Mon-

There are droughts, floods, storms, tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, fire, whatever.  Except here, where it has been a little cool but otherwise fair with adequate rainfall.  That all calls into question how accurate the reporting is _ the Earth is vast and news by definition concentrates on the tiny.  For the moment, we seem to be in a protected little bubble of normality, with flowers blooming and insects humming as the have _ or seem to have _ since time immemorial.  A lovely illusion, which I shall inhabit while I can.
Tue-

Berries for the birds in Mill Dam park.  Not all that long ago, our ancestors would happily gather these for lunch and dinner, preserving what they could.  Now, I suppose, my children hardly know where their produce comes from.  Supermarkets are a convenience, but perhaps something is lost by having them easily accessible.

On the other hand, it’s obvious that there was always keen competition as they ripened.  Strawberries get attacked by birds as soon as they ripen, and most of these fruits have already fed birds, raccoons, and who knows what else in this little corner.  We think of nature as a big open bonanza, but it’s a sometime bonanza, you may have to work hard for your food, and a bunch of creatures are rushing around at all times of day and night to beat you to it.

Wed-

Seems like the week for bindweed.  Another ordinary picture of another ordinary day in a strange, infinite, miraculous universe. 

Sometimes it is best to just let the mind go blank, and simply appreciate existence.

Thu-

  

Quiet pond at Hechsher, with geese and swans and leafy reflections and even the algae starting to scum the surface, is also part of summertime here.  In the evenings there are free music concerts.  In the days, when it is not too hot, children cavort in the new playground.  All year, old people in various happy or grim moods stride and stroll on the path going around. 

A park like this is one reason I am not happy with those who believe we should be totally back to nature.  I enjoy manicured grounds, cultivated flowers, and the company of fellow cit
izens quite as much as I do vast woodlands or even wide expanses of water.  We are people, after all, and pretending we are deer is just as ridiculous as claiming that deer have no place in our world.
Fri-

Around the world temperatures are at record highs, but here it’s been one of the coolest years I can remember, from a blustery blizzard winter to a wet miserable spring to a summer that has only really arrived a few days at a time, and then in a kind of half-hearted way.  The weather forecasters keep using words like “delightful” but I find it too out of whack _ I like my heat when it should be hot.

None of the vegetation or animals seem to care in the least.  Oh, the ducklings just hatched last week, which is a bit late, and the flowers seem to be trailing a bit as well, but not my much, and in full power like these when they arrive.  Everywhere is beautiful now, fully green or fully flowered or almost brightly fruited.  If there ever is a benign moment in the relentless selective pressure of nature, surely these brilliant days contain it.

Sat-

As explained, I normally don’t bother to capture wildlife with my old digital camera, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t all around, nor that I am not interested.  There are always hawks and gulls and crows and warblers and cardinals, always at this time of summer fish jumping and swimming, sometimes turtles, never snakes. Not counting the other animate species _ rats, raccoons, dogs, cats, people.  But usually, I prefer the imagined solitude of reflections and vistas.

Anyway, here are a couple of swans preening, as they so often do.  When they want solitude they simply demand it of everything else, chasing away anything up to and including people.  Children are often quite frightened when they are in an aggressive mood.  No question however, that although they are imported and possibly invasive, swans add elements of grace and beauty to aquatic scenes.  I suppose there are lessons in there somewhere, I leave them to you “as an exercise …”

Sun-

 

Marsh grasses making their best effort against the encroachments of a highly populated modern environment.  Nothing wrong, really, with docks and boats, and beautiful houses along the shore.  It’s the transportation and support such as sewage disposal that civilization requires that causes most of the problems.  Pollution was a lot worse locally decades ago, when people took everything more or less for granted.

Now attention has shifted, responsibly, to the global environment, for which amelioration may unfortunately be too late.  But at least for a while, localities can fight the good fight and seek to save what makes them special for a while as forces beyond their control raise the water level and increase the damage of the more frequent storms.  Perhaps we should be sad, but there is, after all, today, and nature in the raw with its ice ages and asteroids is hardly a benign force.

 

 

  

Mon-

Elsewhere in the world it is Bastille Day.  The only fireworks here will be strong thunderstorms, but they have their own seasonal charm.  This is one of the finest times of the year, when the trimming and weeding are pretty much under control, the annuals are planted and thriving (or not), and everything is doing what it must do regardless of my intervention.  A good time to sit back and simply enjoy being alive, which is what everyone tries to do.
Tue=

Just relaxed summertime beauty.  Wonderful moments occur in all seasons, but in this climate in mid-July it is easy to feel one with a benevolent world, and to meditate on how right everything is.  There seems to be little reason to worry about the future, nor to dwell on the past.  Except for an occasional mosquito, nothing breaks our reverie.  Even a storm rain-drop can be welcome, just for the change of pace.

Purists would argue that if this harbor were wilderness still it would be more intense and profound.  There should be no place for docks and boats and roses.  What nature and god provided is always better than anything blighted by the hand of humanity.  I obviously do not agree.  I think our conscious interaction with the universe, our appreciation of being, our unique happiness is the great gift we bring to the cosmos, and we are right to cultivate it and to manipulate the environment _ at least somewhat _ to make it more accessible.
Wed-

View across the lawn of a long-time neighbor at the bottom of our hill.  Like Joan, he grew up in the house he now owns _ in fact a lot of the homes around here tend to be kept in the family.  It is easy to see why, with views like this (although his is probably the best.)

