The Invisible Trail

Sidewalk Saturday

2010-08-07T10:40:00.000-04:00

Something has been spilled on the sidewalk near the Flagstar Bank.
It leaves a pretty pattern on the sidewalk, but I hope it is not
something toxic.

Sidewalk Saturday: Veronica

2010-03-20T17:30:00.003-04:00

This is a real sidewalk near our house--one that is beginning to disintegrate. I was thrilled to see the first Veronica of the year.

It's Coming!

2009-09-19T08:37:00.000-04:00

Cristpy nights, falling leaves . . . .

Sidewalk Saturday: The Bubble Seal

2008-03-15T11:17:00.001-04:00

I thought this bubble under the ice looked like a seal with two balls. :-D

Sidewalk Saturday, flattened flora

2008-03-08T22:02:00.000-05:00

I keep taking sidewalk Saturday pix but never seem to have time to post them.

day by day (Sidewalk Saturday)

2007-09-15T14:08:00.000-04:00

click image to view larger.

Hibiscus Sidewalk

2007-08-25T15:03:00.000-04:00

Hibiscus Sidewalk, for Sidewalk Saturday, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. I used to walk in the woods and wilds of Upstate NY, but now it's just these sidewalks. I get my nature fix from domestic plants like this hibiscus hanging over a fence.

PS, I will be away and incommunicado all next week--not that I post here or you comment here very often anyway, but if you leave a comment, I may not answer for a while!

Sidewalk Saturday: Murals on Manistique

2007-08-11T13:22:00.000-04:00

(unfinished?)(Click images to view larger)

Walking, Gunshots, my new Ericsson’s “First Light” and a note to my mum

2007-07-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

Monday; July 15, 2007: 9:14 PM
The Invisible Trail: Walking, Gunshots, my new Ericsson’s “First Light” and a note to my mum

It's dark. And hot. Cicada whirr, buzz and whine in the Norway maples and elms that line the streets and sidewalks. I was surprised to see such a abundance of large, perfect elms when I arrived here in Detroit. In Upstate NY, where I used to live, the Dutch elm disease has killed most of the large elms. I'd forgotten how much I admire elms, how graceful and "stately" they are.

Biker Buddy drove to the store to buy a back-up battery for my new Ericsson mobile companion computer. My 13-year-old son plays the piano—doing his practicing. He has achieved a level of skill that allows me to deeply appreciate and enjoy his playing. He will be going to Blue Lake Fine Arts Summer camp soon in voice and piano, a real honor. Meanwhile, I listen and smile.

The new computer is smooth, unblemished and perfect. It smells spicy and sweet, like male cologne. I touch it, run, my fingers over the satiny finish. Sniff it. Wonder if it smells like Matt, the English man from whom I bought the computer.

When my husband returns, we walk together up the street under the maples and elms, talking. The notes of my son's piano slowly fade. I can still see him in the window, his face golden in the lamplight, his finger moving rapidly over the kids, the intenseness of his concentration. Then that too is gone.

Instead, there are rabbits in the darkness. The hop ahead of us or off to the side, never very worried. I used to walk in the woods, alone. Now, I walk along a sidewalk, past the goldfish bowls of people's lives. In NY, people closed their curtains at night. Here, most people do not. Biker Buddy says it’s a wheeled society—no one expects you to be walking past at night. A different movie plays in each window, but we see only fragments and pay little attention. One thing that catches our attention, though: some rapid-fire gunshots when we are almost home. They worry me.

When I walked in the woods in upstate NY, I often heard gunshots. Deer hunters, bird hunters, foxhunters, small game hunters, target shooters. What is there to shoot here, I wonder, but other people? But no one screams, there is only silence. A car turns a corner and drives off. The streetlights lap the sidewalk. We go inside.

I reread these first words I have written and think of my mother. She died in January, and I wonder why the sudden pang of sadness and loss. And then I know. I used to share my journal entries with her, in the form of letters and notes, when she was alive. No one else cares what I have to say quite the way my mother did. I love you, Mum.

PS: I left the bunny dark--it was dark! I wanted it that way.

Sidewalk Saturday in Italy

2007-06-29T13:23:00.000-04:00

Oxalis growing under the edge of a Church in Italy along the sidewalk.

Sidewalk Saturday, RAIN

2007-03-03T14:18:00.000-05:00

It rained and rained and rained. The sidewalks are wet and flooded. Leaf fossil, bike tred fossil, drowned glove, first drying.

Sidewalk Saturday

2007-02-24T09:32:00.000-05:00

Sidewalk Saturday, by Mary Stebbins Taitt. Two Honey Locust Pods with shadows, leaf and foot.

Sidewalk Saturday: Fresh Snow

2007-02-10T09:37:00.000-05:00

Squirrel tracks, salt tracks, cat track, dog track

Sidewalk Saturday

2007-02-03T22:39:00.000-05:00

My "invisible trail" no longer winds through forest and woodland, through field and meadow, over stream and around pond--at least not most days. Most days, I walk along the city sidewalks where I am afraid to point my camera at the surrounding scenery, because the scenery belongs to the people whose yards I'm walking past. And paranoia runs high now because of terrorism. So I look down at the sidewalk, down at my feet, at the ice and snow and the petroglyphs of the city.

The bottom picture is calcium chloride, sprinkled like snow on the sidewalks to cut the ice.

I took these Friday. But I am posting them for Sidewalk Saturday. P365-07Ph

My New Trails

2007-01-18T23:14:00.000-05:00

I used to have a Psion and I walked through the woods and trails and wrote poems and stories and journal entries. Now, I walk the city sidewalks with no Psion to write poems on. I never wanted to live in a city, but I do. I can't photograph in people's yards--the get uptight if I point a camera toward their yard or worse yet, walk into it a step or two. So I have sidewalks. Squirrel tracks, handprints, old bandaids, melting ice. And lots lots more.

P365-07Ph.

jo(e)'s Invisible Trail

2006-05-15T19:57:00.000-04:00

jo(e)'s invisible trail

I went to visit my poet friend, jo(e). She loves nature and poetry and is kind, generous loving and funny, always a joy to be with (and to read).

After warning me that her woods were full of mosquitoes, she asked if I wanted to walk in the woods behind her house. I did. Walking in nature is one of my favorite things to do. The sun was shining, and I couldn't wait to get out.

We headed out, across her back lawn, through the small field behind it and into the woods. I took her picture, walking in, because the long blades of grass echoed the vertical tree trunks and the trail was lush, spring-like and inviting.

It was also overgrown, but I didn't worry. jo(e) seemed to know where she was going. We talked and laughed and caught up on each other's activities and those of our children and families. We sat on the fallen trunk of a tree and talked until the mosquitoes drove us away, and then walked some more.

"The trails are a little overgrown," she said apologetically. I didn't mind. Then, later, "You probably wonder how I can find my way." Actually, I neither wondered nor worried. But her concern reminded me of a mutual friend who when we walked in the woods, often asked how I knew where I was going. My daughter asked me that once, and I wrote the poem that became the basis of this blog.

As I walked with jo(e), I could usually (but not always) see the hints of the trails that she was leading me on. And since I often tramp through the woods along old trails that are barely visible, I know the process. A number of things contribute to such way finding. There is body knowledge or kinesthetics. It's amazing how the body knows where to turn, duck and bend. And there are landmarks, and trail traces, the berm or ditches of old logging roads, the stream or pond or curve of the hill the invisible trail follows.

I felt at peace with jo(e). Comfortable. I trusted her completely, as I trust myself in the woods. I am writing this as I walk alone through rainy spring woods on another invisible trail. And our mutual friend? She too has since learned to navigate the invisible trail and to trust the woodswomen and men in her life.

jo(e) walks along a log in her woods. below

Spiral Grove with intentional Blurring

2006-03-30T01:17:00.000-05:00

Death at the Spiral Grove

2006-03-30T01:13:00.000-05:00

Beaver Skull Pond, 3R

2006-03-30T01:09:00.000-05:00

Beaver Skull Pond, 3R, by Mary Stebbins, click on image to view larger.

Beaver Skull Meadow and Spiral Grove Rambling

2006-03-30T00:49:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, March 29, 2006,3:57 PM 3R

I'm at my favorite "campground" (or "picnic area") at Beaver Skull Meadow at Three Rivers for my walk. It is sunny and in the 59s and I'm in my T-shirt.

I read my one prewalk poem about St. Dympha. I listen to the crows and the geese and study the aspen catkins. I hear the clicking of wood frogs, like little wooden motors. The moss on the trees is green. Very green. On the way here, I passed big piles of snow and considered a picture, but didn't stop.

The sun is warm and lazy and I'd like to loll about but I need to stay on task and get back to sorting or I'll never get out of the house.

I didn't even BRING a jacket; hope I don't regret that, the wind is cold.

There are piles of feathers where some bird was eaten. Pigeon feathers by the look of it and my guess is someone shot the pigeon and then something ate later.

Peeper, a din of them. Crow, little bluestem grass. I wanted to ask Sara about that picture near the osprey nest, about the little bluestem there, but I forgot

Someone has put out bird food and the chickadees are gorging on it. I get into a swampy spot and can't skirt it because of the multifloral rose. Rip, tear. I'd sprayed my shoes a little with silicone but not enough because I hate the smell.

I wish I could record that peeper din!

I won't hear it in Detroit!

I stop at the first beaver dam and take a few pictures, scenic ones but also beaver dung and beaver work. Yesterday I took what I think might be coyote dung bust haven't looked it up yet.

I wander around in the woods behind Beaver Skull Meadow, checking the trap lines as I do every spring for beaver and muskrat skulls. Raccoon skulls. I wonder if now that there's a market for them if they don't leave them behind. But then again, other years, I wouldn't find them, and then would discover a whole cache of them. Peepers and geese. Not so many wood frogs here, they tend to be in the woodland ponds.

It seems entirely unconscionable that I would be expected to live in a place without peepers and wood frogs.

In a place without woods, I think, looking around at the pines and hemlocks and maples. The oaks and blueberries. SIGH!

In he winter time, living in Detroit doesn't seem so bad, but in the spring, argh!

There is no one out here in these woods who expects me to dress up, wear makeup, carry a fancy handbag, attend events, or do anything else. And that's the way I like it. That's because there is no one out here at all except me and the geese and the frogs. The sun through the pines and the breeze.

That's the way I like it.

Of course, I love Keith and graham and want to be with them. I wish I could be here (or somewhere like this) during the day and with them at night.

Of course, it would always have to be spring or fall, warm but not hot. Why don't we live in heaven? Well, I'm not eager to DIE if that's what it takes.

4:51 PM, I am over in the Spiral Grove now. I took one picture of shadows and attempted two of a pitch pine, or what I think is a pitch pine, but they probably won't come out. I am only halfway through my walk and feeling heavy and awkward. I think of how badly I used to want to walk silently, like an Indian, and how loud I am now that my hips hurt and I'm heavy and tired and "old."

I wish I could lose weight, but though I rarely eat sweets or desserts, I can't seem to eat little enough to lose weight. I'm always hungry.

I'd like to go back and sit in the car and read and nap. I'm tired of walking. And I don't want to go back and work. But I need to push on and go home and work.

I still have to walk 22 more minutes. I wish I weren't so tired. I'm not on a trail and bushwhacking is hard work.

I guess I could just go walk down the ROAD. Wahn. "What a drag it is getting old."

I discover an area of the spiral grove where most of the tops are gone from the trees and lying on the ground, and I wonder why. I tend to think symbolically, since I see this as a sacred place, and the grove's demise an act of profound evil.

Like the little girl emissary who was killed in a place accident. The echthroi got her.

This was a true story, not fiction, that is, she really died I a plane crash.

Because she wrote a letter to Putin or whoever it was, I forget the details now.

I just remembered that our shooting gallery post for April is blurred in camera motion. Intentional, so I try a few shots. The forest as taken on a misty magical feel, though it is hard to capture in the camera.

