Month: June 2019

Fireworks Bust – Day 230

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Not fireworks, but… – Photo: L. Weikel

Fireworks Bust        

Man, I was so bummed out this evening. Karl and I were really looking forward to attending the Riverside Symphonia’s annual Concert Under the Stars at Tinicum Park tonight.

We’ve attended many of these old-fashioned, spread-your-blanket-out-on-the-grass, break out the picnic food, and listen to the music 4thof July celebrations. They truly are nostalgic of celebrations you might read about from the 19thcentury, with parasols and picnic baskets, and ladies with big hats fluttering hand-held fans.

The musicians of the Symphonia never disappoint. They always get my toes tapping, even if I’m immersed in reading a book or simply entranced by the vast opportunity to “people-watch” the hundreds who’ve come from all around to spend an evening indulging in simple pleasures. I know they’re from all around because there are usually license plates from at least six, seven, eight different states on the cars parked in row after row on the fields of dark green grass.

Old Friends From Another Time

It’s pretty much inevitable that I’ll run into old friends of one stripe or another. Some of us used to see each other on a regular basis when our kids went to school together – many for 12 straight years. Now, well…unless we make a concerted effort, we’ve fallen away and rarely connect.

So many faces we see are evidence of another phase of our life: friends with whom we spent some of the most amazing (and sometimes stressful) years of our lives, all wrapped up in the unnerving business of raising kids we all hoped would grow up to be unique, inspired, and essentially happy with themselves and their choices in life.

But alas, thunderstorms and whipping winds ripped through the area in the late afternoon, drenching us yet again. In all honesty, we toyed with braving the wet blankets and soaked shoes but when we checked the weather again, there was too high a probability for more storms.

Storms Wrecked It For Us

The best part of this annual event is the fireworks display. With the backdrop of the cliffs (palisades) along the river valley, they never fail to be spectacular.

I was so hoping to have them be part of our anniversary celebration this weekend. (It’s unusual for the Concert Under the Stars to be in June.) And to be clear: the concert was to go on “rain or shine.” So they probably still had the event. We were the fuddy-duddies.

Here’s hoping that next year we don’t get rained out. If you’ve never been, mark it on your calendar. It’s worth making a point to attend.

(T-881)

39 Years and Counting – Day 229

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 6 Comments
28 June 1980

39 Years and Counting       

I look at that post title and, just like when I had my birthday back in March, I think, “Wow. How did we get here?”

Birthdays and anniversaries. Markers of the passage of time.

Karl and I were married at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 1980. And lucky for us, at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 2019, we were sitting together on a rock that juts into the flowing waters of the Tohickon Creek.

Transported from one sacred place to another in, what only in retrospect, feels like the blink of an eye. The living of it sometimes felt like time was moving ever so slowly; so slowly that it felt like yearned-for change would never actually happen. And other times, the living of it felt like the rug, the very fabric of our lives, was being pulled out from under us. Irrevocable, instantaneous, radical change.

At Karl’s Gathering – Photo: Ellen Naughton

Through these past 39 years (and more, actually, since we met three years earlier), the one constant in my life has been Karl. Through education achievements, career changes, sudden death of a parent, depression, births of children, longer, more prolonged sicknesses and deaths of parents, spiritual discoveries, soccer tournaments, track meets, musicals, graduations, disappointments, college admissions, Siberia, initiations, sudden death of a(n adult) child, weddings, joys, walks…

It’s been us.

The loneliest times in my life have been when there’s been discord between us. Those were the times when I most deeply questioned everything.

Gratitude for the Luck – and the Choices We’ve Made

Given the particular professions I engage in, I’m acutely aware of how much work it’s been for us to remain a true, working partnership and best friendship through thick and thin. But I’m even more aware of how lucky we are. So much of what we’ve endured could have easily torn us asunder. But each of us, at critical junctures, chose to stay. We chose to talk. We chose to take a walk instead of storming out and staying away, perhaps pouring our souls out to someone other than each other. We chose to listen.

We chose to forgive. We chose to have compassion.

We also, as one friend reminds us every once in a while because she simply could not believe it when she ran into us laughing and joking in the parking lot of our local grocery store – chose to enjoy crazy things like renting a carpet cleaner to steam clean our rugs together.

“It’s the little things,” we said, laughing at how odd we must’ve seemed.