The huge beech tree in the front yard seems immortal, but it requires constant attention and we worry about it during every increasingly violent storm, blizzard, and hurricane.  I suppose he worries a lot more.  The trouble is, of course, that nothing is as permanent as it seems.  Up here near us, an equivalent beech dating from the time of the Revolution suddenly up and died for no apparent reason over a few seasons.  Probably old age, which reminds us of our own mortality in what seems to be our infinite daily existence.

Thu-

Classic.  Pine needles sweeping down, tranquil water, empty mind.  Anywhere with such possibilities seems more open to contemplation than, say, a bus stop on a busy street.  Of course, after about five or ten minutes, most of us modern Americans might start to prefer the bus stop. 
We are hardly culturally adapted to sit still with “nothing to do” for very long.

I find I must always force myself to pause.  Much of life must be passed nearly unconscious of local surroundings, as we are concerned with plans and worries and where we are going and what must be done.  It is impossible to survive without spending most of your time doing that, unless you are very fortunate or unfortunate in life with no need to strive and do other’s bidding.  Even now, in retirement, I am too concerned with what I am thinking or what’s next.  So I try to pause and count slowly to twenty, and take a little while to appreciate the glory of the world which can always be found around us.

Fri-

 

Now is the heyday of the “old reliable weeds” that pop up all over where people don’t want them.  The various members of the compositae family.  One would think that it would be easier to change our aesthetic judgments than to change the world, but people don’t think like that.  A plant like this in a garden is an invasive pest.

A perfect part of summer, on a gorgeous day, with little to do.  I am free as any eleven year old used to be, with a world to enjoy and explore and endless opportunities for self-discovered entertainment.  At such times, I often believe I have been the most fortunate person who ever existed.

Sat-

Field bindweed is the bane of gardeners around here.  It is impossible to eradicate, once it gets a hold in any corner it will, if unchecked, rapidly cover everything else in a thick mat of vines, and no matter how often you weed it out, it pops back in strength within days.  It is not only an invader, but an entire occupation force at the same time.  It is only slightly compensated for by having flowers that are quite pretty, in their morning-glory way.

I guess here I should throw in some analogy to human affairs.  Like the biblical “wheat and tares together sown.”  But this morning, I think it is enough to just regard what “is.”  Everything need not be a signature, omen, example, nor trigger to greater truth.  More profoundly than all the interrelations we may construct in our fertile minds, everything in our universe just “is,” and we should also appreciate that fact. 

Sun-

 

  

Like some relic of an antediluvian age, this little pocket park sits quietly squeezed between commercial buildings, not exactly neglected but in need of repairs along the waterfront.  Having nothing exotic and special about it, the space is extremely underutilized.  Undoubtedly eventually an enterprising town manager will “improve” it tremendously with a children’s playground or some other grand gesture, and thereby ruin the current ambience.

There are those who fight updating and modernization in any form fiercely, seeking to preserve patrimony.  Others are ripping into the future, leaving behind the blighted past.  Balance is impossible, because the one thing that cannot be achieved is some kind of rule-bound tension concerning past and future.  That is, after all, reserved for the actual present, which obeys no rules and simply is what it is.

 

  

Mon-

Tue-

Beyond the grass, children play in the muddy water at the town beach, their cries of freedom from class echoing charmingly (as an older person mostly charming because distant, I admit.)  It all seems so perfect and timeless.  My logic tells me that is not so, to worry about the future, to understand disaster is everywhere.  My inner child has also left the classroom this day, and says to forget all I want, smile and shout my own gladness at these moments, which are, after all, reality.
Wed-

The dune grass is also well on its way to summer peak, presiding over the sand drifts above the calm water.  There is such an infinite of interplay in the visual world around us _ even ignoring everything else which is just as infinite _ that I could shoot a picture from here every day and hardly become repetitious.  Each hour, each weather pattern, each season _ each fleeting moment of focused consciousness and attention _ is unique.

It is too easy at my age to wake in the morning and be bored.  There is a constant wash of memories and a lethargic pull that whispers “you have already done all that already.”  One response is to try to push harder and harder for the novel and new by finding totally new experiences such as travel.  I have found for my own peace of mind it is better to make the effort to understand why I feel that way in the face of overwhelming evidence that my universe is untarnished, fresh, and unexplored each day.
Thu-

Don’t get too many birds in these photos _ nor for that matter special sky and water effects.  I have a cheap old camera, by design, no fancy lenses or filters, don’t even use the standard options and doodads available on everything electronic these days.  I’m not a photographic artist and have no desire to be.  These pictures are taken to encourage me to see more, and the next day to formulate a few minor observations on myself and the world.