I like the magical mystical misty look and feel of the forest and the way I feel in it. Peaceful, relaxed and happy like I don't feel sorting junk at home or trying to do taxes and other such. Of course, living in the woods year round is not very practical unless you're rich, because you still have to eat and buy land to live on and build the cabin and heat it and have medical insurance etc. If you were young, you could do it, but at 60 with issues, it'd be a little harder. Unless a skinny miracle occurred, I'd need electricity for my CPAP and how would Graham get to school?

I'm on the road now, headed back to the car. I noticed my shadow and grabbed a hip shot of it with the point and shoot. There's still a lot of snow along here.

In a way, when there's a bright sunny spring day, it seems really dumb to go in the woods and I ought to walk out to the ponds. The Sophie pond.

Not today but some other spring day before I move to Detroit. Oh, Sophie pond. No Sophie Pond in Detroit.

Don't get me wrong, I WANT to move to Detroit, I WANT to be with Keith, and Graham, but I just can't help feeling sad about leaving here.

It's also true that when I'm in Detroit, I rarely think about the Sophie Pond or Beaver Skull Meadow or the Spiral Grove. What I do long for though, is nature, wildness, open space. And in a way that Keith, much as he loves me, doesn't seem to fully understand. It's like nature is my "demon" (a la Lyra) or spirit guide without which I'm only half a person, like an empty shell. And Balduck Park and the cemeteries etc are nice, but not even Belle Isle is like being HERE, where there is no manmade structures, no houses or pavilions, no traffic (well, there is nearby traffic of sorts). This area is so vast. Belle Isle is nice and I like it, but it is somehow citified. You can see either Detroit or Windsor from almost everywhere.

I don't feel like I'm being very articulate. I just hope I don't shrivel up and die when I move to Detroit.

Even the Pinery, which is wonderful, is overcrowded with people.

I read my end-of-the-walk Patrick Lawler poem ("Georgia O'Keefe and the light touching the child") and prepare to go home and bite the bullet.

6:10 Home again, home again, jigity jig. There are mourning doves in the tree and I was going to try again to get them but the sun's setting so fast I don't think I can get out the camera and change the lens.

I take a shot and adjust, take a shot and adjust, and just when I get it the way I think I want it they fly. The beeping of the camera seemed to bother them.

The oil light is on on the car all the time and I'm afraid the car will blow up or die in the middle of crazy traffic and I'll get killed.

Boardwalk at Hamlin Marsh

2006-03-27T23:27:00.000-05:00

Boardwalk at Hamlin Marsh, photo by Mary Stebbins

Mourning Doves

2006-03-26T23:21:00.000-05:00

Mourning Doves, photo by Mary Stebbins. The first thing I saw when I walked outside to take my walk today were these doves.

Protective Coloration

2006-03-26T23:04:00.000-05:00

I saw this rabbit on my walk today, but it was hard to spot!!!

Erin and Mary at Radisson

2006-03-25T23:56:00.000-05:00

Walking the Visible trail

walking with Sara at Great Bear

2006-03-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

Ignoring my Own Advice Again

2006-03-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 20, 2006, 6:05 PM It is still amazingly light. Geese are flying overhead honking. It is snowing, windy and cold. Brrr, cold. I am out walking. Because I had that strange dizzy spell at noontime today, I did not drive anywhere to walk, and I am going to walk in segments, assuming I can walk. I am walking around the block on the road, rather than plowing through the snow. But I dislike this, as there is traffic and no sidewalks, so I have to walk in the road. There is a snow bank beside the road, so if a car is to close I have to leap into the snow.

My hands become too cold to write so I put both them and the computer in my pocket. I am so used to writing while I walk that it does not seem unusual, special, or dangerous to me. I've been doing it for years and years.

I deeply dislike walking along the road in my neighborhood, and much prefer woodland trails or at least the paved sidewalks at Radisson. I am really not looking forward to living in Detroit at all EXCEPT for Keith and Graham and Sam and Joan and ML and so on. Gail, who is in Jackson.

The place where I walked down to the river is posted, the one at the bottom of the hill that I walked to from home. So I was trespassing when I went there, but I did not break and enter, I simply stepped over the chain. If the gate were closed and locked and I sawed open the lock, that would be breaking and entering. It is one step worse than trespassing. But I would not do that, because it would cause harm.

I do make a sort of infrequent habit of trespassing, maybe 5-7% of my walks. This is because I feel that I am doing no harm to simply walk through. I try to minimize any damage I might do. But I have gotten in trouble of number of times, and I don't like that, so I do it less often. And some of my favorite trespassing places have been made more secure against trespassers, perhaps in part due to me, but not too likely. So I can't go there any more.

I am nearly back home. I seem strong and balanced, though I do not yet feel normal. I decide it is safe for me to walk around another block, but my hands are very cold.

When I called the doctor's office about my dizziness and the spinning room, she asked if anything were making me anxious and I said no, no more than normal. But I suppose sitting up until 1:45 AM sorting stuff and feeling that I'm making no headway and will never finish could be a form of anxiety. I was thinking panic attack, and I was feeling fairly calm, the thing that was making me anxious was the DIZZINESS itself. I was starting to imagine all sorts of dire things it could mean.

My friend Judy got dizzy and few weeks later, she was dead of ovarian cancer.

My father got dizzy and collapsed on a walk with my brother and me and that was when his cancer returned.

And he died.

I guess I really AM anxious about my house and getting out of it, I'm so BAD at this sort of thing. It makes me unhappy and I feel worthless. Still, would that make the room spin around me VIOLENTLY?

I am nearly home again. I walked less than half my required 45 minutes (for fibromyalgia). But I'm taking a break. Making stir-fry. Cabbage, zucchini and beef. Then hopefully walk more.

I'd prefer to walk somewhere other than on the stupid streets in the dark with traffic and no sidewalks. But I am not feeling up to par, and don't want go anywhere. I am feeling significantly better than I was. Though after my two blocks, I felt more tired than usual.

I'm meeting with my poet-friend Janine tomorrow for breakfast at 8:30 AM so somehow, I have to have a few poems ready tonight--TONIGHT--since I have no printer here, I have to email them to her to print.

(I'd better set the alarm before I go for more walking, as I might forget otherwise!)

I am not (NOT!) rich, but we are all rich compared to the people spoken of in the Bible.

Hope I can sleep tonight!

Live simply that others might simply live. I like that but boy I'm no-good at it! All my life I've aspired toward it and failed. Though I've often lived much more simply than other people, that's not really enough. I'm not sure what enough IS.

I am out walking again. It is snowing again, still. In the dark, I can't see the snowflakes, but they show up in the street lamps and the car headlights.

I feel almost normal again, still slightly funny, off. Little belly ache, almost gone. Little "weak", though certainly able to walk.

In spite of the snow, there are holes in the clouds where I can see the stars. The snow is falling gently, like in a Christmas card.

I'm walking the less traveled streets where ever possible and it is quiet and peaceful. Occasionally, I hear a voice. No dogs barking, which is nice.

Back to the question of God. How does one know God's will?

• by reading scripture

• by reading other theological works

• by attending church

• By talking to God or His or Her emissaries.

This reminds me that when I was talking about God, I never had time to discuss all the points that were whirling about in my head. Shamanism believes that the world is peopled with spirits and that these spirits can intercede on behalf of people.

If one were to see God as the mind of the universe, all things then partake of that mind. (It confuses issues of good and evil, though, a separate point entirely).

If God Him or Herself is vast ad unknowable, but exists in all things, perhaps we can communicate with God

• inside ourselves, if we can reach the spiritual part of ourselves

• through animate and inanimate physical beings and objects

• through "spirits"

Dreaming is a time-honored way to talk to God, as is visions, prayer, and meditation.

Talking to God seems relatively easy (although doing it well may not be), but listening to God is another matter altogether, as you know. The object of prayer is to have a dialogue with God, a two-way conversation.

Of course, who am I to attempt to talk about this when there are trained professionals? That would be like my giving advice to the Lovelorn or Heloise-type household hints. I probably should just be quiet about it before I get in trouble.

Not being one to take advice, even my own, even when good, I would say one thing further. Though a combination of listening skills and other methods (praying, dreaming, visions, priestesses, etc) is ideal to engender a dialogue with God, the more direct the link the better. That's my opinion, anyway.

Forgive me for going on about it.

(Of course, nothing is solved by all this rambling. I don't even know that I answered your initial questions.) (I have mostly only questions, not answers anyway, questions and tentative opinions.)

Time: my daily walk again

2006-03-20T12:33:00.000-05:00

Another day, another walk.I haven't posted all the pictures I've taken because the blogger has been down (mine has, anyway!)We had 6 inches of new snow!Sorry about any accidental duplication!

My feet in the snow

2006-03-20T12:27:00.000-05:00

from yesterday's walk

Willet Pond

2006-03-20T12:23:00.000-05:00

Willet Pond, from last night's walk. Photo by Mary Stebbins. Click on image to view larger.

Stickleback Creek

2006-03-20T12:19:00.000-05:00

Stickleback Creek, from last night's walk. Click on image to view larger.

Radisson Walk: A Personal Spiritulaity and Notes on the Nature of God

2006-03-19T20:55:00.000-05:00

Sunday, March 19, 2006, 5:06 PM

We had six inches of new snow this morning and it is still snowing. But at the same time it is snowing, the snow is settling. Even though it has snowed all day, we probably have less snow in inches, but it is heavier, denser.

It is time for my constitutional, but I can't find my wind pants and I want to start some stew before I go out. I was so cold yesterday that I would prefer to find my wind pants and get them on. They might be in the trunk of the car. Aiee!

5:49 PM Yesterday, I walked from my Baldwinsville house down to the river and along the wild river shore which is all Hawthorne and buckthorn and not comfortable to walk, especially while attempting to write an answer to your thought-provoking questions.

Today, tonight, really, I drove along the river and parked at the Radisson Golf course and walking down the narrow lane between tall trees through snow and ice, also not conducive to good writing! It doesn't help that the snow is deeper than my boots.

I came here because twice this week or more, maybe three or ore times, I walked from my house, and twice I didn't walk at all. I'm trying to accomplish something at the house, but I'm so bad at it.

I have to stop typing and attempt to warm my hands in my pockets! Already it is getting dark, and I'd hoped to take a picture to show you our "signs of spring," LOL! Six inches of snow over everything!

Some notes on a Personal Spirituality and the Nature of God:

My mother is English Irish, Welsh and Scottish. Half English, 1/4 Irish, and 1/8 each Welsh and Scottish. She used to profess agnosticism, but later, after my father died, seemed interested in God.

(I stop to take a few pix before all the light is gone entirely.)

My father was Italian and his family was Catholic, and he was a professed atheist. My parents like to sing and we lived in a small community, so they were member of the Baptist Church and sang in the choir. I also went to the Catholic Church with my aunt and Grandmother and to the Methodist Church with my best friend and later, my parents switched to the Unitarian church and we went there.

I was never told what to believe by my parents.

As a young teen, I sang in the choirs at both the Methodist and Baptist Churches. As an older teenager, I joined the Presbyterian Church, took confirmation classes, was baptized, and confirmed.

(I walk along Stickleback creek and lost pond and stop and take some pictures but it is so dark I have to use 1600 ISO and the pictures aren't that great anyway. I had two tripods in the car, no three, but I didn't carry them because it was so windy and snowing so hard that it seemed pointless. But both the wind and snow have stopped and the scenery might relinquish a fair shot with a tripod. Or not. The creek is open, but the pond is covered with rotted ice that has those fractal-like cracks that I love so much.)

(Photography seems hopeless at this point, so I stop and put the camera back in the day pack).

I went to a Christian College. In spite of the name, St. Lawrence, it never occurred to me that it was a Christian college when I went there, and I was quite appalled that we were required every single at 8 AM and 4 PM to go to Chapel. What a horrifying concept. It turned me off to Christianity and I fell in with a wild crowd and at the end of my first year of college, I made conscious choice to "turn my back on God."

I wanted "to be free."

I thought that God's requirements were onerous.

