We’re all familiar with Mother Nature’s artwork in the sky: from the Cloud Beings who show up when we need them to the stunning sunsets painted across the sky that take our breath away. But tonight I’d like to celebrate the artistry that’s channeled when temperatures plunge then climb – and plunge again. Sometimes, I swear there’s a pen and ink artist working out their creative urges in the between and they’re using puddles and streams to express it.
All of these photos were taken the same night (Monday night), yet to me they seem to reflect vastly different facets of a March evening. They actually almost seem to reflect different climates! But they were all taken within a radius of two miles or so.
I can’t decide which photo I’d like to include at the top of this post. Do I go with the stunning color of a blood orange sunset reflected in roadside puddles? Or do I lead with an iced-over puddle that sort of hits me in the gut by how it reminds me of cartoon doodles that Karl used to draw on bits of paper and in notebooks I still randomly discover?
Icicles Too
Then there are the icicles dripping from the rocky ledges overhanging a creek that flows into the Lenape Sipu (Delaware River). I regret that I am unable to name this creek at the moment, but I can attest to its loveliness.
Pacha and Brutus were still able to find a snow drift to jump into yesterday (although tonight it was much less fun to play in). Speaking of which – can you believe it? They actually have grown to love playing in the snow. Aaah, seven month olds!
Snow Shenanigans – Photo: L. Weikel
With temperatures expected near 70 degrees tomorrow, I doubt we’ll find any more icy puddle doodles or icicles. Indeed, these may have been the last of the season (although I doubt it).
Oh! Which reminds me. I found the shortest little daffodil blooming in the neighbors’ grass today. I was going to call it the littlest daffodil, but it’s definitely a full-size daffodil (as opposed to the true miniatures I’ve seen). But its stem just never seemed to grow and the bloom is nestled amongst blades of grass.
Short one this evening. I have a vague headache and I wonder if it’s related to the indecisive nature of the temperature outside over the past few days. First balmy, then frigid; pouring rain, massive puddles, swollen creeks and rivers. Tonight, utter clarity revealing the cosmos causes another plunge of temps.
I don’t think I’ve heard one car drive past our house tonight. People must be heeding the entreaties to stay home. It’s refreshing. People are always out tooling around when it’s snowing. But maybe everyone just decided that it’s Friday and, what the heck, they might as well just hunker down where they are.
Nothing’s worse than driving and suddenly realizing you’re on a sheet of ice. As soon as you feel that vague but unmistakable sense that there’s suddenly no traction between your vehicle’s tires and the surface of the road, a pit of terror strikes. It’s sort of like the plunge your stomach takes when you breach the top of a roller coaster.
It’s the sudden and unmistakable sense that, in that moment, you have no control over anything.
Swollen Tohickon – Photo: L. Weikel
Swollen Tohickon
I made a pit stop to my beloved Tohickon Creek earlier this afternoon. I haven’t had a chance to sit beside her and just have a conversation with her in a few months. Yes, I visited – briefly – when I walked there a few weeks ago. But the sun was setting and there was a lot of snow and ice around and nowhere for me to just sit and ‘be.’
Communing with the creek wasn’t in the cards today, either. My usual spot was inaccessible. The Tohickon was overflowing her banks and her waters quite literally would’ve poured into my car had I even attempted to park there.
The mighty Lenape Sipu (Delaware River) was equally as swollen with muddy, opaque water coursing downstream. Chunks of logs and spiky broken tree limbs bobbed and swirled in the eddies caused by rocks and other obstacles hidden from view.
But even more troubling, knowing the temperatures were soon to plummet, were the sheets of water streaming across most of the roadways. So much water with nowhere to go.
Nights like tonight are the stuff of comforters and candlelight and gratitude for a warm home and a good book.
Adding an extra leg to my journey, I took a detour from my usual walking route and paid a visit to an anchoring source of both strength and tranquility: the Tohickon Creek. In spite of the cold, I felt drawn to her soothing presence. It’s been a while since I had a chance to just be with her and listen to her voice.
Along the way, both coming and going, I encountered a number of deer. I didn’t even try to take any photos of them. It was as if they moved just enough to reveal their presence, grazing amongst the trees and weeds of the rocky hillside. Then, entering stillness again, they melted back into their surroundings.