The important thing about any beauty _ created by art or otherwise _ is not that we can analyze its components nor basis nor creator.  Beauty is a gift to allow us to appreciate each moment, to feel that all the patterns around us are in balance and that we belong.  Beauty is the full sensory equivalent of an intellectual “religious impulse,” identical except for our need to create artificial categories in all we perceive.
Fri-

I like to think this scene on East Shore Road has not changed much since the mid-nineteenth century.  The houses were there, perhaps almost as big, and the harbor filled with sailing craft.  Of course we have none of the animal smells, the roads are paved, and in the biggest change the hills all around are forested instead of being used as pasture and meadows.  The way we imagine the past is rarely how it was, even visually, and certainly not emotionally nor in terms of human experience.

The world constantly changes and evolves, in spite of the conceit of each generation that what it knows happens to be what is normal and eternal.  Stability is illusion.  Old people worry about what is lost, but they are soon gone, and the tribes move on with only occasional reminders and fantasies of what must have been in the old days.
Sat-

Old fat guy lurking in the bushes like an aged panther waiting for prey.  At least, I guess he imagines prey.  I’ve never seen anybody catch anything this far inside the harbor and discussions I’ve caught mostly spoke of imaginary flounder (not in this season) or inedible spider crabs.  At this point, he is just a picturesque part of the scenery, like some ancient Italian peasant in a fishing village.

I like to think that my life is more purposeful, what I do filled with meaning, more important than merely sitting all day, smoking a cigar, watching a futile line stretch off beneath reflecting waters.  Of course, I am wrong.  Cosmically wrong always, from the standpoint of the mechanical universe.  Socially wrong in that nothing I do will result in financial rewards at this point.  Personally wrong in that walking and thinking is not really more elegant than sitting and meditating.  Still, we all like our little points of better-than –you comparisons in our competitive society.
Sun-

Yep, nothing but green.  No focus, no break, no composition.  That’s the point.  A short time ago, this tiny roadside meadow was filled with flowers.  Already many of the annuals have finished flowering and are busily storing energy in seeds for the coming year.  Most of the leaves on the trees and other perennials have already reached full extent, the new growth is beginning to halt and the nutrients sent back to the roots.  Basically, this is as green as it is going to get.

We think of timeless nature and its great cycles, as if it were some quiet library or majestic swells on the ocean.  But the ocean is not alive.  Life is roiled by constant disasters, plans, adjustments, chaos, and only survives by getting what it can when it can.  And that is just the plant world!  This quiet boring verdant patch is seething with tension and energy and competition.  Me, I just enjoy the lush ambience.

  

 

 

 

 

  

Mon-

We really should.  Any wonderful day for any reason is worth celebrating.  The flowers are still blooming, the moon still rising, the tides still flowing, the birds still singing.  And through it all I am a year older, and all my family and friends continue to have their own trail of experiences.  Life, for all perceived problems, remains good for many of us.  We should be grateful for that every day, and pay respects to the universe, and do all we can to absorb the wonders that have been given to us.
Tue-

Whatever boats might be going out this season are pretty much prepped and ready.  This is one of the big weekends _ a kickoff when everyone is still excited about a summer stretching seemingly forever before them.   Many make the forty mile or so jaunt to New York to watch the fireworks from the water, more just go out and party on the water with friends.  The heat and warm bay are cooperating, so far, although storms are always a possibility.

Others have told me I would eventually want a boat.  I never did.  I like walking on firm ground, even if I enjoy watching happenings on sea.  That is not some admirable lack of envy of those who can afford such things, it is just a natural disposition.   Part of it, of course, is just that I’m old and set in my ways and any changes to my comfortable routine are usually more disturbing than exciting.
Wed-

Another common weed in a neglected patch of parkland.  Common is usually best applied from a distance, since close inspection of anything in our marvelously fractal world quickly reveals that nothing at all is common except our own insufficient categorization.  These flowers are just as magnificent as anything in a botanic garden, and in a way more admirable for surviving on their own where other species fail.

So our own lives, of course.  There is no “common” human.  We are all filled with glorious experiences and handle immense tragedy and go through the world thinking and judging and remembering and wishing and having an outlook on the universe that may even be superior to that of the gods themselves, condemned to know all and be consequently amazed at nothing.

Thu-

Children these days must apparently be kept busy all the time, or at least their busy parents must be freed to go about their multiply necessary duties.  So as soon as school ends, summer camp begins.  I don’t remember life being quite so frantic when I was young, but then my memory is not what it used to be.

I know for sure, however, that this group will find far less biodiversity and large interesting creatures with their searches than Joan and I did.  The waters may finally be recovering a little, but they were deeply destroyed by forty or more years of neglect.  I only hope the youngsters don’t get too discouraged about disappointing nature.

Fri-

Tree and bush fruits are maturing rapidly _ I even saw some blueberries newly planted on the roadside work at Halesite.  The early annual flowers are dying back a bit, and from here on it is fun to watch the different competing strategies of the various species.  Some find Darwin’s theories depressing and joyless, but I find that thinking of the l
ife I see in terms of evolution makes it far deeper, richer, and more meaningful than simply believing that _ plop, magic _ something shows up here or there at the whim of the gods.

As for me _ well we all have our own peculiar thoughts about our deeper relation to the universe.  No use burdening you with mine, on this fine day.  Go work out your own destiny!

