and lament the passing of the shiny old days.
Part of those old days, kept alive as a shell of former glories, are the memorial holidays. When I was a child, everyone knew a family member or local friend who had died in “the war,” a noble cause proudly accepted by all. Vietnam began the long slide to today’s heavily equipped mercenary armed forces, just another specialized well-paying job being automated like all the others. There is an inevitable sad irony in “celebrating” those who shoot drone bombs at wedding parties in far off deserts.
But the uncertain lethargy of the times, when it is hard to tell right from wrong, has enervated even fierce opposition to once-immoral or illegal actions. Our government descends into rat-maze kleptocracy. The “elite” hide away behind stock shares while frantically partying until the plague arrives.
Sun continues to shine. Bands continue to march. Slogans will be shouted as freely as joint pain commercials. But this holiday is not that of the fifties. And sometimes I think the dregs and refuse
have indeed taken over.

Friday

Delicate blue chicory is best appreciated close up, a hardy miracle where almost nothing else grows.

Ground cover now creeps inexorably over trash strewn across meadows and glens. Ocean water patiently continues to swallow and hide infinite disposable plastic shopping bags, or containers pitched from boats. Somehow, the air and water continue to become almost purified in ongoing global cycles of renewal.
From a natural standpoint, the only difference between a mansion or housing development and an empty bag of corn chips blowing along the highway is size and permanence. Both have disrupted natural rhythm and balance. Temporarily. They too will pass, although exactly what comes after and how profoundly rich the environment may remain is poised on a knifepoint of uncertainty. I am not even sure we can influence it very much at this point.

Saturday

Deep breaths, calm, ignore the chatter, flow with reflections, waves, and reeds. The real world goes on.

“Nice shot,” remarks Lucifer, as he pulls out a wicked-looking crooked driver from his decal-decorated fake leather bag.

“Why, thank you, sir,” grins Michael. As always, his shot has gone straight and true, the fairway glittering under the arc of the blazing ball as it passed by.

“Don’t sir me,” Lucifer grunts. “Remember, we agreed to take the day off _ well at least this morning _ and just enjoy ourselves for a change.

“Oh, I almost always enjoy myself,” Michael smiles beatifically.

“No choice,” mutters Lucifer. He swings mightily, his greasy ball unsurprisingly smacks a few trees and lands in the rough, but quite near the other. Their handicaps are, after all, nearly even.

“Been busy lately, I see.”

“Not so much. The world seems to be taking care of itself quite nicely from my perspective. Idiots everywhere, and sin ascendant from the bottom on up. Happy times for me, if any times were happy.”

Michael frowns in thought. “I don’t have much to do either. I cannot admit it, of course, but everything seems pretty futile. Frankly, I have trouble even finding anywhere to start.”

“Perhaps we have merely become superfluous.”

“Maybe that’s why the pension started to arrive last week.” Michael lines up the next hole.

“You think? Well, we better enjoy this interlude before the real action starts…”

“Fore!”

Sunday

Unconcerned gull stares quizzically while garbage floats by, some kind of natural statement I suppose.

Refuse of global shores has congealed

Into a stinking, ignorant, prejudiced landfill

Larded with lumps of religious certainty,

Fuming capitalism belching whiffs of wealth

That may destroy the planet.

Sadly, probably, still

The best hope of the world.

Climbing Back On

Monday

As the Tour De France approaches, weekend pelotons on Long Island are common.

After falling off a horse or bicycle, one is supposed to immediately climb back on to avoid long-term fear and avoidance of the activity in the future. So I am restarting this blog after a few weeks absence during which, for various reasons, I went through a period of crisis of confidence.
I guess if I were a writer this would have been considered writer’s block. Mostly, I just didn’t see any reason to exert myself. Why bother posting each day? Why not just wander the world, enjoy it, look around, happy to be? What is the use, especially at my age and situation, in attempting anything more than living each moment well?
My search for answers continues. Mostly, though, I find that trying to express myself is a way to build my own inner intensity and appreciation. That is true even when I know there are no other readers, and no logical reason in the world to post a blog. Consequently, I will allow myself this one week of wallowing in mental self-pity, and then get on with something I have found I missed.

Tuesday

Profuse honeysuckle sweetly scents the salty breeze.

Stonehenge is famous as a calendar to determine solstice. Summer solstice in temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere is, of course, pleasant but also marks the moment when days start to shorten and winter becomes inevitable. Huge stones in vast circles are variously interpreted, but surely were partially constructed to remind people of the repetitive circularity of seasons.
Now all foliage is full and flush over hills and underfoot. Spring flowers have gone to seed, summer flowers are bursting into bloom. There are still almost no signs of autumn, later blossoms are holding off, inevitable fraying and drying of leaves has hardly started. Insects are just beginning to swarm numerously, but remain less annoying than they will be.
Hard to remain morose long in such a setting. Our brains are stubborn, however, and good at resisting external influences. So depression can occur even on a fine, bright, perfect summer afternoon.
Today another example of perfect weather. I must be off and out and singing my way, inconsequential as it may be.

Wednesday

Freshly mowed vast green lawn, swallows swooping, perfect early summer at Coindre Hall.

“It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” – Casablanca
True. Nor one those of little person. But it’s my hill of beans …

Thursday

Sunsets require a professional photographer, but sometimes I can’t resist trying.