(I am not supposed to be doing anything EXTRA and the walk is already going to take too long because of the snow, but I just detoured over to the willet pond overlook and set the camera on a post and took a couple shots that probably won't be worth the walk over. Aiee!)

I began a study of comparative religions, not in college, but through reading and participation in various groups. I studied Buddhism, Zen, Yoga, and a bunch of other stuff, eventually getting into Wiccanism and Shamanism. I studied Dream Shamanism and discovered I had a talent for it.

During this period, I started having "visions," and I do NOT mean drug-induced visions. For example, one day, I had to work late at the museum where I worked for 22 years. I was in my 49s, I think, and I went out to "lunch" (dinner, in the evening) before the program. It was a pleasant summer evening, still totally light and sunny, (maybe 5:30 PM) and I took my meal from Nancy's coffee shop out into the little park in front of the museum and sat and a bench to eat it and was reading a book. I closed my eyes to think about what I had been reading and I saw Jesus. I saw him as plain as day. He was naked, and standing very close to me (but I could see anything inappropriate). I could see his skin and individual hairs and send grains clinging to his skin. He had been out on the desert fasting and praying and he spoke to me. This is what he said, "You are mine, you have always been mine, and you will always be mine. You are forgiven now and forever."

You could say I fell asleep and had a little dream, but I swear I was wide awake and even opened my eyes. There were a lot of people walking around and a little band setting up to play music and guy talking on the phone to his girl friend and I heard and saw everything.

You could say I had a little fantasy, and indeed maybe I did, but if I were CHOOSING a fantasy myself, why would I choose that? I was not interested in Jesus at that time. And it was so real and VIVID.

And only the first in a series of these.

You could say I was going crazy, that I was schizophrenic. Maybe I was. But I was able to work, and go to school and live a somewhat normal life.

So whatever.

I haven't time to tell you all about it. In the mean time, after living a very "spiritual" life for a number of years, I have fallen away from it and am not any more. Not living like that.

I'd like to tell you a little more about that life, but I'm almost out of time.

I loved that life, in some ways, and would like to recover parts of it.

So, after all that, what then do I believe? I don't know what I believe. I guess I'm an agnostic. I don't go to Church, and never have since I was a child. I believe we are spiritual beings, or that at least some of us are. I believe we are hardwired to be spiritual, seeking beings. But I do not necessarily believe there is anything OUT THRERE to be found.

I believe in essential goodness, I believe in love, I believe in behaving honorably. And I believe in the search for meaning, even if there is none.

I am walking through the snow in the dark, trying to type. There are icy spots and slippery spots and the walking is hard. It's dark and I can't see what I am writing or where I am going.

This reminds me of a saying, only I don't remember how it goes.

Something about life and the search for meaning being like driving at night. You can only see as far as your headlights penetrate the darkness, but you can get all the way home that way.

I am beginning to feel like I'll never get back to my car. I thought I was close, but dragging along through the snow is tiring and makes it seem farther.

I am very hungry. Before I left, I put on some stew. Beef, carrots and cabbage. No potatoes, nightshades exacerbate my arthritis. I should be done when I get home and I'm eager for it.

I've made it to the road and am heading for the car park. It's gotten colder and the road is icy and slippery.

I am back at my car finally, 7:11 PM. I walked 62 minutes, which is almost 20 minutes longer than I meant to walk, bad me, between the detour and the snow. On the other hnd, I missed two walks earlier in the week.

The part I hadn't gotten to is who God is, and what S/he expects of us.

This is what I think. If there is a God/dess, S/he is unknowable. She is both genedered and genderless. She is light and dark, she is the mind of the universe, the combined mind of the stars and galaxies, she is paradox and she is personal. And when they say we fall sort of the Glory of God, they are right, but at the same time we are God, we partake of God, we are a part of that vast amazing unknowable mind. IF God exists at all.

I think God exists and doesn't exist. Simultaneously. I think we create God and that God creates us, that God is both unknowable and personal. MY God believes in LOVE and Goodness, a goodness born of pure love and of human love. I think God, the personal aspect of God, wants us to be fully human and fully spiritual and actualized. To be the best and most we can be. And that's a lot and a little. We are both individuals and cogs in a vast machinery of Godness, and if we, each of us, do our part, God's will is done.

So how does that relate to the very personal question of what God's will is for us and how much time should be spend on BP?

I say, talk to God about it. Art is one of God's works in the world, and there are many ways to minister to people. God works in strange ways. It could e through BP that God could have us work-like my helping Dorothy, that 80-year-old woman. I'm not making excuses. It can also be a bad addiction. And I do have more important things to do.

Today on NPR I heard a comedy piece on the Rapture and all the peace activists were taken up to Heaven and George Bush and Billy Graham were left behind, LOL! I often think that George Bush is the incarnation of evil, but he might think the same about me. (If he thought about me at all). I'm sure BP is less harmful to the world that "Shrub" is! But, like I said, I do have more important things to do—that's what it comes down to.

I ate my stew and it was DELICIOUS!! Utterly fantastic, just perfect. Now I need to do some work! (I wish I could have a little dessert, but I don't know what is safe for me to eat.)

Blown Snow on Pond

2006-03-18T19:52:00.000-05:00

From my walk today--I know this picture is very subtle and most people won't like it, but I love the way the wind funneling between the trees made long strips of snow on the ice.

Pond with invisible snow

2006-03-18T19:48:00.000-05:00

From my walk today.

It was snowing pretty hard, but in this shot, you can't even tell!

The Deckless Dock

2006-03-18T19:43:00.000-05:00

The Deckless Dock, by Mary Stebbins, lcik on image to view larger.

A Letter to Kate: What I want to do to Change the World

2006-03-18T19:10:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 18, 2006, 4:54 PM
Dear Kate,
    I am out on my daily constitutional. My camera is in my North Face backpack because it is snowing and
dark and very unpromising. I almost left it home.
    I am not wearing my long johns or wind pants because the long johns are in Detroit and the wind pants were
in my camera bag in the trunk of my car, it was late and I did not want to delay my walk by the amount of time it
would have taken to walk out, get them and go in and take off my shoes and put them on again. And I did not have a
proper walk yesterday, or two days before either.
    My hands are very cold in the wind, so I will have to stop writing and warm them. I am writing while I am
walking and the snowflakes are whirling around my head and the wind sucking the heat from my hands. I jam my
hands in my pockets to warm them and walk through the children's playground at the bottom of my street among
flocks of robins searching for worms in the half frozen lawns where the snow is just starting to gather again.
    I step across a small stream headed for the river. The access to the river is fenced but the gate is open. A
chain hangs across the entry. I see no one in there to stop me, so I duck under the chain and go in.
    It took me thirteen minutes to get down to the river from my house, something I will never be able to do
again once I get moved. It usually only takes ten. I had to skirt vast acres of mud (but am getting muddy anyway)
and vernal ponds. I took a few shots of the river with my point and shoot. Also of a couple of the ponds. There used
to be a dock here and I would come down and sit and write and read and watch the boats go by, but it was poorly
maintained and hazardous and they have taken away the boards and left only the posts. One of the pond shots is of
a pattern of snow created by the wind which no one but maybe Keith would appreciate.

    "So what do you think you could do to change the world if you did not play with photos?"

    You asked what I would do. First, I would do no harm, which of course is impossible. You cannot live in
the world without doing harm, but I want to do as little as possible.
    I come from a tradition that believes that when a woman's children are grown and she has had menopause
and become a "Crone," it is her option, verging on duty, to work to better the world.
    I have caveats and a lot to say on this topic, so be patient. First, my children were grown, but now I have
another. Second: I believe I have worked all my life to improve the world in my own small way. A cog in the
machineries of yeas rather than nays.
*    I worked teaching biology and sex education to Mormons and others in Idaho. Not everyone would
agree of course, that that was changing the world, but at the time, they had one of the highest teenage
pregnancy rates in America, higher even than inner city kids.
*    I worked as a naturalist for years, teaching about nature, trying to foster a love of nature, a respect for
nature, and to increase environmental awareness and action.
*    I worked as a science educator, teaching inner city children about science and nature, and also as a
poet in the schools, teaching them poetry.
    Let me state clearly that I believe that ART, including photography, is a meaningful and important pursuit
that adds to the quality of life in the world. It is part of being human and part of the dialogue we have with the world
and each other. It is valuable and necessary!
    I want to do art, photography and poetry.
    I think we can contribute to the world through art of various kinds.
    But that is not the end of the story for us or for me.
    For me, there is Keith and Graham. This is a huge issue. I chose them. I made a choice and because of
that choice, I have to find an appropriate balance.
    Let me explain that Keith and Graham were a gift. Did I tell you the story of how we met?
    5:32 PM I've been walking 31 minutes and my legs are very cold. The snow is ever thicker and my hands
are really cold, but I can't leave this.
    So, picture, if you will, the hand of God, holding out Keith and Graham as a gift. "An opportunity," She
says. "Love," She says. She offers a choice. I can take them or I can leave them. I took them, and my life is
changed forever.
    I have a commitment to do my best to be a good wife and mother.
    I have an equal commitment to myself and to the world, the earth.
    I have to somehow balance those things, to the best of my ability.
    Balance is a difficult issue, especially for an artist and for someone with ADHD (me). But let me say that I
am not a person who sees balance as a static thing. It is not a scale with two pans and equal weights in both pans.
Rather, it is a dynamic flowing movement. This is more difficult, it's like juggling a hummingbird, a piano and a
cactus. The hummingbird's wings are strapped to his side. You don't want to hurt him, but it's a grand piano and a
very spiny cactus. That's my life.
    So I've got the hummingbird cradled in one hand and the piano and cactus in the air with the other. The
humming bird held to my heart with the left hand and the right hand frantically tossing and catching.
    Great metaphors you may (or may not) say, but how does that apply to real life?
    In reality, there is more than one hummingbird. One of them is Graham. One is my relationship with Keith.
I need to nurture the keep them safe, do everything I can to preserve and heal them.
    None of this is helped by the fact that I am clumsy and cranky and fat and slow and sometimes stupid, that
my primary skills is making mistakes.
    Somehow, I have to be an artist without jeopardizing my love for Keith and Graham and my relationships
with them
    It is snowing really hard now, and the wind has picked up. I worry for the little computer and my hands (and
my icy legs!).
    One of the things I need to do is get moved. I need to move to be with Keith and Graham. Every second I
spend on my art (any of it) is a second less time spent packing and moving. (And every second I spend moving is
one second less for my art!)
    For me, moving is essential and art is essential, and each adds to and takes away form the other. In a
dynamic balance, I might spend three days packing and cleaning and two days in art-related activities, or half a day at
each or any other combination that works. Too much time on either upsets me. What too much is is hard to define.
Too much packing makes me dull and anxious for art. Too much art makes me guilty and worried.
    And those are only two of the balls I have to keep in the air—or try to.
    It is snowing harder and harder, and the wind is more and more fierce.
    I think art is essential, important and contributes to the world, but its effects are often indirect and slow.
Sometimes, I feel it is essential to take DIRECT action. To write a letter to a congress-person, to march, to help in a
disasters, to give aid of some kind. I used to march a lot, write a lot of letters and do a lot of volunteer work. I do
little of any of that anymore. I'm lucky if I just make it through the day.
    My sleep apnea, insomnia and fibromyalgia rob me of energy and I just struggle to get a little of my packing
and cleaning done. I hate it so much that I can't wait to have a chance to some photography.    But if I don't work
harder, I'll never get moved, never be able to get on with my life. Never write NOVELS. That's what I want to do.
    I think well-written novels where characters grapple realistically and meaningfully with their issues, including
the enviroment, acceptance of and kindness toward others (helping others) and so on really help people grapple with
these things themselves. I want to write, novels and poetry (and take pictures), and to balance my writing (and
photography) with family, community and spirituality. A sort of large order for someone as compromised as I am. I
think these thing would help,* maybe, but not til I get moved. So less BP and more packing.

    *I have to say, sometimes it seems that with all the investment of time and energy by good people in the
world, it never gets better. Very discouraging. Some things get better, and something worse pops up somewhere
else.