Sat-

Queen Anne’s Lace _ don’t know why her clothing was so much in vogue, but many common names are a folklore mystery to me.  These days, of course, you can look anything up quickly on line.  I’m not quite sure that is a gain _ sometimes ambiguous understanding is more full than when it is complete.

I always like these flat-headed white flowers just because they are so different.  Well, many flowers, of course, are if you in inspect them, but for me these pop out even when you are driving along a roadside.  Relative of the carrot, I hear.  Maybe.  I refuse to Google it.  I am too busy and interested in other things.

Sun-

This nicely encapsulates the ambience of the fourth.  The land of liberty and flags flying, as a chained link fence protects private property from unwanted visitors.  More confusingly, the beach is community property of the landowners, but the line below high tide is by law public (although nobody would ever know it around here) and the water is open to everyone.  Well, open and free as long as you abide by increasingly strict regulations of use.

In fact, for all our blather about following the wisdom of the founding fathers, we actually live in a society like any other that has evolved and adjusted to this exact time, place, and circumstance so that a society can continue and let people get along relatively smoothly.    I admire our culture greatly, but I do not mistake its patchwork of laws and customs for a designed logical edifice build on a foundation of inalienable anything.  At least, for the moment, the sun and air are still free, and the roadside available to all who walk along it.  Good enough for me.

 

Mon-

In any case,  the area is much more visually appealing than it was a century ago, when this area was filled with gasification plants, coal dumps, oil depots, power generation facilities, and the rotting remnants of the extensive dockworks that were necessary for this to be a working port before the coming of the railroads.   Now the uses are somewhat more gentle visually, and probably even environmentally.  All modern change is not for the worse.
Tue

Sometimes I do not need to leave my front yard to be struck by wonder.  I try not to get overly into “I am an artist” now _ my photographs are purposely crude and without much artifice.  But my eyes _ well my eyes are able to see beauty everywhere.  The sun through our Japanese maple trees seemed fully as deserving of being poorly captured as any wide vista of sand and sea.

Life, of course, is a balance like that.  We are so constructed that there is a very fine line between being so entranced with our surroundings that we catatonically never budge very far, and being in an instant terminally bored by exactly the same thing.  What most advice misses is that not only are both states completely valid, even if contradictory, but both are essential components of human consciousness.  We are excited and bored (and many other things) at exactly the same place, with each change of train of thought.  The only real advice is to accept it and use the gift happily.
Wed-

This is a view from the beach at the Teddy Roosevelt park in Oyster Bay, looking back on the Lloyd Neck peninsula where Joan and I live.  The amazing thing is that the hills look almost uninhabited, even though we know that they are jammed with houses and crawling with cars and people in constant motion.  In some ways, it looks more virgin and primeval than it would have a century or two ago, when the hills were almost completely emptied of trees for crops and meadows.

I remain hopeful that, if our species can just survive another century or so, it will be able to fit into the environment more gracefully.  We have the seeds of optimistic greatness in us, for both ourselves and everything around us, if only we are not overwhelmed by mistakes carried on from the past.  In some ways, I suppose, I am lucky that I will never learn the outcome.

Thu-

The old boathouse at the Gold Coast Mansion continues to decay along with its dock _ the county has no money, and few have any use for it.  Reeds and honeysuckle add a romantic touch.  Summer is life, but also hastens decay of the unused and dead.

Probably the houses being constructed by the wealthy today will not last as long as these old ones, almost a hundred years along.  The climate is becoming more severe, the current materials are less permanent, and in this country at least we build for decades only.  Whatever comes along and is new will, we think, be much better.  For all the warnings, those that can reside near the oceans, and the oceans will soon claim this structure and all the more recent ones, leaving new expanses of shoreline for colonization.

Fri

It’s not Central Park, but Huntington’s own little Hecksher has well-maintained charm.  Totally artificial constructions _ like both those parks _ can be as beautiful, meaningful, and refreshing as wilderness.  They are, after all, expressions of human spirit working together.  They exist only because generations cooperated, and citizens contribute annually with taxes for upkeep and a few of the wealthier have dedicated some of their private money to the public good.

When it goes well, and people respect civilization, places like these are amazing.  All kinds of different humans, of different age, condition, status, and background manage to coexist not only peacefully, but joyfully.  Each in their own universe, yet each connected in beautiful relaxed happiness.  If there is a heaven, it must resemble such a park on a fine summer day, with flowers in full bloom and the sounds of children playing in the distance.  
Sat-

Common blue chicory now springing up everywhere.  Almost as common as ragweed, growing in much the same places, its large pale flowers are another of the common wonders we often ignore because they are not grand and overwhelming and mysterious.  Unless you actually look at them of course.

I marvel now at how many people seem not to see nor even look unless there is some mechanical contrivance involved.  People go about peering into cameras as if they were new eyes on the universe, suddenly aware of the beauty of dewdrops on the grass.  I suppose that is no different than artists sketching _ seeing as an artist does is an important gift to develop for oneself.  Even so, they tend to focus on what they consider appropriate for a unique vision, and manage to continue to be blind to the vast everyday beauty that surrounds us always.
Sun-

A quiet little bench in a grove along a pleasant shore, an old tree providing shade, a perfect place for meditation no matter the time and place.  You can almost imagine Socrates or Lao Tzu contemplating the universe.  Bodies of water, with their complex ever-changing fractal reflections and waves almost always evoke thoughts of the infinite.