I do so very much love those little things we share. And the big ones. But most of all, I’m grateful to have Karl sharing them – all – with me.

At Tohickon Creek – 28 June 2019 – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-882)

Catbird Come Calling – Day 228

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Photo: Brian E. Small/VIREO

Catbird Come Calling        

I have been puzzling over something for about a week.  I’ve been bringing in the birdfeeders at night, hoping to thwart whatever critter or critters have been raiding them in the dead of night. I have a strong suspicion it’s been a cabal of deer who’ve adapted wily tongues that can suck seeds out of feeders like they’re Pez dispensers and an unholy alliance between raccoons and opossums raiding the peanuts I’ve put out for the blue jays, crows, and woodpeckers (among others).

When I’ve gone outside to retrieve the feeders, it’s usually been after I’ve ‘done and dusted’ my post for the evening – so it’s around 1:00 a.m.

Post-Midnight Serenade

For the past several nights – at least three – I’ve been amazed to hear a bird singing quite distinctly in the darkness. I’ve been intrigued! I’ve even attempted to record it with my phone, with only a slight degree of success. Enough for me to at least be able to hear it and – yes – when replaying it for Karl today, I realized I recognized its voice.

But I must admit, until today, I never knew catbirds sing at night. Until, that is, I confirmed it via Mr. Google.

This is the first year we’ve had a number of catbirds hanging around our feeders. And the reason they are is because they are attracted to the fancy feeder my sister-in-law gave us from Wild Birds Unlimited. It’s also the feeder that I think the raccoons and opossums are particularly infatuated with! (Although they do seem to like the peanut coil, too…)

Fancy feeder – As birds whittle away at it, it becomes a work of art! Photo: L. Weikel

I love learning something new about the birds that share our land with us! And I hope that guy woos his girlfriend; he has a lovely voice.

Peanut feeder after a raccoon has climbed on it – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-883)

Time That Got Away – Day 227

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Lone Daisy in a Field of Green – Photo: L. Weikel

Time That Got Away           

Playing on the title of yesterday’s post, the Photo That Got Away, I’m backhandedly admitting that I got caught up tonight in watching the post-debate opinion-fest in ‘real time,’ which means I just looked at the time and realize I only have 29 minutes to the witching hour!

Which reminds me: I’ve been slacking off on the walking. I’ve managed at least two miles every day in the last week or so, but I’ve yearned to do more. The thing is, it takes time.

And it’s funny. I do not begrudge the time it takes me to walk four – six – eight miles. But I sometimes find myself wishing I could write or read while I walk. Those are two of my other favorite activities of mine.

Yes, I know, I could listen to an audio book while I walk. I could listen to an audio book while I mow lawn, too. But I don’t. I do not want to block out the noises of my walk with headphones or earbuds. And I truly love birdsong. I love silence as well. And yeah, I even like (I don’t love, but neither do I loathe) the drone of a 3 hp lawnmower.

I Need to Reconfigure My Time

When I’m walking by myself, the most I will do is occasionally field a phone call while I walk. But even when I do that, I find myself surprised and a little disappointed that I’ve walked a certain distance and I’m not entirely sure what I may have passed.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I wish there were more hours in the day. (I realize that’s rich coming from a person who needs eight hours of sleep.) But especially when it starts getting hot out, like today, I find myself wishing I’d gone on my walk-about in the very early hours of the morning.

I’m getting the feeling that the onset of truly sustained, summer heat is going to require me to reconfigure my timing of certain activities.

Yes, some part of my current routine needs to shift.

(T-884)

Photo That Got Away – Day 226

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Fawns from another year (in our back yard) – Photo: L. Weikel

Photo That Got Away

As soon as I walked in the door this evening, Karl was ready to take a walk. I was relieved, because I knew I needed a walk, wanted a walk, and could easily have been persuaded out of a walk.

We were just rounding the first corner of our walk-around (the shorter, 2.2 mile trek), when we heard a skittering clatter of hooves on pavement. Just ahead, as the road we were on goes straight and the road we were headed for bears right and up a hill, we saw three fawns slipping and sliding on the gravel where these two roads meet. They looked like they were on a patch of ice, their legs akimbo and their inner panic palpable.

Not Fast Enough on the Draw

I couldn’t get my phone out fast enough to get a photo, but I can assure you: they were soooooo cute. Oh my goodness.