    This is only part I of my response. It only partially answers ONE of the issues you raised, but it's all I have
time for now. My walk, 55 minutes, is over. I'm wet cold and hungry and need to eat.

    I also think you can change the world by LOVING one person at a time.

The Unveiling Darkness

2006-03-16T22:05:00.000-05:00

Thursday, March 16, 2006, 7;37 PM Hiking the Unveiling Darkness

It is dark and cold outside. I would have preferred to walk while it was sunny and bright, but I dorked around packing for so long that the day is over.

The sky, however, is amazing. The background sky is nearly black, a proverbial "inky blue." With a smattering of stars. The clouds are layered on this darkness in long streaks and puffy lumps, pinkish and purple and powder blue.

But my hands are too cold to write. Brrr!

It was sunny all morning and I desperately wanted to be out, but felt I should ~accomplish something, then it got cloudy and dark. Just before sunset, the sun dropped into a space below the clouds and lit the world with orangey-gold light. Fantastic. I wanted to be out in it, to open my mouth and catch the light on my tongue and see if it was as sweet as it looked.

I am chafing at the onerous task of sorting and packing. I want to escape, to run out and play. Now I am out, and a large hole has opened in the clouds to reveal the black sky, blacker even than before, and the stars. I crane my neck until I almost fall over backwards, but the constellations are fragmented. Finally, I make out the big dipper, directly behind me. I have to lean backwards to see it. I am headed south. But turning so the big sipper is ahead of me on the left. Headed north east.

All the snow we had yesterday has melted in the morning sunshine, except under trees and to the north or hedgerows and rocks. It's cold now though, very cold. Raw.

I turn again. This is no straight trail like the old railroad be. The big dipper is ahead of me to the right, then behind to the right, then behind me. Sounds like I'm circling, but I'll be turning back the other way shortly.

Now I see Orion, clear as the clichéd bell, clearer than through spring water, ringing his sword on the stone of night. There's Canis major and Canis minor, following behind, and above him, Gemini the twins.

Bare tree branches, patches of snow, ice skimming the puddles and crystallizing in the mud. A distant dog barking and dark penetrating cold.

The sound of my breath, and an airplane overhead. A distant car accelerating.

Yesterday and the day before, I wanted to talk about hopes and dreams, how I've worked all my life, moving constantly in the direction of my dreams. But my ADHD and my fibromyalgia and the need to work sometimes more than one job and so on have kept me from my goals, along with various problems misfortunes and character defects, LOL. Bu I keep trying, keep working at it, taking baby steps, making small progresses. Now that I am nearly 60, my fear is that I will die before I accomplish any of my dreams. Like getting one of my novels publsihed, or more than one.

Right now, I am tied down by the house business, and my utter ineptness at this sort of thing. Oh, there the Pleiades! They were under a cloud before. I wish I wasn't so inept or I wish someone would HELP me. Dang! I want to be an artist and a novelist, not a drudge!

Sound of my footsteps, sound of running water, a horn beeping somewhere far away, another dog.

Airplanes fly overhead, flashing red and green lights, one flies through Orion's belt with a tiny roaring sound.

I've got that cold rhinitis, I keep wanting to look it up and remind myself what it's called, but keep forgetting.

Some orangish leaf lying on the ground in the darkness looks like a fat tadpole or a hugely enormous sperm. When I step past it and look back, it looks like a snake. Faint light and imagination almost hallucinatory or dreamlike.

A rabbit moves dark into the dark bushes, running rather than hopping so lean as to appear to be some other kind animal altogether. Just when I think it's either a monster or something unusual, it stops and hops a few hops to reassure me.

Now, a whole area of sky had cleared and I can see Taurus the Bull and Auriga the charioteer, earlier lost in cloud. I see Cassieiopiea and Andromeda.

The dogs are to my left and andromeda to my right and the North Star behind me to my right. So, I'm going northwest. NO no, north east. I have dyslexia and have trouble with right left orientation. I rally have think about it.

I was going to say there is not a single cloud left in the sky, but I rotated 369 degrees and lo and behold, there are a few wisps on one of the far horizons.

The sky is vast and cold tonight.

Tree branches are black and the sky appears bluer relative to them.

But without the branches, the sky looks black. Now that the clouds are gone, with their paleness to contrast against the sky, it looks less dark, and that is enhanced by the comparison with the black black tree branches.

8:18 PM I am nearly home now. The dark night has charmed me, but I am eager to quick have some dinner. I'm hungry and I'm going to make BBQed chicken, yum. Beautiful as the night is, I will be happy to go back inside and eat.

8:21 PM I am back in the yellow light and relative warmth of my house. Heidi once said, if you're SO BUSY, how do you have time to write al those long journals. Yes, I really did write WHILE I was walking. On the Psion, my little teeny tiny computer. Whose screen is now fogged. I use a headlamp so see. OK, food now.

Somehow I lost my coat, how could that be? A frying pan disappeared, too, but my COAT, I just had it on, and it's GONE!! HUH?

Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee! I look all over--is there a spirit in here, playing tricks? No, here it is, I hung it up and it just fell off the hanger! DUH!! What a dunce!

I curl my spine and sit all hunched over, sinking my chin into my chest. It reminds me of my mother in her wheelchair, my father before he died. Always hunched in his chair, never lying down. I'm hunching to stretch my neck and back because of my fibro, before I stand at the stove to cook supper. That always hurts me.

9:08 I've had my BBQed chicken and am on the IM waiting for my sweetie..

The Old Spring House at Great Bear

2006-03-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

I took the trail past the spring house yesterday, extending my walk a little, in hopes of a good shot.

Overlooking the Gravel bed

2006-03-16T19:20:00.000-05:00

From the drifted Promontories, photo by Mary Stebbins, from yesterday's walk at Great Bear. Click o the image to see larger.

Great Bear 060315

2006-03-15T23:06:00.000-05:00

Thursday, March 15, 2006, 3:32 PM

I am sitting inside my car, which is shaking violently in the wind, and engulfed in clouds of blowing snow. White out. The wind is gusty and the clouds rise and fall and twirl and re-engulf the gar. Swallowed in white. Then snow devils, whirling dervishes. Oh white, white earth, white sky white wind.

I remember books by XX (old age and treachery sets in), where old people and children were writing color poems, one old lady wrote about her white wedding gown.

Could you write about snow and never mention the word "white" or the word "snow?" I'm not sure, but I'd better not sit here and philosophize. I've been running late all day, and I need to walk and get home.

I went to the liquor store for boxes, but they didn't have any and won't until next TUESDAY almost a week away. I went to P&C, their boxes had no topses. I shopped. I should have gone to Weggies because P&C didn't have most of what I wanted and what they did have I couldn't find, huge waste of time. I had to shop because last time I shopped; I had no list and only bought the obvious meat, veggies. They didn't have any fish; it was put away for the night.

I went to the bird sore and got millet sprays for Rocky and nice lady there who was all alone talked my ear off even when I was standing in the doorway trying to leave.

I went to the egg farm, no eggs. I wonder if they've given it up--the hens at work sign is gone.

So they have passed and I've accomplished very little. Did get a little shopping. Now I need to walk.

I haven't had a proper lunch because I've been away from home for hours. I did rip open a bag or vegetable corn chips and scarf down some of them, but I didn't buy any salsa because they didn't have any of healthy kind.

Vultures are circling, something dead?

Thick as fog, pale as bleached bone, light as eiderdown

Windblown and blousy, peppery and fresh

That's snow without white or snow. But a sting of clichés, I thing. OY!

There's four inches of snow on the ground and the snow in the trees is falling out in clumps and sprays because of the wind. In the sheltered places, there is still lots of snow on the branches, but trees are creaking, rattling and snapping in the wind, scary noises when they come too close.

It occurs to me that today is season day on Photique and I haven't submitted my full complement of pictures. I'd sort of forgotten about it in the sorting frenzy of the past few days. Today would be a good day for season pictures. I wish I could record the roar of the wind and submit that!

Good in some ways, lots of snow, but I haven't really seen anything photogenic since I got here.

Not one picture.

4:24 PM I stop at the old lean-to overlooking the river. It's hard work, breaking trail, plowing through snow. I think it might be a good place to sit for a moment and rest, but I'm wrong. Of course, the roof is caved in and the front sitting beam is covered with three and a half inches of snow. Which I don't want to sit in. I'm about halfway back, or a little more, I walked 37 minutes, but most of the rest of the way is uphill and I am getting tired from the snow.

I did take one or two pictures along the river, but nothing appealed to me, and it is dark and snowing and not very pleasant for photography.

I wish I could find something to take a picture of that resonates for me that feels good, looks good. That somehow shows the day. I stop and take a picture of a pond with rotted ice. But it is cluttered with too many branches and probably won't be worth the effort.

4:37 I take the side trail over to the little spring house and take a few shots of that. I wanted to write about hopes and dreams but that's hard to do crashing through the woods. AA tree has fallen across the trail and when I duck under it, I see live spider, moving, climbing up a strand of gossamer. With all the snow and wind, that's sort of amazing. It will make the walk longer to have come this way.

I was going to go straight up the road to the car.

Lots of trees have fallen on the trail and I have to keep detouring through the underbrush to get around them. Phew. Wish there were somewhere to sit for a moment. Puff pat. Uphill through snow and brush is hard work!

Finally, heart thumping, I brush some snow, a lot of snow, off a fallen log and sit and rest.

The buds on the red-berried elder bushes are swollen huge and ready to pop. I don't bother with a picture though. Seems funny with all this snow to see spring so immanent. I don't take a picture because it would only be evidence, not art, and to whom need I prove the existence of fat buds? Not to myself, I already saw them

It's 4:46 and I have already walked 45minutes. But because I came by the spring house, I still have a ways to go.

4:49 PM I made it to the railroad bed and the gravel bed. Someone ran a plow through here. Boys playing? (Gown boys?) Or, for the wells?

4:54 PM I have made it to the rim of the gravel bed where I paused to take shot looking back down. I am all sweatified from the climb. It's much windier up here, white outs.

4:57 I climb up through deeply drifted snow to a series of promontories in search of a vista, but none of them really please me. And the light is foul. But since I'm here, I take a couple shots anyway. I can always delete them right? Yeah, right!

Hopes and dreams. All my life, I've wanted the same things: to love and be loved, to be independent and capable, to be intelligent and kind, to be an artist poet writer novelist photographer naturalist shaman. I'm almost 60 and though I've dabbled in all that and more besides, I haven't accomplished what I'd hoped to which was published books. And won prizes and so on. Is that how I should measure my success or failure?

5:08 PM I am back at the car. I walked 61 minutes, not too bad, on 16 minutes more than the target, but still, I wanted to stay on target since I have so much to do. The car again is shaking and engulfed in blowing snow. I've got my breath back and am all sweatified from the exertion, rosy cheeked, and exhilarated from the wind, though sometimes it seems to steal my breath.

Tonight is trash night, but it's so very windy that I don't know if I dare put out the trash.

I have groceries in the trunk waiting to be put away, fish, eggs, olive oil, tissues, etc.

Before I start the car, I read one poem from Patrick Lawler's new book, Feeding the Fear of the Earth. I read another after I turned off the engine when I first got here. I read them both twice, sitting in plumes of falling and drifting snow. Once is never enough.

5:30 PM I am home. It is still snowing and blowing and the roads are getting snowy again, I'm glad to be home, but wish I'd been able to get boxes.

I walk in with bags of groceries and out with bags of trash. I take out the full garbage can, the large heavy bag, 2 recycling bins. The rest I'm afraid to put out. Too windy.

Oh and I forgot to get back-up batteries for the Psions. I wonder if Keith will ever have time to fix the others, and if he can. Pasada C, the Canon powershot 500 that got run over.

I nee to talk to Keith about the recycling, as he did it wrong again, only differently this time.

I probably should change my clothes, maybe just put my PJs on, because all those up hills got me all "sweatified" and I will probably get a bad chill if I hang around the cold house in damp--very damp--clothes.