Of course, a mere picture ignores the fact that right behind this lovely bench is a highway filled with smoking speeding SUV’s and the grinding gears of numerous yard crew rigs and boat haulers and an occasional diesel roar and shudder as a garbage or cesspool truck roars by.  Nor does it account for the roar of jets and the more annoying thwack of frequent helicopters on their way to the hospital.  And a good deal of the time there are constant child screams from the adjoining beach.  That’s the problem with any reduction of reality in an attempt to preserve it _ too much is always left out.

  

   

  

Mon-

That is really the great luxury of wealth of any kind:  that you can take the time necessary, whenever you want, to fully appreciate your life.  The poorer you are, the more you must constantly jerk around at someone else’s bidding to do whatever is required.  A wealthy person can enjoy a meal, or a sunset, or a long walk with no expectation of being paid.  Not many of them do perhaps, but at least they have the option.
Tue-

On Lloyd Neck near the beach, there is a Catholic Church seminary occupying the vast lands that used to be a jazz age estate.  The somewhat eccentric owners held festivals of stage and music in an amphitheater built high on a bluff in the woods overlooking the bay.  These ruins remain, unexpected, and appearing to a startled hiker as far older and more mysterious than they actually are.  Sometimes you wonder if many archeologists are not similarly fooled by their surprise encounters with old structures.

The church wants to sell the land, and multiple developers are slobbering to carve it into as many pieces as possible, each bulging with as huge a fake mansion as local zoning laws permit.  Then there will be no wandering, no ruins, and just more of the same paranoid wealthy owners protecting their sacred lands.  In this case I’m comforted by the fact that it will all be under the sea in another century, amphitheater and all.

Wed-

Two for one today _ as a point of observation.  A catalpa tree in flower high on a hill is magnificent in its own right, white blossoms against the green, huge and overwhelming.  But we glance at it and think _ oh, how nice, that tree is in bloom.  It takes an effort to get really close and view each individual flower as a perfect little fractal masterpiece.  What could be more rewarding?

Yet, if we were to tire of the purely visual study, we can be amazed at the vast biological web of time and space and connections around this single blossom, one of countless others, on countless trees.  There is a whole support system of roots and branches and trunks and leaves.  There are necessary soils and trace elements and carbon in the air and sunlight and water in the proper amounts, for years and years and years until the tree reaches maturity.  There are necessary insects and birds and pollen and winds for decades before, to assure fertilization of this tree’s parents and propagation of the plant itself.  Finally there are untold eons of time and simultaneous evolution of an ecology to arrive at this one particular moment.  Ah, you may say, only God could have done that _ but for God, time is simply another dimension, as easy to use as your walking over to be awed by the result.

Thu-

 

Cereals and grains are ripening now, some wild, some domestics left over from centuries of farming before the land was coated with suburbs and asphalt in the last fifty years.  There are no working farms here anymore, just a few preserved patches of open ground, most of which are quickly reverting to forest as they are no longer worked and head for a new climax ecology.   

I find grasses and their seeds almost as beautiful as flowers.  An entire meadow of waving, ripening tall wheat and weeds is magnificent.  On closer inspection the individual seed heads have their own aesthetics.  And all around them flit the insects and birds that can gorge on the feast from what local humans no longer need (since local humans get all their food from huge insecticide and herbicide drenched killing vistas far to the west, but that’s another thought for another day.)  You can only, sometimes, accept what you find.
Fri-

Another lie this morning.  I present this fine picture of honeysuckle blooming sweetly on the fence along the roadside.  You may think it is a true sharing representation of a moment of my walk.  But, of course, it is not.  You cannot smell the sweet fragrance, feel the moist cool breeze from the left, squint into the surprising luminosity of the air, hear the approaching pickup truck from the right and the faint roar of a jet overhead.  Not to mention all that I see that this particular framed view crops out and ignores.

But it is worse than that.  Even were you here beside me, experiencing all those things simultaneously, we would both still be in different universes.  My worries about the future are not yours.  Your remembrances of the past are not mine.  The logical trains of thoughts and body kinesthesia of each of us are impossible to know or communicate.  And so on.  This is a nice picture.  That may be far less than it seems.

Sat-

Solstice!  Longest day of the year!  From now on, we are slowly but surely marching closer and closer to another winter.  It has been so cold this spring that summer hardly seems to have arrived even now, we all have sweatshirts and long pants still, and the beaches are like refrigerators.  Of course, that hasn’t slowed people from wanting their boats _ this is the last one of the throng that were walled side by side here on the marina lot for months.

All of the midsummer annuals are reaching blooming stage, and another certainty is that the meadows will soon fill with seeds and drying pods.  For some reason, insects have seemed scarce _ of course that may just be my perception.  Lately, we are all primed to watch for portents of global disaster in each fall of any sparrow.
Sun-

A man, a boy, a dog wandering the shore and exploring what might be found.  Except for their clothes (and the trees, and the boats, and everything else) they might as well be native Americans before the overseas invasion.  It’s nice that some activities remain almost unchanged over the eons.  It is good to remember that we are pretty much identical in composition and consciousness to anyone ten or more thousand years ago.