Humans have existed for a flicker of geologic time, civilization for much less than that. Both seem about to vanish within a few lifetimes. We’ve survived by the skin of our teeth before, perhaps we will pull ourselves out of destruction yet again.
But in the meantime, each life has been glorious. I am more and more convinced that human intelligence is unique. A once-in-infinity chance that never happened and never will happen anywhere anywhen else. Geologic time is meaningless compared to a single second of our awareness. Each person is more important than any of the trillions and trillions of presumed planets anywhere else.
Of course, you know that. Part of humanness is having a sense of self-meaning and importance. Our perspective is grandiose, our being is what counts, when our hours end something that never existed before and never will again also vanishes.
Why, then, do we bother to strive beyond simple survival? A question with no answer except in ourselves, in our daily lives, in our inner being. From one perspective, everything we do is futile and doomed, sooner or later. But viewed from our real central core, we are truly masters of our universe.

Friday

Wild wheat matures early as temperatures rise, bountiful crop from frequent rains.

Thunderstorms are expected this time of year around here. Usually there is a preliminary period of oppressive heat and humidity, when I struggle to do all the normal little things I enjoy. Then dark clouds roll by, thunder rolls and eventually cracks as lightning strikes, rain pours down like a waterfall. When quiet returns everything is wet and steaming, the temperature drops, air clears, and for a few days there are wallows of mud and clouds of newly-hatched gnats and mosquitoes. But soon enough everything is back to being merely summer pleasant, and life goes on happily.
That is a fair metaphor for some of the conflicts in my own personality. I sometimes go through thick heat and nasty storm and ev
entually emerge _ not so much refreshed as reset. Trying to control such periods seems as impossible as dictating the weather.

Saturday

In a secluded corner of Caumsett, not at all worried about tall grass, ticks, and Lyme disease.

Hank grazes verdant long grass in the corner of a hillside field, Billy leans against a dilapidated rail fence nearby. Hot sun pours down into stifling air filled with sounds of crickets.

“So, which one of us will it be?” wonders Billy out loud.

“You, for sure,” answers Hank, raising his head. “He hasn’t been horseback in ages. I’m just a literary convention.”

“He hasn’t been on a bicycle for a long time either, you know.”

“Maybe neither, then. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” remarks Hank, trying to show off his cultural pretensions.

“But he talks about it all the time. ‘Get back on’ he keeps saying.”

“Just something humans do. They worry all the time. Different than us.”

“Well, I do wish he _ or someone _ would ride me somewhere. I’m starting to rust out here.”

“Me, on the other hand, I like the peace and quiet and wish they’d leave me alone. Oh oh, here the girls come now _ school must be out. It’ll be groom and saddle and ride all afternoon. No rest for the weary.”

“Maybe he’ll come by and rescue me,” muses Billy wistfully.

“Don’t hold your breath. He talks the talk, that’s it.”

“Nice afternoon, Hank.”

“You too, old pal.”

Sunday

Field of ripe grain, ready for harvest, but this crop fortunately reserved for wildlife.

Summer has icumon in

Loudly sing … oh the heck with it

Poetry is as dead as other arts

Coopted by toothpaste and patent medicines

No one has time or energy

To decode tangled imagery or patterns

Too easy to ask Siri

Is it summer? Wow!

Soiled Memorials

Monday

Rhododendrons in full bloom, delicacy challenging downpours to do their worst.

Tree canopies have filled out, casting darker shadows where they fall, still all sharp edges. Later this week, adolescent bands will march like manic birds, all exotic plumage and harsh sound. Town beaches will reopen (for the extremely hardy) and state parks begin to charge fees for the privilege of trying to get away from the busy lives we hold so dear.
Already pompous speeches about future hopes for young generations have been spoken at colleges. Tests have been mostly taken at the high schools, and students anticipate routines without instruction for a while. We once more pretend to follow an agricultural cycle from our ancient heritage that no longer really has any place in how we actually live.

Tuesday

Considering population density around here, just one discarded beer can on a beach is almost acceptable.

Remember those who fought for freedom. Salute the honored flag. Rejoice in our exceptional form of government. Buy something to make consumer capitalism stronger. All that and more will blare from televisions, internet, paid event speakers, and various reading materials. All fervently believed, perhaps, at the moment spoken. All focused on the honored dead, being remembered with the solemn frivolity of barbeques and proclamations and holiday for the fortunate few.
Lately those sentiments float on darker seas of manufactured worry. Politics has become a zero sum game of apocalyptic predictions _ do this or else. Once-educated and flexible minds have frozen into puerile mush spouting plastic bag slogans. Morality lingers in day to day activities, but has been cast aside by those with any grander ambition.
We have been offered a grace period in a world of calamity and warfare. We have the tools to make things right. We have the knowledge to try to avoid the tragedies of history. But we do not have the simplest means to encourage sense in the minds of the stupidly rigid, nor agreement on common good nor control of insecure and amoral mongers of fear, who like jackals feed on other’s problems.
Memorials can be soiled and tarnished and used for evil ends. Slogans may cheapen belief. And sometimes I am no longer thrilled by the tinsel pageantry of my contemporary culture.

Wednesday

Magnificent ancient bushes grace the ancient yacht club _ all but the sight reserved for members

Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not …
Time to stamp out those cheating, free-loading lilies once and for all.