I was thinking about Patrick's poems. The one where he has two famous people meet each other. In lots of them, the people don't even appear at all, as themselves. (Some do). It's as if he Patrick plays the parts of those famous people or someone else does. There are some pinciples at work, and a lot of wild imagination and language connections. So far, I haven't been able to do it. I've never been able to imitate Pat. His mind works so differently. I think he's some kind of genius in some areas.

I have to get those groceries put away and ought to take out the compost while I'm still dressed and see if there is any other garbage safe to take out. I hope it's not as windy tomorrow as today. I don't want my garbage can to blow away. I know that's a trivial concern, but I don't want to waste a single penny buying a new trashcan.

Tonight I am having Salmon for dinner. Or is it lunch, since I never had one. I think I will lay it in a frying pan and lay vegetables around it and make a one pot meal without it being a stir-fry or stew or soup or anything. It would be a goodnight for a soup or stew. But I don't think that's what I want to make.

I am sitting here thinking of Florence rather than doing what I need to do, a small issue that I hope doesn't kill me. So much for Dr. Lal's test. Failure. Bad failure.

When I open the new Olive oil I bought because I was all out and had been using some other oil, the metal seal has already been broken and there is no plastic seal over the exposed olive oil. I feel a sudden wave of exhaustion. The idea of taking it back to the store seems too much effort. But someone could have poisoned it and I could die. I pause with the oil in my hand and then pour it into the pan and lay the salmon in and the mushrooms and zucchini. THEN, I see two other bottle of olive oil I hadn't seen, not in the usual place I keep them.

I think, if there can be good coincidences, like meeting Keith, there could also be bad ones, like buying a bottle of oil I didn't even need and poisoning myself. I hope I don't die tonight in horrible agony. I hope I don't die at all.

Ever, but particularly not tonight.

That reminds me, I'd been thinking about comparative religions, the sameness and their differences. I'd like to follow that thread, but I have so much to do. I am very hungry and scarf down my salmon, mushrooms and zucchini, which reminds me of the Todd Anthony School of cooking. I'd like to pursue that thread, too. My lips burn a little and I worry again that the olive oil might be poisoned. Or it might just be chapped lips and salt.

Does that oil taste bad? Is there an unusual bitter aftertaste? Will Morphine help if I am in unbearable pain?

I am going to treat this meal as dinner unless I get hungry later. Then its lunch. Since I had no lunch. If there is a later. AK!

I just realized that I didn't finish taking out the garbage and recycling. When I brought the last bag of groceries in, I totally spaced out about taking out the next two loads of trash. Never mind the compost etc.

I was thinking of Sara identifying "jo(e)'s" kids as boy in black, shaggy-hair boy, with-a-why and beautiful daughter on the closet door. Those are the only names she knows them by. I'm almost forgetting their real names. The global community has invaded our living room.

I'm telling you, I have a bad taste in my mouth; I should have taken that olive oil back.

7:17 PM I took out the compost, the rest of the garbage and recycling that was safe to put out, and prepared and mailed three "letters." Now I feel unbearably tired and I don't want to stand here washing dishes and run down and do laundry, etc, I want to sit at the computer and rest or just go to bed.

7:59 PM I changed, collected a load of laundry, started a load of darks, and washed about 1/3 of the week's worth of dishes piled up because I've used all my available time for sorting--otherwise I feel as if I'm accomplishing Nothing. I still have to eat, sleep, shower, walk, shop, do laundry etc.

9;29 PM put away the first 3rd of he dishes, washed the rest of them, put the clothes in the dryer, and started the lights. Now Keith. Yay!

--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary

Approaching Storm

2005-11-07T13:07:00.000-05:00

HERE IT COMES!

Approaching Storm, by Mary Stebbins.

A note on posting

2005-11-07T12:34:00.000-05:00

My Psions (palmtop computers that fit in my pocket) have all been incapitated so I've been unable to write in the field. Plus when I'm walking with Keith, I'm talking to him rather than writing. My life has made some significant changes.

Looking out at the Storm

2005-11-07T12:31:00.000-05:00

Looking out at the Storm, photo by Mary Stebbins

This is what it looked like when I crawled all wet and soggy into my car and stipped off the first layer of wet clothes.

The rain, the impending darkness, and the soggy anti-hunter hat on the dashboard are all evident.

Storm at Three Rivers

2005-11-06T20:27:00.000-05:00

Sunday, November 6, 2005, 3:42 PM I am sitting on the ground under my tripod moping because I saw a shot I wanted and the sun was out, but as soon as I got the tripod set up, a big front moved in and covered to sun. I have the circular polarizer on and the clouds are great, but without the sun, no good, and it may not come out again today. At least it’s not raining. It was, earlier.

I am out alone and happy to be, looking to take pictures for my better photo course of color. And rule-of-thirds horizons, but, I may get neither, and I hope I don’t get soaked. I do have gear bags with me.

I need a wide angle lens for the sky but have no circular polarizer for the wide angle. A hunter thwarted my original attempts. I don't have enough hands or containers, so I have my flash and filters stuffed inside my bra.

Very storm black sky approaching! And with it, lots of wind.

4:08 PM It's raining. Not too hard, yet, but the sky is very black and it’s very windy. I am about 22 and a half minutes from the car, and it's thundering! I folded up the tripod and slipped the waterproof gear bag over Eeyore. I thought I had two with me, but I only have one, and ton of gear.

My orange anti-hunter hat just blew away and I had to run after it with all my gear banging around. More thunder.

In an effort to protect my gear, I plan a couple shortcuts and pick up the pace. This will cut my walk short, by a little, but it's raining harder and harder.

WOW! Awesome lightning displays. Massive thunder, and even with shortcuts, its a ways to the car.

4:28 I shorted myself about 5 minutes, walked 40.

I left the car unlocked. DUH!

I climbed in with all my gear still attached then unloaded it and peeled off my literally sopping and dripping blue shirt. My black shirt underneath is soaked too. I'd take that off and put on a dry fleece but there's a man in another car.

I had planned on going over the other part of 3 R, taking more pictures, perhaps walking a little more it the rain let up, but it's gotten dark and is very rainy.

I leave in the wrong direction because there are two men in two cars acting very suspiciously. I am relieved to be away from them.

2005-08-27T13:52:00.000-04:00

Sky with clouds and rays, photo by Mary Stebbins

2005-08-09T02:21:00.000-04:00

Squeakers has a treat.

Green Corn

2005-08-05T13:43:00.000-04:00

GREEN CORN, cornfield panorama, photo by Mary Stebbins. This is a HUGE picture, so it looks rather silly this small.

2005-07-02T00:10:00.000-04:00

Ant on Peony bud

2005-07-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

The horizon tonight for my constitutional

A Breeze, at Least

2005-07-01T11:05:00.000-04:00

8:35 PM I am out on my constitutional walk in Kimbrook because I just couldn't seem to get going. There was just one more thing and one more thing I needed to do. And I wanted to go to the store, but it's either that or walk and I need to walk every day or I get sicker. So I’m walking and the store will have to wait.

That, as Keith says, is what they make tomorrow for. There never seem to be enough tomorrows, though.

The sky is a clear pale blue except along the horizon where there are billows of pale bright pink orange and grey clouds. There's a wonderful breeze, too. It's been uncomfortably hot all day and still is in my house.

The birds are singing, robins, singing for rain, and the wind rustles the tree leaves and turns them belly up. The lawns look summer parched.

I walk by a yard full of lovely tall day lilies, and another, and a grouping of trees that looks evocative and resonant to me, but there will probably be no pictures, because it is getting dark. The wheel of the year has turned toward winter, though the hottest days of summer may still be ahead, and probably are.

I must be getting old. I am tired of the heat of summer and the cold of winter, tired of sweating and freezing. I'm just plain tired and that may have a lot to do with it. I have very little energy left to do anything. Right now, what is given to me to do is to walk. And the breeze is cooling and delightful and the clouds are magnificent.

My hips hurt some, but not unbearably. I put one sandaled foot in front of the other and walk. I hear laughter coming from a backyard, a woman's laughter, and suddenly, I feel lonely. But last night, with Sara and Erin, I was yukking it up. So I should be OK.

The wind is so strong that leaves are blowing off the trees. It is exciting. I try to save my notes and the computer says the batteries are too low to save. This is a dangerous situation because I could lose my work and probably will. There is also something wrong with the back-up battery and when I take out the batteries to change them, everything unsaved disappears.

This was one of the longest 45 minutes I can remember—I was so relieved to finally get home.

9:34 PM I partially outwitted the Psion by PLUGGING it in, but it is virtually useless this way. I'm able to save, but since I could NOT write, there’s nothing much of value to save.

Usually, I try to write about the things observe and thing and maybe a poem or ntoes for a piece.

Old House in the Storm

2005-06-13T23:48:00.000-04:00

Old House in the Storm. This is where I was and what I was running from this afternoon.

My walk as a mini-cliffhanger

2005-06-13T21:12:00.000-04:00

I ran into Scott at Wegman's, my 7th of 8 stops on today's errand route and we had quite a chat and decided to walk if he got done with his haircut at about the same time I got some with Wegman's and the egg farm.

When I came out of Weggies, it had rained and it was steaming off the parking lot and HOT--felt like a sauna! Weggies took longer than I hoped (and I didn't even get everything I needed) and Scott had already called and gone on his way back to Jordan when I got home, so I put away my groceries and went out to walk by myself. They were threatening thunderstorms so instead of going to 3 Rivers, I thought I'd park at Palmer (closer) and walk down the road. As I was about to turn off the car radio, it started making that wretched buzzing sound that indicates a warning--I knew what it would be and listened carefully--severe thunderstorms damaging winds headed my way at 20 miles and hour and currently over Seneca Falls. Warning, all people take cover indoors or in a vehicle if necessary--do not stay outside.

I calculated the time available and figured I could make it.

I took all my camera gear and a waterproof gear bag--but it was a small one, not big enough for all the gear. Big enough for Eeyore and one lens, maybe. I had the new flash, too, because the black clouds were making it much darker than usual. And Ollie and all the batteries and other gear. I was going to take a tripod because of the darkness due to the black clouds, but it was so windy it seemed pointless.

I walked and watched the lightning snake across the sky closer and closer, walked up over two (small) hills where there was nothing but corn, so I felt pretty exposed--the corn's not knee high yet. Of course, I wanted to walk 45 minutes, but when I'd walked 21, the thunder was so close I turned around and headed back. I walked fast, and as the storm approached, I walked faster and faster. Pretty soon I was jogging. As I ran as fast as I could back to the car, the storm hit. I dove into the car just as it really cut loose, pelting the car with rain like standing under a waterfall almost--and the wind, which had been getting stronger and stronger, shook the little car, threatening to uproot it.

I only got hit by the first sprinkles and splotches of rain. My gear was safe--and I was very relieved when I saw the downpour that the gear at least was inside the car. YAY! Good timing. Phew.

On the way back, I was wishing I could photograph the rain in the headlights and battering and misting off the roads.

"An adventure every time!" Scott Carter

"Every Day's a Holiday," FJ

"I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination" John Keats

2005-06-13T00:03:00.000-04:00

Mail Slot, Phoenix

2005-06-12T23:52:00.000-04:00

Carp at the dam in Phoenix

2005-06-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

Pink Peony in Phoenix Churchyard. Photo (all photos) by Mary Stebbins.

2005-06-12T23:48:00.000-04:00

In the Zone? I must have been "in the zone" as I wandered through the deserted streets of Phoenix NY. This abandoned storefront seemed evocative, spoke to me of love and loss.

2005-06-12T23:35:00.000-04:00

wild rose in light rain, phoenix

Musk Mallow

2005-06-12T21:28:00.000-04:00

Musk Mallow, Phoenix, NY.