“Futurologists” are excited about pouring the human spirit into eternal circuits, with senses enhanced fractally to infinite huge and unimaginable tiny.  They claim it will be a wonderful, better utopia for thinking beings.  I think they are wrong in mind, body, spirit, and hopes.  Regard these folks along the shore, look into yourself this very moment.  I rest my case.

  

 

  

Mon-

But I trust my senses, and appreciate the present, and look at a world of blessings.  For this is a time of peace and plenty, at least in my own corner and in many others.  I do not worry about my next meal.  I do not expect barbarians to rush over the hills any day, raping and pillaging and destroying all I know.  The worst enemy for many of those I know is boredom, their greatest fear not making enough money to buy even more stuff to cache into their bloated lives.  For a simple person, the world winds on fat and beautiful and calm.
Tue-

This is one of those gloriously luminous misty days that is probably a (warmer) variation on the constant climate of Ireland.  Every green glows impossibly bright, and although there is no sun there is a whisper that sunglasses might be a good idea.  All the harsh edges of the world are blended into pastel harmony.

Although we can embrace all kinds of weather for it’s novelty, some is obviously more likeable than others.   A heavy downpour such as we had yesterday, or humid temperatures in the nineties, or a blizzard are more endurance struggles than cheerful experience.  As a childlike persona who hates monotony, however, I find the constant change a wonderful surprise each morning.

Microclimates again.  All around us it is ten degrees warmer, brighter, drier.  Here mist and fog and cold breeze off the chilled waters.  Visually superb, but not what we expect for summer except maybe in San Francisco.  The contrast of the glowing sky, dark silhouettes of foliage, radiant leaves and dissolving background is worth taking time to actually stare into.

Well, that’s always true, of course.  We live in a rush-rush world, and our eyes are always focused on the prize down the road rather than the splendor all around us.  As you get older, the prize down the road seems a lot less desirable.
Thu-

A quick glance would seem to reveal a pastoral land, scarcely populated except by local rustics, who will soon herd their sheep onto the meadow.  A hundred years or so ago that might even have been true.  But here it is all a false picture _ Long Island is as heavily populated per square mile as Bangladesh.  There’s a little more room per actual living space, but only because we don’t grow any of our own food.

The land look
s healthy, and sounds fine with birds.  Yet snakes and most other reptiles have been banished, insects are thin, the bats have died off.  People _ ah, people are everywhere.  I worry that this may be what the whole planet has come to be _ looking fine on the surface, but with an ecosystem made extremely shallow and in deep distress.  Ah, well, this morning looks beautiful, anyway.
Fri-

An unexpected weed with beautiful flower can be a delight, showing that all our asphalt and concrete and weed-killing chemicals have not yet prevailed everywhere.  How long this state of affairs can continue I don’t know _ possibly in the future the only weeds and non OGM crops will be found in botanic gardens and greenhouses.  More or less fortunately, I won’t be around to find out.

Older people think they have become wise and have learned a perspective on the world.  But that perspective is not as flawless as they like to think, and it is flavored by what they knew and came to expect as normal.  Human experience has been rapidly changing everywhere for millennia, and will continue to do so.  If there are ever any old people anywhere, they will be telling the young how the modern world is going to hell.
Sat-

Sometimes, Coindre Hall looks like a real chateau.  Of course, in France itself, many of the chateaus are less than real _ built in the twentieth century, reconstructed from absolute flattened ruin, restored in the last ten years _ so the whole notion of “real” is slippery.  Anyway, here we have an out of place “grand maison” on the Gold Coast of Long Island, pretty much languishing away because the county is not sure what to do with it. But on a misty day like this, with the Korean dogwoods in bloom, it is a vision of a wider world.

Now, some would have us tear down as much as we can, return this all to “native” status.  We have people marching around here with petitions all the time.  I find that natural state (which is never returned to prehistoric status, filled with invasive species of plants and animals) is far less useful to me than buildings, lawns, ornamental trees, and roadways.   I continue to believe a mature civilization should concentrate on a balance of nature and human, mixed, not inseparable, doing justice somehow to each.
Sun-

Old ways remain useful.  This clammer in a dinghy might as well be paddling on the Yangtze river in the Song dynasty.  He’s bringing in a few bushels of freshly hand-dredged clams in plastic mesh bags.  Hopefully, they all came from unpolluted waters, for enforcement around here is haphazard.  Soon enough they will be available in markets all over.

No, he is modern enough.  This is simply the ferry from the motorboat to the shore.  Like me, he uses muscles in the old ways to do traditional things, but within a framework of modernity _ electricity, internal combustion engines, plastic.  We should not really give up one or the other completely, simply find a way to make them compatible and symbiotic.   Like this scene.

  

 

 

 

 

  

Mon-

In spite of the warnings of global warming and sea rise, the tide can still go out a lot and leave the water level extremely low.  With pilings stretching far overhead, it is hard to believe anything is changing.  That may be why it is becoming too late so fast.