Perhaps it was the rather specific amount of leftover mini-piles of snow sporadically strewn about the hillside that made me appreciate how well-suited deer are to blending into their milieu. Up until now I was pretty sure the white tails of our ‘white-tail deer,’ were more a ‘tell’ than a tool. But today? Today I was fascinated to see that the glimpses I caught of their tails resembled the random pockets of snow scattered amongst the dead leaves and other detritus of the forest floor.
Huh. I never noticed that before. And I’ve seen a lot of deer in my time.
Cormorant? – Photo: L. Weikel
Icy and Cold
When I got to the creek itself, I could make out a single large-ish sized bird standing on a boulder further down the creek. My gut tells me it was a cormorant, even though that’s not a bird I routinely associate with the creek.
The ice forming along the banks took on the blue-ish hue of the overcast sky. Even though the sun had set and snow crystals were just beginning to spit from the thick blanket of gray above me, I see hints of magenta and green in the geometric forms of the freezing water. Or maybe its my imagination as I view these photos now.
No matter. My beloved Tohickon worked her magic. My heart found peace.
I offered her some strands of my hair in gratitude for the comfort she unfailingly provides me when I need it most.
Serpentine Currents of the Tohickon – Photo: L. Weikel
Another day, another year, but beautiful nonetheless – Photo: L. Weikel
It’s Ugly
I’m struggling to come up with something interesting to write about this evening. Everything just seems so damn depressing. From the politics of last week to climate change this week, preparing for the impact of which was completely botched by politicians in Texas due to their slavish dedication to the vaunted holy grail of deregulation, it’s ugly. And that’s not even mentioning the ongoing pandemic and the threat of what seems like a bazillion mutations appearing now and expected to continue dodging, dancing, and shifting their structures into the future.
I look out my window at the moment and see a car slowly making its way along our road, ice crunching under the tires. It’s slippery out there. I know firsthand.
A Miserable Mix
As we walked late this afternoon, the precipitation was a miserable mix of sleet and rain that turned to ice as soon as it hit anything – including my jacket. Running my hand along my sleeve or the front of my jacket felt like I was reading braille.
On the last stretch of the walk there were at least three inches of snow on the road surface, with a coating of ice on top that added that crunchy cadence to all our footsteps – even Spartacus’s. It was easier to walk in the thicker stuff. Anything that had been packed down was completely slick. So I was careful.
But as we started to make our final descent down the hill that leads to the crossroads near our home, my feet went out from under me. This fall unfolded more slowly than the last one (in which I smacked the back of my head) and I must say, I do believe I scored at least a 7.5 in grace.
Tomorrow’s Promise
I do have one hope that always bubbles up on days like this and never grows old. It’s the hope that we will awaken tomorrow to an indescribably breathtaking winter wonderland, where every single branch of every single tree, every single blade of grass and every single pine needle is coated in ice. And to top off the perfection, the sun needs to come out and cast glistening rainbows making life look like it’s taking place inside a magical kingdom.
If I’m lucky, I’ll see it and share the magic with all of you. In the meantime, we’ll have to make due with memories from other such storms. Because trust me – there was nothing but gray skies to document today.
As I sit here trying to decide which of the myriad emotions I’ve felt today I want to express in this post, I hear a whoosh of what I think is the wind. But it’s not the wind. It’s rain.
But the rain isn’t steady. It sounds as if only some of the clouds blowing through are filled with moisture too heavy to contain. Other clouds just pass right by. I can feel a distinct shift in the air, though. Markedly cooler air wafts in through the screen of the open front door.
This is just the beginning of a wild weekend, weather-wise.
It’s May, right? May 8th, in fact, in this crazy year of 2020.
Perspective via Polar Vortex
We’ve had one of the mildest winters I can remember, so of course there’s a “freeze” warning in effect for tomorrow night into Saturday. And of course, while my area will probably ‘only’ get a coating of ice, northeastern Pennsylvania and points north, including much of New York state, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont are bracing for 6-8” of snow, and even as much as a foot of heavy, wet stuff in some areas.
Hopefully, people won’t lose their electricity to downed wires caused by the storm.
It seems we keep getting reminders on the importance of perspective. If we start paying attention to what’s going on around us, perhaps we’ll stop thinking, “Things can’t get any worse.” Because it’s precisely when we make that cavalier statement that we’re often given a good dose of “Oh yeah?”