2005-06-12T21:26:00.000-04:00

Dam at Phoenix

2005-06-10T22:31:00.000-04:00

Flowering Raspeberry at Silk Creek 6/9/05

Geese, squirrel, Pine Cone, Radisson

2005-06-08T23:51:00.000-04:00

Geese, uncooperative squirrel, pine cone at Radisson June 8

Reflections, Hidden Lake

2005-06-08T23:39:00.000-04:00

Reflections, Hidden Lake, Radisson, June 8, 2005

I cropped adjusted this picture further in Photoshop and used it as an illustration for today's illustration for Full Tilt Retreat.

Hidden Lake, Radisson

2005-06-08T23:36:00.000-04:00

Hidden Lake, Radisson, June 8, 2005.

Radisson

2005-06-08T23:17:00.000-04:00

4:32 PM, out walking at Radisson. (The Trail here is clearly visible!) I came here because it is nearby and I am feeling pressed for time, and because the weather man was threatening thunderstorms and it looked like it, so I didn't want to be bushwhacking etc, and it’s way too hot (in the 90s) to wear protective bug gear.

I did not walk at all yesterday s I theoretically should walk twice today but in this heat and with my feeling of time pressure, I'm not sure I will. I wanted to walk once in the AM and once in the PM but I didn't get AM walk in.

I am carrying a ton of photography gear but haven't taken any pictures yet. I did stop to look at Dames Rocket but didn't shoot it.

A runner just went by and waved, a man about my age, now there's a brave soul, running in this heat.

How ephemeral and cerebral writing and photography are, especially on-line. It’s out in cyberspace and not real. That goes for what I am writing into the Psion. These files have a way of disappearing. They're as fleeting as thoughts and dreams. I think I’m making something, but I'm not.

The canopy has become summer-thick and dark, almost overnight in the heat. I need a tripod to take pictures in the woods. Or the new strobe. It’s not suitable for every use, though. Good sometimes for flowers but rarely for scenics.

As I fantasize of travel and Photoshop plug-ins and fancier photo gear, I think: I ought to “live simply so that others might simply live.” Rather than using any available fund to continuously enrich my life, I could help people who have nothing.

This makes me worry about the place of art in a world where people are DYING of starvation, malnutrition, war, disease act.

Meanwhile, I am walking through the woods and hear the barred owl babies and the musical calls of other birds. I stop for a minute and look up into the tops of tall trees and listen to the birdcalls. It is cooler in here, in the deep shade. Not cool, but cooler.

I walk past a single dragonfly wing on the ground and consider picking it up. I imagine the possible uses of a dragonfly wing. Pictures. Becoming a fairy, perhaps. I walk past and leave it.

I’m getting bitten, that's what I get for being out here so skimpily clad.

I grab a few shots of an uncooperative squirrel.

The pool is full of happy children playing and splashing. Earlier, I had thought of going to Silk Creek, but I was busy with errands and banking and watering the plants etc. I can't spend a whole hour just driving in order to go play and cool off when I have so much catching up to do. Never mind packing to move, cleaning to sell, talking to the lawyer etc.

I stop to take some shots of some frolicking young squirrels but I am not close enough to get good pix. Meanwhile, a dog with a deep scary voice starts barking behind me and gives me a real scare. Luckily, he’s inside a fence.

I take a few shots of a pinecone and study pools of water in water lilies but refrain from taking them. I am thinking of that poem by Gary Snyder, which I can remember the feeling of, but not the words. The moon over the valley, the granite ledge, it’s too much. A single leaf, a pinecone. At the edge of the woods, the breath of a cougar. That's totally not it, but the point he was making is that we can't take it all in. Better to concentrate on a single leaf.

Here it is:

Piute Creek

One granite ridge

A tree, would be enough

Or even a rock, a small creek,

A bark shred in a pool.

Hill beyond hill, folded and twisted

Tough trees crammed

In thin stone fractures

A huge moon on it all, is too much.

The mind wanders. A million

Summers, night air still and the rocks

Warm. Sky over endless mountains.

All the junk that goes with being human

Drops away, hard rock wavers

Even the heavy present seems to fail

This bubble of a heart.

Words and books

Like a small creek off a high ledge

Gone in the dry air.

A clear, attentive mind

Has no meaning but that

Which sees is truly seen.

No one loves rock, yet we are here.

Night chills. A flick

In the moonlight

Slips into Juniper shadow:

Back there unseen

Cold proud eyes

Of Cougar or Coyote

Watch me rise and go.

                    Gary Snyder

Boy did I ever butcher that trying to remember, but it’s been years since I read it. Meanwhile I look up at the pond and the trail around it just as a girl on a bike sweeps into a turn from coming toward the lake to flying around it. She swoops toward and past me, and something shifts. I have a moment of Flash, as Emily of New Moon would call it. I feel awake and aware and tuned in, alive. And the sun beats down on me, and I see myself from the eyes of the girl, a funny fat old woman writing on something that looks a little like a Game Boy. But I barely enter her consciousness, not nearly that much. I am a small part of the whole tapestry of scene for her. The old person in the alley of the photograph. Not the one in the foreground, but the one way down in back that struggles up the hill and echoes the lined face in the foreground.

Or I’m in this Piazza in the sun with geraniums and potted cedars, just one part of the background.

Meanwhile, birds chatter and frogs croak and they don’t care a wink that they are just part of the scene. A boy in white shirt fishing pulls a tiny fish from the pond and flips it around. He is just a small part of my scenery as I am of his.

There is something "eternal" about this summer-like day, though nothing is eternal, of course. It's summery and hot, but it isn’t summer yet, according to the calendar. And yet, it's a quintessential summer day. If there could be a rubber stamp summer day, this would be it, but of course, every day is different in subtle and larger ways.

I left my good sandals in Detroit and am wearing a pair of old beat up Kmart sandals that won't stay fastened and that I almost threw out. Glad I didn't though, I need them today.

A lone little black boy rides up and does a wheelie. Then he does another bike trick. He is very aware of me, and keeps looking to see if I'm watching him. Then he is gone and I'm alone again. A while later, a boy about 14 rides by and actually speaks to me, confirming my existence. I am seen.

A turtle sticks its head out between some water lilies, and seeing me, ducks back under. Seen again, this time simply as possible predator. We each have our own view of the world.

Two girls ride up, talking about strawberry ice cream, and then, floating through the heat comes the sound of the ice cream truck.

Most of the time, I don't even flinch.

The woods smell like hot cedar. Here, it is cooler, but still smells like hot cedar, though there is no cedar in sight.

I was just thinking about that BetterPhoto.com thing. While it is gratifying to have people notice you and I am never overly eager to get negative feedback, most of the feedback is in truth insipid and unhelpful. Finding the right variety of support and helpful feedback is difficult. Doug often manages it. My own feedback at BP is no better than the others because I am following their lead, afraid to make waves, afraid to make enemies.

I'm in a bad place with Discovery at Little Hog Island. I'm a little "bored" with it because, mainly, I don't know where I am going. It is hard to work on something massive in such little sound bites. As often occurs in such big projects, I am losing sight of the overall plan in the minutia of details. It's a terrifying prospect to put your work out for people to see when it's in an early stage as this is, but even more upsetting is the fear that no one cares (or seems to care) and no one seems to be looking anyway.

I never did the maps, I never had time, so if I do them now, I'd have to post them by scanning them on my scanner at home in B’ville which means I'd have to find and install the software because it never was installed in Blue, Dead was the server for the scanner, which is crap compared to Keith’s.

Thought chains are funny things. I was thinking of myself at that imaginary piazza and wishing I could go there (“live simply so that others can simply live”—stop dreaming of travel all the time!), and I think I deserve to go there when in fact I've done nothing to deserve that or anything else and I think of my father and how he did finally travel to Italy and elsewhere and then I think how he was old first and then I think of his dying in pain, how he said, "No one should have to suffer like this."

And we all have to die and each step my falling apart sandals take brings me closer to my own death.

Meanwhile, the repeating silly song of the ice-cream truck has found me again, like a taunt.

Today, the ponds are all full of samaras and junk. They are pretty to the eye but not the camera. Voices drift across the water and the soft clunking of canoe paddles against aluminum.

A family of ducks with tiny ducklings takes off from shore paddling madly to escape me. I can't get my camera ready fast enough to capture them.

I get Ollie out to take a picture, but it seems to be dead as a doornail. Nothing I can do wakes it. I replace the battery and after messing around some more, finally get it to work. I wanted to take perfect reflection in the pond and while I was fooling around, three ducks flew in formation through the picture, but I missed it. I missed an earlier shot earlier because I was messing with Eeyore.

"Some days a diamond, some days a stone, some days the hard time, won't leave you alone." My times are not hard relative to other people's, people with real problems, and I need to always remember that and teach Graham about being a privileged white boy in a privileged white boy world.

I think Susan may have neglected that oh-so-important aspect of his education as a human being.

What does it mean to be a privileged white-boy in a privileged-white boy world? It means being responsible for your choices and understanding how your choices affect the less privileged. In the world today, it is less and less possible to pick yourself up by the bootstraps.

When I finally get the camera going there are no ducks flying through the picture and the light has changed, but I take it anyway.

Across the pond, a man comes out on his deck and growls, loudly and meanly. “Grrrrowl. Grrrrowl, get out of here.” He claps his hands. I can't see who he’s yelling at, ducks? Or what. Not me, because I’m across the pond and behind a screen of trees.

A man walks by with a dog. I speak to him, but he just scowls at me. A woman is watering her lawn. In the pond, the bullfrogs are jug-a-rumming in their bass voices. Spores interrupt the interrupted ferns.

I need to think about my Hog Island entry for the day. It occurred to me to have a piece about the Hogs of Hog Island from Rheta's folder. The Hogs would of course eat the tern’s eggs. Before they eat them all there has to be some demise to the hogs. Poaching would be good.

I think I am on Part 37

I think to sit for a moment and jot some notes, but the geese think I'm going to feed them and swim toward me. I take a few quick shots and leave.

I have nothing to feed them.

Discovery on Little Hog Island, Part 37, June 8, 2005 (I wrote my day's entry here, but I am deleting it, moving it to Full Tilt Retreat. If you want to see it, click here).

Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you've fed him for a lifetime. But, where are there enough fish to feed all the starving people when we're killing all the fish with poisons? And where are there enough oceans, lakes, ponds and streams in the desert?

Isn't Graham's life as valuable as that starving child's and vice versa? Graham is first in my life, though, he's my rose, my fox (a la Le Petite Prince). We need to have room in our hearts and pocketbooks for both our loved ones and those others.

When I get home, it's cooled off a little outside but now the bugs are out! In my yard a zillion bugs. Irises that used to belong to my Mom, huge and opulent, smaller blue ones, and little yellow irises. All the poppies are nearly gone. The lawn needs mowing and the little trees are popping everywhere. Batchelor buttons are flowering and the hollyhocks are up and getting big.

The poison ivy is going mad. Well, the walk is over and I cannot prolong it any longer, wish as I may. The mosquitoes are encouraging me to do what I must and return to work.

2005-06-02T11:27:00.000-04:00

Starry False Solomon's Seal at the Pinery, 5/29/05

2005-05-26T16:23:00.000-04:00

Crayfish Flotsam, from the minibeach off Lakeshore in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI, photo by Mary Stebbins

2005-05-18T18:28:00.000-04:00

A stroll around the yard on 5/18/05: today I was mowing the lawn and though the whole process is quite upsetting--the noise and mowing up flowers and insects--I enjoyed the sunshine and all the flowers. Here are just a few of the things in flower in my yard today. YAY!

2005-05-05T20:13:00.000-04:00

Flowers at the Village Market: We took our constitutional in the neighborhood tonight and I took pictures of flowers for sale at the Village Market.

2005-05-04T23:46:00.000-04:00

Metrobeach 5-4-05 Goose and Turtle: (Clockwise from top left) white pines yellowed perhaps by exhaust fumes from traffic, first leaves starting on red-stemmed dogwoods, face of large snapping turtle, goose in the canal.