In the meantime, here on the deck of the Titanic, the sky is blue as can be, the air clean, the leaves crisp and new, the birds sing and squawk all around, and children play on the beach down the way.  In short, another day in paradise.  As much of our existence, I think, should try to be.

Wed-

  

Horseshoe crabs are swimming about mysteriously, digging shallow depressions in the sand to lay eggs on some primitive rhythm with the tides.  Sometimes, they misjudge the water or other misfortune intervenes and one is left like this, high, dry, and available for the gulls.  A tragedy, perhaps, from the crab perspective, but that is nature, not always quite so benign as some would have us believe.

Humidity is picking up a bit, already I hear complaints about how sticky it has become, how hot the sun.  Air conditioners are whining about the neighborhood.  I guess it’s just me, but these modern folk seem awfully wimpy.  Why, when I was a boy ….  But I guess there’s no need to go there.  I think, as always, everything is just perfect and dandy.

Thu-

Northport harbor is about two miles away, along the old Indian trail that turned into 25A curving up and down along the bay indentations of the coastline.  It can be a very crowded place, but just outside the village proper is this nice, almost forgotten, beach and picnic area, with a fine outdoor pavilion with tables and chairs for writing.  When I get tired of that, there is a long beach, a deserted dune area, and this lovely scene from a bench under the cedar tree.

Seeking out the obscure within the familiar is a kind of game for me.  To find the loneliest spot in Manhattan, or tranquility here in the midst of population and bustle that rivals that of India or Bangladesh.  We all must make do with what we have, I am fortunate in having more options than most.

Fri-

 

Summer truly arriving except, perhaps, for swimmers in the frigid water.  Surprisingly, this afternoon follows a morning of relatively
heavy rain.  Perhaps that is why the world feels fresh and washed clean.  Anyway, it’s hard for the sight of roses outdoors in profusion to be depressing.

My fickle human heart will, no doubt, soon tire of all this green and heat and humidity as well, as it begins to long for the cool winds of early autumn and changes to the monotonous foliage.  Expecting and enjoying change is one of the privileges of living in a temperate climate.  My problem seems to be that I expect to compress the cycles of a year to a few months, instead of the infinite days it actually requires.
Sat-

Back to boring pictures, ho hum.  At some point, I suppose, we would like to have the gift of good writers to capture a scene in words, or the eye of a good artist to convey the experience in other media.  Yet all of those wonderful efforts, for all their fine qualities, are only dim echoes of actually being there.  A simple photo like this is just a memento to bring back memories, nothing more.

Each of us is so much more than what our eyes see, each moment an infinite and eternal mystery.  We can play around seeking to describe our consciousness, but that is always futile.  Our main fault, in a scientific and technological world, is to ever believe we can truly reduce it to some conventional physical representation.
Sun-

You can almost imagine colonial New England here.  The town has been continuously inhabited for almost four hundred years now, and even when there were sailing ships in this harbor the coast here next to the landing docks had buildings on it.  The slope of the ground here, and the normally prevailing winds, kept the lowland mosquitoes at bay.

Those who do not bother with history do not hurt their chances to make money, but I think they live impoverished lives.  Connections to the past are far more substantial than those to imagined futures.  I never walk this road without thinking of pioneers, and wooden wagons, and sailing ships, all overlaid on the beauty I see.  A spectacular enhancement, more profound than any IMAX treatment.

   

Mon-

Simple pleasure scenes of summer return now.  Empty rowboats, reflections of grass above the waves.  The water in every one of its moods remains fascinating, even if that is only true because I am not lazy enough to spend long moments staring hypnotically.  Sitting and doing nothing is somewhat harder when it’s cold and raining. 

After all, that is one of the true functions of beaches everywhere.  We can just sit and do nothing and let our minds drift as sun and sea lull us into meditation.  Those with no beaches available can look up and do much the same with clouds.  It’s a wonderful universe, and at times like these we feel fully part of it.

Wed-

   

Beach roses opening before most of the hybrids.  From here on, there is a profusion of color as first the trees and shrubs join the blooming extravaganza, followed by an increasing wave of flashy annuals until a little after solstice.  Then it is the long sustained crescendo of whatever specialty flowers people buy and plant, but by that point they are just small pinpoints in a world of green.

An alien intelligence like a computer would assume that once we have seen this cycle we would never really find anything interesting in it again.  Certainly still enjoying the pattern after having watched it for nearly seventy years would seem to be an indication of brain dysfunction.   Yet, powered by the subtle unconscious desires of biology and nature, we always respond, and it is miraculous and wonderful that we do so.

Thu-

 

 

 

Deadly nightshade blooming already, one of the prettier weeds.  Not only the odd flowers, but also the bright red fruits later.  Of course, it is in the tomato family.  The fact that it manages to survive in the same habitat as ragweed always amazes me.

The rest of the harbor environs this day are fairly damp and miserable.  Not quite raining, but so humid water can form drips in front of your face.  Not exactly cold, but with a strong breeze even the mid-fifties can require a heavy jacket.  The sun is tryi
ng it’s best, but cloud cover is grey and gloomy.  Once we’ve had a taste of eighty degree temperature at this time of year _ as we did a few days ago _ we are ruined for the season whenever the weather goes back to being “average.”

