What bucket can catch this light and color? None, I think, and then I think I am wrong. A bucket lowered and set in the water, Turquoise and blue and black, a song. Lift the bucket and the turquoise is gone. Reflected light, a dance on on the riffles. It’s like the happiness for which we long. Caught for a moment, containment stifles the reflection of joy in our face and hearts. The face that lights from music or dance or a moment touched by another’s art. Let joy come and go, take the chance. The light on the water will be gone at night. Joy wants to be free and not held too tight.
I heard the band The Winetree last September in Ohio.
It has been horrible to have the zombies take over cities, but the surprise has been color. The zombies love color and it mesmerizes them. We all carried paints and spray paint and brushes for the zombies at first. Hand a zombie any paint and they wonβt bite you! People quickly realized that the more brightly we color everything, the less chance of being bitten. Now our clothes are rainbows of riotous color, black suits gone forever. There are now well known zombie artists, hired to brighten and decorate nearly anything.
I visited an old friend in Europe last March. I talked about the Olympic Peninsula and he was impressed with the cougars and orcas and bears. “We don’t have any large predators here.” Well, only humans.
They used to, though. This is from a local museum: a bear skeleton from about 7000 BC from the country. A very big bear fossil. There were other fossil predators including a wolf like creature.
So this is the succession where he lives: humans living after the bears.
Sneaky. One thing that I think really is evil is gossip. Talking about someone behind their back and spreading rumors and never speaking to the person themselves. But I do not need to punish anyone. The gossip will eat them from the inside, like a cancer, and they will look like fools when they are proven wrong. Curling churlishly with guilt.
I look at the sea and I let it all go.
This watercolor by Helen Burling Ottaway does not have a date. I love the whitecaps using the paper. Tricky to do that, I have tried. My daughter also draws horizons and seascapes, over and over. This is 11 by 15. I suspect it is from the late 1970s or early 1980s, because there is a watercolor of my sister on the beach, similar to this. My paternal grandparents lived on Topsail Island in North Carolina and that is the most likely location.
S is for sneaky and snarky and sea. Here is a snarky song.
The roof tiles are imbricated. This is from my travels in March 2022. What do you call a female gargoyle?
Maybe it’s better not to call one.
I also have assisted at imbrication in the operating room. I did obstetrics as part of Family Medicine for 19 years. During a cesarean section, we do a double layer of stitches on the uterus, imbricating it. Enough said.
Merle is in his tiny cabin. The cabin far away in the woods. He is holding his guitar. When he realizes where he is, he puts down the guitar, carefully.
He hears crashing outside right away.
He looks. Bear. It rises onto it’s back feet. It is a sow, with cubs! Three!
No, thinks Merle, two cubs. And: “Kurt!” he yells, “Run!”
Kurt just looks at him and turns back to the cubs. The sow is looming outside. This is wrong, why isn’t she attacking Kurt? Kurt is pushing and wrestling the cubs, who are large.
The sow knocks on the cabin wall. “Merle?” says the sow.
Merle doesn’t say a word. This is all wrong.
“Merle?” says the sow bear. She is talking in bear noises but it’s also words in his head. “Well,” says the sow, “you said you could read my mind.”
Merle does not answer. He shakes his head. “Kurt.” he whispers.
The sow bangs on the wall again with a great paw. “You said you’d always be my friend. I miss hiking with you. The rest of it, forget it. Phone, texting, the other stuff. Let’s just hike.”
Merle remains still.
The sow drops to all fours and then sits, her front paws on her back paws. The forest is greening at the tips of the conifers. The grass is electric green from the rain. Kurt and the cubs roll around. Kurt looks ok, really.
“I gave it 50/50 from the start,” says the sow. It’s a meditative growl, if that can be imagined. “I thought you could choose. It was a lie that you could read my mind. You read what you wanted to read. I let you. I thought you’d either keep your promise or break it. I thought you could choose, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe that’s the thing about trying to control other people: if you realize that they are not controlled, you never speak to them again.” The bear rocks forward and back a little. She does not look cute. She looks lethal and smells like bear.
Her mouth opens wide and tongue lolls. “After all, I think people can change and you think they can’t. If you change, then I am right.” She coughs. Merle realizes that it’s laughter.
One of the cubs barrels into her, rolling. She swats it away. Kurt is right behind the cub, but she catches him. She sets him aside, standing up.
“Up to you,” says the bear. She turns towards the woods to the north. Kurt gives a wave and he and the cubs scramble after her.
Merle struggles out of the dream like a diver coming up from the deepest possible dive. “Kurt,” he says, “you said you’d come back and tell me the truth.” He shudders and gets up.
In Michigan, I was sent to the river trail, and that is where I saw this muskrat. Wikipedia says in one place on the muskrat entry that they primarily use their tails to swim and in another that they primarily use their back feet. This looks like tail, mostly, but I can’t be sure.
There was impressive storm damage, a lot of trees down or broken.
This is part of the North Country Scenic Trail, that goes from Vermont to North Dakota! Eight states. I want to read more about it and hike some of it.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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