Metrobeach May 4, 2005

2005-05-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

12:31 PM I lean against the park-here-for-Nature-Center sign eating a turkey sandwich and feeling cranky because I packed 1 1/2 turkey sandwiches and a molasses cookie for lunch and the cookie is missing. I may have dropped it at home or in the driveway or in the road or it may be roaming around in my car, but it isn’t here for me to eat. I thought I had a fruit bar, too, but I left that in the pocket of a different coat.

I’m also cold. It is perfectly clear, sunny, chilly, and windy.

Someone is flying a model airplane. It’s quite large and acrobatic.

12:46 PM I am walking. I need to leave in less than two hours, so I don’t have time to lounge around, darn it. I looked in vain again for that cookie, then suited up with gear, camera, binoculars. I hope I can see the owls today, including perhaps the screech owl.

I am cold in a coat and fleece and long sleeved jacket etc. and some of the tiny kids are only in shirt sleeves. There is a school field trip. They must be four five-year olds.

Driving here through the city I saw a gorgeous display of white and yellow tulips and another of red and yellow tulips. Flowering trees in flower everywhere. Here, the blackbird and redwings are going nuts.

I pass a couple bird watching. Hear more redwings and something chirring. I see a nut hatch. The redwings must be at the height or singing. The air is full of their trills.

Algae are already growing in the ponds.

I remember being here with Rachel, little Rachel (my granddaughter), how she posed at every turn for a new photo. I think about Keith saying I was cuddly because I was soft (he even used the word squishy until I objected, as if it was a good thing to be squishy!) I said he was cuddly and he said he was too bony.

Some red-headed man crowds by me on the trail walking faster.

Now I hear a very high musical chee-deep, chee-deep. Not a chickadee, higher than that.

I see a bird emerging from a bluebird house. I am watching them for the screech owl, but I’m not sure I remember which house it was in. But when I raise my glasses, the bird zips out through the hole and flies away. I am sure of only a couple things: it is not a screech and probably not a blue bird. Maybe a swallow.

The redhead hurries back and stops to talk to me. I see he is only a boy, maybe 15 or 16. He tells me the trail is really wet ahead. I thank him and continue on. He goes back the other way.

There is no screech owl looking from the box that I think is the one the naturalist said had a screech owl who often looked out. I go on without seeing him.

1:11 PM A mourning cloak butterfly settled on the ground nearby, but flies when I try to take his picture. I settle on a bench. (Click here to see what I wrote about my fibro).

A bird that looks a little like a gull, but smaller, with sharply angled wings and a long sharp bill plunges into the pond as if attempting at catch a fish, and then flies in circles around it. Turtles are sunning. Painted turtles.

A mallard hen flies very low over the pond, quaking throatily. I shoot a turtle, with Eeyore, through the phragmites.

Two geese hiss at me as I walk past them.

The huge snapper is here, but more out of the water than last time, so I shoot a few shots with Eeyore and one with Olli.

When I reach the spot where the male great-horned owl was, I can’t find it. I know I have the right spot, exactly. I get a great look at two cavorting flickers and male red-winged blackbird, but no owl.

So far, I am striking out in the owl department. Lots of ducks, though.

I just ran into the naturalist from a couple days, no green jacket, he told me where the male owl is, and the female owl. Said the screech owl wasn't hanging out today. So far.

The female great-horned owl is sitting in the nest. No sign of the babies.

I go to the place where the male owl is supposed to be, but I can't find him. Lot of woods to scan and no one to say, look there by the dead branch or whatever. I look from several different vantage points but fail to find him and need to move on. It’s 1:44 and I have to LEAVE in an hour. Wahn. I keep watching as I walk away for some slight thickening, but see only what look like large nest with lots of sticks. No owl.

When I get back to the nest, Mom and both babies are visible so I attempt a shot. While I’m attempting a second, the babies start sinking out of sight. More people come, I leave.

There is loud woodpecker drumming that reminds me of the ivory-billed. This isn’t that loud, not hardly. Maybe only a hairy.

My watch zeros out at 31 minutes. 14 to go.

There are not enough benches, logs, or rocks for people suffering from fibromyalgia out here.

I would like to get one of those cards to take light and color readings for adjusting the exposures later, I wonder if Keith has one.

I walk out into the marsh and then return to check the nest again. The mother is still visible. Then I run into the school group, they stop by the snapper. I hope they don’t poke it.

Especially with their little fingers.

When they leave, I shoot the turtle again, and a small frog. The turtle ahs moved slightly. Also some geese in the canal.

Another school group approaches and I tell them about the snapper and remind them to watch the little fingers.

2:16 I have walked my 45 minutes plus a little and have to leave in less than half an hour (and still walk the rest of the way back to the car). That means there will be no reading of manuals, probably. Let’s see if I can write an entry for Full Tilt Retreat in the little bit of remaining time. Click here to see what I wrote for Full Tilt Retreat.

Oops, after writing, I have 2 minutes to get back to the car. It’s more than 2 minutes away!

I peek at the screech owl nest box, but from this distance, I’m not sure I could tell of it was there or not. A mallard hen flaps wildly in a puddle.

I walk past lots of fur bits where some animal met its demise. I am sad to have to go home. I would say, "I wish that Graham would tell me when he wants to come home, but really, I have other things to attend to at home probably should go home anyway. Though I’d get more writing down if I stayed here.

I did not come out where I intended to come out, but walked farther away so now I have to walk back farther. Aiee.

I got hot sitting in the sun writing, but the wind is cold out here in the open.

I get home, get my stuffed packed up and unloaded and get into the house at 3:26 PM. Phew.

I never found my cookie. :-(

2005-05-04T11:04:00.000-04:00

Map of Blisle. I made this from smaller pieces of topo maps pasted together.

Note on pix from Blisle

2005-05-03T22:48:00.000-04:00

Now that I see these together, I think it would have been more harmonious to post the Lagoon pix together and the forest pix together, but please forgive this inharmony, as I do not have time to redo them. Mary

Blisle May 3, 2005 with Swan and White Trout Lily

2005-05-03T22:45:00.000-04:00

Blisle May 3, 2005 with Swan and Trout Lily (clockwise from top left) swan on lagoon, white trout lilies, crayfish claw at lagoon by swan and tree from previous post), forest floor with trout lilies and toothworts.

Belle Isle, May 3 pictures

2005-05-03T22:12:00.000-04:00

Belle Isle May 3, 2005: Clockwise from top left: flooded entry to Nature Trail, the Center Canal Bridge, the trail alone the canal through the woods, a tree on the lagoon.

Belle Isle, May 3

2005-05-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, May 3, 2005 Belle Isle

11:50 I am at B'l'Isle, otherwise known as Belle Isle. I drove on an "empty tank" to Mack and Moross to get gas at the normal place, but there were orange cones blocking the pumps, so I nervously drove toward B’l’Isle. Luckily, I did find a Sunoco station and get gas.

I brought a small lunch, but I want to walk first, because it's supposed to rain later. And then I want to write today's entry for the retreat blog, at least that, and read about the digital voice recorder.

I want to find my old strobe and see if it can be fixed or buy a new one or borrow one of Keith's. He always says he has one, but he never GIVES it to me to use.

It's cold today.

I haven’t been recording my walks anywhere. I start this walk at 11:59 AM. Yesterday I walked 45:39. I am walking toward the red bridge and the trail along the canal. The Karolin (SP) is playing tunes for noon. The white trout lilies are all hanging down, bell-like and unopened. There are plethoras of them, but the light is bad.

I wish Keith were here with me; we had so much fun here together last year at this time.

Toothworts in flower, fern fiddleheads unrolling. Blue violets flowering still. I shoot a few white trilliums and some reflections in a swamp with Olli. I left Eeyore in the car because it looks like rain, and the radio said it would rain. There are ZILLIONS of white trout lilies here. I should take some back to Baltimore woods. Or to Beaver Lake, if Bruce wants a wildflower garden.

Back in B’ville, someone told me of some flowers that were going to be destroyed and I meant to pass the word on to Bruce and/or Baltimore woods, but never did.

The whole forest floor is covered with white trout lilies. Amazing.

I accidentally zero out my watch at 6 minutes, what a piece of junk. (Read C@#$!)

I take toothwort (3 shots) and one of the woodland floor of white toothwort and start my watch again. I need to remember to add six minutes.

There is not a huge variety here. But what there is, there is in abundance.

I find a cress that looks like rock cress (?), but I'm unsure. I don't have my book. I shoot it, and I small incompletely opened Jack-in-the-pulpit. While I am shooting, who should come along but the same man we saw at Metrobeach, the birdwatcher with the green coat and camera and matching binoculars to my sweetie’s. He tells me that there used to be both yellow and white trout lilies here, but the Formosan deer preferred the yellow ones and ate most of them, whereas, the white ones, which are normally rare, were unfavored and spread and that there are more here than anywhere else. I tell him about Rock Glen falls in Ontario where there are white at the bottom, yellow at the top, and mixed in between. He sees a bird and dashes off, leaving me happily to myself.

I had inadvertently stopped my watch at 2:22. Of course, it’s actually 8:22, but 2:22 is a nice number. The Green Birdman asked if I had driven the little red car and I admitted to it.

There is lots of spicebush in flower, but partly gone by. I run into the Green Birdman again and he starts taking again. We hear a bird and go toward it. He says it is either a worm-eating warbler or a water thrush. He says he’s been listening to the calls on CDs. I say I do too, but I don’t learn as fast as I used to. He knocks on his head and says, “This is a 386, not a Pentium 4, but eventually it gets the job done.”

I walk off in another direction. I suddenly am feeling as if I should have binoculars with me. I have 2 pairs in the car, but I was intent on wildflowers today.

As I was arriving, I ran into a man riding a unicycle with a big grin on his face. He was clearly enjoying himself. It was geared low so he was peddling like mad and swaying from side to side with every stroke.

When I cross to the far side of the canal, I meet a black man. I rarely see black people out in the woods. He has a grey mustache and is friendly. Says, in a heavy southern accent, "Wish it would get a little warmer!" I say, "Warmer would be nice," and he says, "Sure would be." Cool, though, is good for sustaining the wildflowers and slowing the leafing. In my mind, a long cool spring is preferable to a short hot spring. I sympathize with warmth lovers, but only to the extent it doesn’t kill off the flowers or get hot.

I take a couple shots of the canal, and go back to the other side, walking on the canal shore trail rather than the woodland trail I was on earlier. There is so much trash here it is difficult to get a decent shot of the trail or the canal. I attempt a shot of the trail alone the canal, but it may not really be representative of the area because the woods is more open here than elsewhere.

When I stop my watch to take the shot at 14-something, it zeros out again, so now I have to add 20. At least it’s a nice even number.

I feel suddenly happy. I am alone in the woods next to the canal and that water thrush or worm-eating warbler is calling again, and the gulls are calling, and robins, and the little leaves are opening on the trees and it seems peaceful and serene. I wish these woods were just a little larger, but they are still pleasant with wildflowers. I wonder if the story Mr. Green Birdman told me about the trout lilies is true. It well may be. I wonder if he is British or from somewhere else, he has a bit of an accent. He looks rather British or something.

A lot of the squirrels look mangy. I wonder if the are shedding badly or actually have mange. A lush fluffy black one investigates me.

It is so dark and a little oppressive. It really seems as if rain is imminent.

I wonder if the Imminentalists are so in the moment that they are sliding over the shiny accretion disc into the future. Or the future is rolling over the slippery slope into their now. What is imminent is almost more now than now, it is what is coming, what is slipping from future to now, the rain drops that are ABOUT to dimple the slate grey water, the fetal robin that is about to burst through its cerulean shell and emerge.

Is that what the Imminentalists think they are all about? I read all their mission statement stuff and saw nothing tangible to chew up and swallow.

HAH! It is starting rain, just very lightly, a tiny sprinkle, slowly increasing in intensity. The imminent becoming present. And here it comes, harder. It is clicking and banging. It is SNOWING!

If it rains, I can sit in the car and work. If it snows, I may go home.

I’ve only walked 20 minutes, though.

It is SO much nicer here than walking on Moran and McMillan.