They did manage to get themselves off the roadway and into the tangled, prickly brush at the edge of our neighbor’s property. They were hiding. Try as they might, I could see them. I knew they were there. But they were obedient to their mother’s lessons: Stay still.

There was one little one in particular that I could see peering out at me through the criss-crossed arms and legs of pricker bushes. Walking to the edge of the road to get as close as I physically could with my phone, I then zoomed in to the greatest magnification. Nevertheless, the camouflage was perfect.

I just looked at the photo moments ago. I deleted it, not realizing I would actually end up writing about the fawns. But there you have it. I honestly think you wouldn’t have been able to see the fawn, but it occurs to me right now how ridiculous it is that I didn’t give you the opportunity to try.

I gave you Cloud Goblin. I gave you a Sunset Dakini. Realistically, I should have had greater confidence in all of you and given you the chance to play “Where’s Waldo” with the fawn.

Next time!

(T-885)

Cloud Goblin – Day 225

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Cloud Goblin – Photo: L. Weikel

Cloud Goblin

If you’ve been hanging with me and reading my daily posts for a while, you’ll undoubtedly agree that I have a thing for clouds.

When I scan the photos I’ve stored on my phone, the vast majority are of clouds. Sunsets are probably a close second, although they would probably vie for that position with my totally cherished and unabashedly spoiled pets.

My particular fondness for capturing images of clouds is connected to how these images almost always reveal shapes or faces or images that I didn’t even see when I snapped the shot. I’ve shared a number of unique clouds with you already.

Honestly, in many ways they feel like a readily available and nearly endless supply of inspiration. And with the prospect of at least another 886 posts ahead of me, my appreciation for this atmospheric support group is monumental.

Cloud Readings

There have been times when I’ve been known to give ‘cloud readings.’ The only time I’ve ever given them in a somewhat formal fashion was when I was appearing at the Tinicum Arts Festival in my role as the WiseWoman of Wormansville.

It’s funny, because I actually offered ‘Cloud Readings’ as an option specifically because I own a wonderful divinatory set called Cloud Dancing – Wisdom From the Sky, which I intended to use.  But when people approached me and were more interested in receiving a “Cloud Reading’ than in a Medicine Card reading (gasp!), the look of disappointment on their faces when I pulled out the cards took me totally by surprise.

As a result, I decided to plunge headlong into the unknown. I trusted myself and simply looked up. I told them what I saw.

Judging from their reactions, the risk was worth it.

Some Surprises

Occasionally, when I start scrolling through my cloud photos, I’ll see something entirely different or new than what I saw when I snapped the photo. Many times, I just whip out my phone and take a photo because I love the colors, or because I see something that – in retrospect – I can’t for the life of me see again.

Tonight, for instance, Karl and I found ourselves walking with our heads tilted upward a great deal of our walk. (I’m probably going to have a sore neck tomorrow!) The ripples of the clouds were rather fascinating to observe, but I couldn’t seem to capture the effect that was so mesmerizing to us.

Nevertheless, when I started to write tonight, I quickly took a glance at the photos I took. I became intrigued by one in particular. Suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, a face made itself obvious to me. Once I saw ‘him’ I couldn’t unsee him.

I call the photo Cloud Goblin.

I share him here, without an interpretation. Just a face in the sky. And an inspiration I didn’t see coming – for which I’m nevertheless grateful – for yet another 1111 Devotion blog post.

(T-886)

Best Weekend Ever – Day 224

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Clouds – 20 June 19; Photo: L. Weikel

Best Weekend Ever

When it comes to weather, this past weekend has to rank up there in the category of ‘best ever.’ We just had two of the best days I can remember in a very long time.

Every now and then some ethereal clouds would pass across the backdrop of blue that dominated daylight both Saturday and Sunday. But they were really only decoration. Or perhaps visible cues that perfection is sometimes more perfect when disrupted by something unexpected.

And the breezes, oh my. It was warm out – in the 80s – but throughout both days, cool breezes would kick up bringing perfect relief before the warmth had a chance to sink in too deeply.

It’s trite, I suppose, to ‘talk about the weather’ when I don’t have much else to say. But really and truly, just as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, sometimes the best experiences or the most beautiful things or maybe even simply the most amazing people are available or happening to us right here, right now, right in the midst of our very own lives.