Fri-

Colorful kayaks are ready to go, the dock has been repaired, boats sit awaiting passengers.  True, it’s only fifty-odd degrees this morning, but the intent is there as soon as summer arrives and compels appropriate activities.

Along the shores of Long Island, we have started to develop our own picturesque aesthetic, as beautiful as anything in New England or Europe.  You can almost immediately tell where you are, as you can from pictures of, say, the Cote D’Azur.  There are certain elements that remain the same.  This will only last for an instant, a brief flash before sea levels take it away, but it is lovely today and worth appreciating.

 

Sat-

Just more of the same old harbor, same old boats, same old water, same old sky, same old ….  Just because it is not the most different or most unusual or most spectacular does not mean it should be ignored.  Most of what we encounter is beautiful, and every moment is unique.  You are never this exact age, in this exact position, ever again.

Appreciation of existence is exactly understanding moments.  The past can be part of them, because we are composed of memories.  And our consciousness reaches out a cloud of comprehension and planning and being that goes far beyond our immediate environment.  But what is here should always be part of our awareness.  Anyway, that is my thought on more of the same old stuff today.
Sun-

Starting this month, I am expanding horizons a bit.  The last year has been restricted, for the most part, to places I have actually walked from my house.  Age is becoming more restrictive, and so this will now include almost anywhere I go doing the day _ the town, parks, the city, the beach.  Long Island has many such that I visit fairly frequently.

This old 1711 homestead is in Caumsett state park.  I like to go here because it is far less crowded than the rest of the park, and connects me back to days when the land was wild and new.  On the other side of the dwelling, barely visible, is the inlet which connected to the rest of the known world at the time.  Three hundred years ago_ an infinite distance from where we live now.

   

 

 

Mon-

Some years the heat by now has soared, and this short marvelous season is over as it begins.  For the northeast, this spring has been quite cool and continues to run ten degrees or more below average, especially here along the waterfront.  That prolongs the blooms indefinitely, although any given day we might wish that we could just ditch the coat.  Never completely happy seems to be my permanent condition.
Tue-

First beach roses of the summer.  It’s obviously silly to be obsessed with the “first” this or that of any cycled season, just as is it ridiculous to keep hanging on the “last” in the fall.  But it’s a human outlook on things, as we know there do exist such boundaries of beginning and ending.  Something never shared by other animals.  We are blessed or cursed with memories leading to projections of long-term possibilities.

Forsythia blooms, daffodils and tulips are already a distant recollection,  it is hard to remember the desolate brown branches covering the hills.  Heavy coats and gloves are packed away until autumn.  We take all that for granted, adjust quickly, move on into the new present.  But if we just pause a moment to think about all that _ how aware we can be _ it is a constant miracle that we are so conscious.

Wed-

The scent of wisteria is overwhelming from up close, but rapidly dissipates.  It’s almost a contradictory plant, seeming to bloom so profusely, look so fragile during much of the year, and yet manage to establish itself, perhaps for decades, climbing high into trees.  I love watching for the surprising flashes of lavender in the most unlikely places.

Each set of blooms is running rapidly through its programmed progression now, as buds turn to flowers turn to seed or fruit.  The dogwoods are on their way out, the lilacs have come and gone, cherries are long vanished, apples are about halfway, depending on location and microclimate.   The more aggressive annuals like dandelion are all over the place.  I get dizzy if I try to notice everything.

Thu-

Spartina is well on its way, although these seem to be perched more on floating mats than part of the wetlands.  Whatever works, I guess.  In another month they will be waist-high, and filled with various visible and invisible animal inhabitants.

My petty concerns with money or aches and pains too often intrude on my appreciation of existence.  Yet, in saying that in all truth, I also lie.  For I am as much my petty concerns as I am appreciation.  I not only must eat and sleep and perform various bodily functions and think, I also know that if I did not have to do so I should be much diminished.  Being alive and aware is more than anything else a miraculous balance of impossibilities.

Fri-

Civic pride still around in the plantings at the private beaches along West Shore Drive.  Hardly anyone except motorists will see these blooms, and certainly will not give credit to whoever planted and tends them.  Yet there they are for the public to enjoy.  An immediate refutation of capitalist economic theory, if you think about it deeply.

We’re in a fog and rain period typical along the seashore this time of year.  Inland gets very hot and then big storms when fronts come through, but the heat hardly reaches us as the cold water moderates the air.  Sometimes a thick mist or fog is quite beautiful, making all the greens more luminous than they are in bright sunlight.

Sat-

Nothing special, just a view on a misty morning.  Oh, we think, yes yes it is beautiful enough but nothing really remarkable, nothing we would sing about, just another glance among the infinite visions we see each day.  It is not only miraculous that we can engage in such infinite wonders with the world, but can treat them as common and to be ignored.
Sun-

Memorial Day weekend, so flags are obligatory.  I like flags quite a bit, they add unexpected color and movement to any landscape.  I’ve never been a purist, both raw wilderness and hermetic human engineering (such as malls) bore me. 

Anyway, it’s the great anticipation of summer.  Beaches are now charging entry fees, children are anticipating the end of school, everyone dreams of vacations to come.  In many ways this is the best time of summer, while such hopes are as fresh as nature itself.