What is True
There’s a lot going on out there that’s escaping our perception. We’re being bombarded. We need to keep our wits. We need to remember what’s important. We need to take deep stock of ourselves and who we trust.
Everything we believed we knew for sure is being challenged right now.
We need to stick together. We need to be there for each other. This is when our integrity shines through and calls us to perhaps take leaps into an unknown we never thought we would.
We must stop denying what we see with our very own eyes. This really is as bad as we feel, deep down inside. Does the rain need to turn to ice in May? Do we really need to experience even worse before we wake up and See?
The accuracy of the weather forecasts so far this season has not been impressive. I realize meteorology is an imprecise science, given the whims and vagaries of the elements, but I really thought the field had its act together better than this.
We awakened this morning to a lovely coating of ice on practically everything living: trees, plants, grasses. Not so much coating on inanimate objects, though. And the roads were, luckily, a piece of cake.
There is a crystalline beauty to ice storms, though. And it’s much easier to appreciate that beauty if you are lucky enough not to lose boughs off your trees or electricity due to downed wires. I’m grateful to report that we lost neither limb nor light.
Nevertheless, It Persisted
I was surprised that the coating of ice on all the branches didn’t melt as the day wore on. In fact, even though the temperature hovered right around 33, I actually think some of the coatings grew thicker. In spite of expectations of yielding and bending to thermodynamic facts, the ice nevertheless persisted. All day – and into tonight.
Fire In the Belly
And in spite of the cold and raw temperatures that dominated the day, several hundred people gathered outside Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick’s (R-PA 01) home office to demand that he represent the will of his constituents and vote yes in tomorrow’s impeachment vote in the House of Representatives.
I have to admit, I’m actually starting to feel like an old hand at this protesting stuff. For each cause I’ve been moved to show up for and speak out about (climate change, women’s rights, immigration reform – particularly the separation and caging of families and children – and now impeachment, among others), I’ve found my fellow protestors to be kind, polite, peaceful, yet passionate – with a fire in their belly for what they believe is right and just for all.
The only one of my photos I could upload. (The others will arrive tomorrow via email from my phone to my laptop.) Thanks, VZ wireless. Photo: L. Weikel
A Sense of Melancholy
Perhaps it was the ice. Perhaps it was the rain. Perhaps it was the effect of both working to dampen the fire in everyone’s belly. While there absolutely was a sense of determination in this crowd, a resolute insistence that no one is above the law, the evening felt tempered by a sense of melancholy.
For all the hundreds of people there demanding the president be held accountable for his transgressions, there was a pocket of about 30 of those who feel he is an example of everything that’s right with the world.
What I noticed was their meanness.
A large white diesel pickup truck with the barest excuse for a muffler rode slowly among the rows of parked cars behind the crowd revving its engine. Over and over. Just revving its diesel engine, spewing fumes as it crawled from one row to another, quite obviously on a mission not to park, but to distract and annoy. We made a point of moving deeper into the plaza.
So it was ironic that 45 minutes later, the driver of that same vehicle took notice of us as we were leaving. Just as we were unlocking our car, I heard the familiar revving again. I glanced toward the truck, as it once again started revving its engine as it waited in line to exit the parking lot. The driver, a young man probably in his mid to late 20s, had his window down and his left arm hanging out the window and down the door of the truck’s cab. Picking up on my glance, he looked over at me with a grimace and quite distinctly called me a “fucking whore.”
Really?
He followed it up with a taunt that I should enjoy driving home in my “piece of shit Prius,” then revved his engine again, apparently for emphasis.
Wow. I’d only glanced in his direction precisely because he kept revving his engine. He’d been looking for attention. And when he received it, when I made eye contact, he used the opportunity to hurl an ugly heap of nasty on me.
That’s when the melancholy hit me hardest. I looked at Karl, who I could tell wanted to respond but was actively choosing not to engage, and felt a wave of despair. Talk like that, antagonism toward us as someone ‘other’ than their own family and friends, is disheartening.
Here we are, speaking up and taking a stand for this kid to live in a country where the elite do not have more or better rights than he does. And here he is, taking the part of those who would exploit him at the drop of a hat. Buying the lies that the powerful use to divide us.
I don’t know how to heal the wounds if we can’t even agree on a shared reality anymore.