This reminds me of an article I just read the other day about, yet again, the healing power of nature and the value of being in nature. The article is about a hospital in Norway where patients can experience the joy and other benefits of being in nature while reveling in a cabin built in the woods and located within several hundred feet of the hospital.

Imagine if we could offer such access to Mother Nature to most patients. Heck, imagine how much everything could change if we could just get everyone in our culture to reconnect with the natural world. We would experience such a shift in perspective; I just know it.

 

Beauty Up Close – Day 223

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Lawn From Afar – Photo: L. Weikel

Beauty Up Close

The first task on our agenda today was to mow the lawn. So many days this week were hot and muggy, when you added to that mix a day or two where more rain than usually falls in an entire month fell within a couple hours, you had the perfect recipe for some major growth.

I sat on our porch looking out upon the lawn in front of the barn. (We’re lucky enough to have both a ‘front’ lawn and what we euphemistically call ‘the back 40’ – a patch of grass and weeds, trees, bushes, and an overgrown something-or-other Karl used to call a garden – behind the barn.) The lawn looked different this week. A new patch of something was growing out there and I’m not sure why it apparently proliferated over the past two weeks, but it definitely had overtaken the green grass.

Lots of White, Much Less Green

Walking down to the barn to fetch the mower, I noticed that the sea of white heads in the grass were patches of what I believe is clover. I had to laugh; we are definitely into ‘au naturel’ lawns. Ours would never be acceptable to those who demand a thick, monotonous carpet of green.

Ours is anything but that. In fact, we often have a variety of plants, often referred to as weeds, having starring roles in our lawn productions. Dandelions, wild violets, crab grass, and these teeny, tiny little wild strawberries. And now, apparently, a major crop of clover.

As I was mowing, I started paying attention to what I was mowing through and cutting down to a trim and uniform size. I couldn’t help noticing that, the closer I looked and the more detail I allowed myself to notice, the more honest beauty revealed itself to me.

For instance, the top photo in this post is a shot of my lawn, as I was mowing it, ‘from afar.’

Lawn a Little Closer – Photo: L. Weikel

The second photo, just above, is simply paying closer attention and zooming in a bit more.

But the most beautiful photo is the one below. How easily (and routinely) do we ignore the rich, vibrant colors and many exquisite details in the tiny flowers that I had categorically dismissed as ‘stuff to mow’ only minutes earlier.

The miniature-like quality and detail to these ‘lawn weeds’ is profound. I’m so glad they asked to have their photos taken!

Next Chance You Get, Take a Deeper Look

Next time you have a chance to walk on your lawn, or beside the road, or sit beside a creek or just ‘be’ anywhere, I encourage you to stop and just take a deeper look. Really focus on the details of what’s sharing space right there with you. I guarantee you will be filled with wonder.

And right now, it feels especially important for all of us to seek out and appreciate the tiniest offerings of color, beauty, and goodness we can find.

Beauty Up Close – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-888)

Summer Solstice – Day 222

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Summer Solstice

Seems Like a Lucky Number

And so, it would appear, it is. Or was? (Not that I even recalled during the day that tonight’s post was #222!)

The luck and the grace of ‘Day #222’ manifested when Karl and I managed to take a phenomenal walk early this evening. Quite unexpectedly, late this afternoon, the humidity level of the atmosphere dropped significantly. That meant we could walk and feel a cool breeze ruffle our hair. We could walk and not feel like we were going to keel over from heat exhaustion.

Best of all, it meant we could thank our bedroom air conditioner for its service the past few nights – and then promptly and almost joyously turn on the whole house fan again, throwing open the windows and opening the front door to allow cross-breezes galore.

A Solstice Stroll

The canvas of the sky seemed irresistible to the clouds. They created unbelievable landscapes and played hide and seek with the sun as it set on the longest day of the year: the Summer Solstice.

Considering I wrote a post on the shortest day of the year, I just want to say how boggled my mind is to realize I’ve been writing posts through two solstices now. (I’d also like to parenthetically comment on how grateful I am that I didn’t have another intense encounter today like I did on the Winter Solstice.)

And I know; I can do the math. Obviously, since I’m on Day 222, I technically passed the “halfway through the year’ mark back when I was at Amadell. In fact – and WOW, I did not realize this until this moment – the halfway-through-my-first-year of my 1111 Devotion was Mother’s Day.

Somehow that seems appropriate. That ‘synchronicity’ makes me smile.

Alas, No Fire

I’d love to say that Karl and I had a Solstice fire this evening to honor and celebrate this longest ‘day’ of the year. But we didn’t. It was a long week. And the best we could muster was hauling our bones around the ‘walk-about’ (the four mile version of our countryside excursions) and simply delighting in the rays of sunshine slanting through cracks in the clouds and listening to the scratchy gratch of red-winged blackbirds that seemed to be announcing our passage beside their meadow homes.

Silly, I know, but I feel a tug in my heart revealing my truth: I don’t want the days to get shorter again. “Not yet,” I hear myself whispering.

But that’s the way it is. That’s the way life is: a series of never-ending cycles, changes, and moments.

Setting Summer Solstice Sun – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-889)

Caught in a Deluge – Day 221

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Swollen Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

Oof!

I got cocky today.

As you know if you read last night’s blog, I’ve been yearning to get back on the beaten path, having missed two full days of walking any distance.

I was keeping an eye on the weather this morning, and I saw that we were under yet another Flash Flood Warning for most of the day today. This was on top of the fact that the National Weather Service reported that our area received – in just three hours early this morning – more rain than usually falls in the entire month of June. And they were calling for another possible 3” this afternoon.

So this afternoon, just after finishing a follow-up email for a client, I decided to run out to the store. The sky looked ominous, and I wasn’t going to risk walking. Not with the thunder I heard rumbling in the distance.

Well, that was a good decision. The not walking, I mean. Turned out I didn’t even make it to the car. All of a sudden, just as I was gathering my keys and journal (I never go anywhere without it), the entire house got dark. Not in the sense of losing electricity; rather, the clouds I’d only glimpsed (and heard approaching) on the horizon were suddenly on top of our house. And they were so thick and so oppressive, the natural light of day became so obscured that it looked and felt like well past sunset.

And then the heavens opened. We experienced a deluge.

Deluge; 20 June 19 – Photo: L. Weikel

Hard to tell from the photo above, but the rain was streaming from the sky. The small creek across the road overflowed its banks and coursed down the center of our road. Our entire back yard became a series of small ponds.

Cut to 45 minutes later. The azure sky is crystal clear, sunshine is sparkling off the millions of raindrops puddled on or clinging to the leaves of all the trees surrounding us.

OK, I think to myself. I’m bagging the store run. This is my chance to get a walk in!

I call Spartacus and he is, of course, game. I strap him up in his harness and away we go.

Even the tiniest and most obscure natural drainage areas – most of which I’ve hardly ever seen any sign of water in at all – are coursing with vigor and have discovered their voice. (I wish you could touch your screen and experience the ‘live’ version of the photo below, because you can hear the water’s deep throated celebration of its power.)  (And don’t even get me started on how bizarre those ‘live’ photos on iPhones are. They’re just like Harry Potter!)

Aftermath of the deluge; 20 June 19 – Photo: L. Weikel

As I walk, I’m actually ‘hearing’ the rushing sound of water in areas alongside the road that are obscured by nearly-blooming day lilies and an assortment of other tall, grassy greens. If I could not hear that literal roaring sound, I wouldn’t even be aware that there was a creek flowing along that part of the road. Amazing.

Alas…

Spartacus and I made it about 2.5 miles when we met up with Karl and Sheila, who had walked toward us from the other direction. Not a minute passed following our reunion when I suddenly realized clouds were approaching from the west again. Rapidly. We quickened our pace, but the attempt was futile.

It was as if we were in the midst of one of those ‘microbursts.’ (And I suppose we may have been; I can’t say for sure.) Tthe reality is: we got drenched. Soaked.

Civic Duty Pays Dividends!

But you know what was really cool? A young woman, who might actually be part angel, pulled up alongside of us in her white vehicle just as the rain started coming down in sheets. She looked familiar, but I didn’t know her name. She asked if we wanted a ride.

Our neighbor (not immediate – she lives about a mile away from us) actually invited us and our drowned-rat pups into her car and gave us a lift home. Of course, the storm had passed and the sun was out again in the short time it took for us to get back to our house. But we would have been even more soaked and bedraggled if the wonderful Amanda hadn’t saved our bacon.

It turned out she recognized me from when I’d worked as an election official in May. See? Civic duty pays dividends in the most unexpected ways!

(T-890)