Even the dandelions are all closed up!

There is a yellow Aracae opening. Because of the snow, I do not photograph it. The snow is getting to hard and thick to write and it’s starting to gather on the ground. Sheltering the camera, I take a shot in the woods with toothworts and white trillium and falling snow.

And another of the trail along the canal. Two. They come out dark. It’s 1:10 which should be the brightest time of the Daylight-Saving-Time day, but it is dark.

I am nearly back to the red bridge, and when I get there, I will have walked just over 30 minutes and still have 15 left to walk. The poison ivy is coming out, red leaves unfolding and reaching toward me with itchy fingers.

I can never make things the same as they are or were. I can’t keep them the same or go back. I think of how much fun Keith and I had here together and want him to be here with me. I know I said this, but I keep missing him. We could have come Sunday, but we went instead to the primitive skills party. Cinco de Mayo.

I walk over to the bathroom, but it is locked. People have urinated and defecated in the entryway and it stinks. I quickly leave.

Keith has a relationship with B'l'Isle. I am building one of my own.

I walk among the gulls and find and photograph a crayfish claw, a few gulls, some trees along the lagoon. I'm about to shoot more, but I just can’t stand the garbage: white Styrofoam cups and food containers, chip bags and cans juice boxes and lots more, ugh.

Plastic bags floating in the water like guts.

I see three big fat fluffy healthy-looking fox squirrels. They do not seem to be afflicted with mange that the black phase grey squirrels have.

The snow has stopped and disappeared from the ground. I walk along the edge of the woods and find a sign that says, "Belle Isle Nature Trail." There is a foot of water on the trail and I can’t resist taking a picture.

1:37 PM I have walked 44:30 and still have to walk back to the car, so my official constitutional is essentially over. Any walking I do from now on is for pleasure, curiosity, necessity, but not for my obligatory constitutional. Yay!

I am sitting at a picnic table outside picnic Shelter #18, which is where the flooded nature trail starts. NOW, the sun peeks out between the dark clouds, now that I'm officially finished. But I could trick it, and go back in the woods, here or else where. I was going to work on my retreat entry.

(If you would like to see my retreat entry at Belle Isle for May 3, 2005, click here.)

OK, good, now I can go eat my sandwich.

I thought I might end the serial today, but it doesn't seem to want to end yet.

What will I do about the fact that none of the restrooms are open? I may have to go home. Actually, I wanted to leave here at 2:45 and it is already after 2:00, so I don’t have much time left anyway. I wanted to do some other and additional writing.

I also wanted to read the instruction manual on my new voice recorder. I'd like to know how to use it before I start back to B'ville.

A big ship is passing on the river. Keith would be excited!

The little parking area is littered with ribbed condoms and flattened beer cans. This is not a pristine wilderness area.

I stop to take couple shots of periwinkle (Vinca minor), but, like the violets, the blue just doesn’t cut it. They look washed out.

There are geese around my car, and I have to disturb them to get my sandwich. They are not very disturbed, though. I think I was more disturbed to be disturbing them than they were at being disturbed.

So far, I have walked 53:33 and that is probably it for now.

The geese are grazing in a manner similar to horses, all walking along in more or less the same direction sometimes stopping to rest. I am not sure what they are eating. It is not the taller grass. They press their beaks deep into the grass.

There goes another big ship.

Suddenly one goose takes off from the rest in the opposite direction. Half turn and follow him. He walks across the road, almost getting hit in the process. The others turn back, graze a little longer, and then half of them follow the first goose who is now grazing on the other side of the road. I missed a good picture. Now they are all going, and a squirrel crosses their path coming back across the road. A fast-moving SUV almost takes them all out. The sky is darkening dramatically after lightening up a little.

2:35 I finish my sandwich. I planned on leaving in ten minutes. I think I will start driving slowly around the island and watch for possible pictures. The old boathouse, for one. Then head home. No time left to really to write.

It starts raining and I’m in motion and don’t stop to take the picture I wanted of the old boat house or whatever it is near the bridge.

I pass a woman hitchhiking. It literally hurts to drive by and not offer a ride. I remember when I seed to hitchhike to and from school and desperately want a ride, when it was cold or I was late, and no one would stop. I’d be so angry. "What are you afraid of?" I’d scream. Couldn’t they see I just needed a ride? But now I’m the one who’s afraid. The woman looks right at me and raises her eyebrows questioningly. I keep driving, feeling hurt, sad, scared. Probably, she just wants a ride. But maybe she has a gun. Maybe she would rob me or hurt me, take my car, my money, what little I have. WAHN!

When I get home at 3:15, the black SUV has my place and the places on either side are taken. I have to park three houses away. I could have kept my spot, if I'd stayed home. But ugh.

OK, I need to collect my stuff and go inside. I wish Graham would let me know if he’s coming home. It could affect my plans!

I hear that unconditional parenting produces the healthiest more independent-minded children, moderate parenting the next best (that’s halfway between strict and lenient), lenient parents the next best, and strict parents have the worst kids when they become teens.

I tried for a mix of unconditional, moderate and lenient. I like having kids have the most amount of freedom possible and making the most decisions on their own. But some loving guidance is appropriate.

Rage is always a mistake, but one that reasonable beings unfortunately occasionally make.

Patty Murphy comes along: someone moves while I’m writing, so I take my spot in front of the house. Now (Michael) Murphy’s Law says Graham will need a ride and someone will steal my spot. Or something like that.

The man next door is trimming and trims along our edge. I have trouble getting the door unlocked my hands are so full.

But I’m in before 3:30. Yay!

Mary

Welcome Spring!

2005-05-02T20:38:00.000-04:00

Welcome Spring! I can't always do an exciting wild constitutional. Here are some local flowers and opening buds from our walk down Moran and McMillan. Clockwise from top left with center last(leaving out the dupes): unfolding staghorn sumac buds, magnolia blossoms at dusk, white trillium in someone's garden, blue violets, periwinkle (Vinca minor.)

I have issues preparing the pictures for display because the monitors on Blue and Dead, my two computers, are so different. Dead's flat-screen monitor is very bright, so that the images then appear dark on Blue's monitor and vice versa. I know that you will see them differently still. What to do?

May Day Walk, Photos

2005-05-01T22:10:00.000-04:00

May Day walk: (clockwise from top left) "Ruined Enemy" (rue anemone), "Warning, keep out!!", Self-portrait at cemetery (me), barn under dark sky. [To see a self-portrait postcard made from these images, visit Self-Portraits.]

May Day Walk

2005-05-01T22:05:00.000-04:00

May Day, Beltane, May First, 2005. Cinco de Mayo Party; 2:51 PM

I walk alone through unfamiliar woods. I have never been here before, and don’t even know where I am—somewhere in Michigan. I’ve left the Cinco de Mayo party at Phil and Diane’s. Keith came up with me to the top of the hill, but I sent him back to hang out with Dale, since Dale had invited us. I want to get my walk in before I get too involved. Before the day disappears without it. I’ve been taking pictures of wildflowers and enjoying the hills and valleys and large patches of umbrella-shaped mayapples.

Oh-oh, I'm on posted property and I just came up to a house, so I quickly turned back. I’ll have to go a different way. Hope I don’t get in trouble.

I don’t think these woods are large, but they are very pleasant, fill of rue anemone, mayapples in leaf and bud, spring beauties, vernal and permanent ponds and swamps. Deer tracks and trails.

I attempt some pictures of rue anemone (or, as Keith says, "ruined enemy"), but it is dark and windy, not a good combo. I am using Olly, the only camera I’m carrying at the moment. I walk down to view a Vernal pond. No, not a vernal pond, a longer than verbal pond. A permanent pond. It has duckweed.

Yellow violets are in flower. Chokecherry leaves are all the way open but not full-size.

The woods are full of deer stands, nailed to trees all around me. Deer trails and deer stands. I am walking along on the inside of the posted signs, not smart, probably.

There are squirrel nests and bird nests. Now the woods appear to be ending at a farm field. I’ve been walking 14 minutes not counting the maybe 5 it took to climb the hill. Do I dare walk out into the field for a few minutes? I don’t, I turn and skirt the inside of the woods.

I come to a place where there are arrows stuck into a tree stump—some sort of warning--gives me the willies--and a canoe by a pond. I get a little nervous, and start back the other way. I feel a unwelcome, though I have no intention of hurting or disturbing anything.

I've now walked far enough where I could retrace my steps if I’d made a straight trail, but I did not and don’t care to try to search for the convoluted path I took.. A hawk screams, over and over. I wonder if it is nesting nearby. Sounds like a red-tail.

I see a cemetery and also some interesting barns so I head along the hedgerow between the plowed but untilled cornfield and the pasted woods. I could walk back along the road, but then I won’t have walked long enough.

Did I say untilled? I meant unplanted. It’s been tilled, but the old cornstalks are still visible. No sign of new.

At the edge of the cemetery: a dump, with the strong scent of balsam. A goose, a single goose, flies over, honked sadly. I stick a blue cloth chrysanthemum in my hair and snap a shot of myself. It’s very windy, so I then stick the flower in my back pocket. I take a few shots of the farm, probably the farm that owns the cornfields, but not the woods, as the posted signs point out toward the cornfield. The farm shot is sort of ruined by a big satellite dish. Sigh.

When Keith and I were walking up the first set of hills together, we found some cages with dead animals in them--road kill, maybe--speaking of which, here’s one now. They were in the cages to remove the flesh from the bones. This one is a deer, still quite stink-ulous. But the skull is there, along with the rest of the carcass and of course, I’m tempted by it.

I walk up by the farm and take 2 more pictures of the barn and walk back toward the cemetery. I mark the place where the dead deer lies, its bones all chewed by predators as if they were in Wild Africa or some other nature program. Hah, I can’t believe I said that—the nature comes first and the program or writing about it afterwards. Not the other way around! The carcass is across from the cemetery and down 300 feet or so. Just past the cemetery is a curved snag and the skeleton is directly across from the first tree after that.

Now I am headed back toward Diane and Phil’s, where the party is. I’m almost ready to learn flint-knapping and whatever else is being offered. Keith bends intently over a table, deeply involved in something. I walked 46:12. Graham runs up and says I was gone 2 hours. I sit with the flint knappers and pick up some basalt, a leather shield, and a knapping tool.

Mary Stebbins

One Day, Two Walks, Part II

2005-04-27T23:15:00.000-04:00

Walk at Clark 4/27; clockwise: ledges and spring foliage, path over glacial-scoured rocks, triiums, dead cedar

One Day, Two Walks, Part I

2005-04-27T22:33:00.000-04:00

Mom takes a nature walk 3: white violet

2005-04-27T22:29:00.000-04:00

Mom takes a nature walk 2: Spirea

2005-04-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

Mom takes a nature walk 1: clockwise, unfolding maple leaves, squirrel nest, Loretto Brook, Mom admiring the view.

2005-04-24T12:57:00.000-04:00

Baltimore Woods walk collage: clockwise: Mourning cloak butterfly, round-leaved yellow violets (rare in the area), sharp-lobed hepatica, double bloodroots. Photos by Mary Stebbins

Peregrine

2005-04-18T16:06:00.000-04:00

Neva Austrew illustrated my haiku (shown below) with this striking picture of a peregrine falcon. www.nevaaustrew.com/

Under tumbled black,

Liquid pigeons pour through sky,

Chased by peregrine.

Haiku by me, Mary Stebbins

2005-04-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

Bloodroot as seen through my new hand lens (and Oly the digital camera). This picture was taken at the Black River in Michigan 4/17/05.

2005-04-15T09:11:00.000-04:00

Coltsfoot along The Invisible Trail near Morel Bay, April 10, 2005. This was on the return trip! There was only one open on the way out.

The Invisible Trail

2005-04-10T16:21:00.000-04:00

The Invisible trail

(050410p Sunday April 10, 2005 3:18 PM)

I am out on my constitutional on the invisible trail that starts across from the Spiral Grove at Three Rivers. I've written about this trail many times. Every time I come here, it has ceased to exist a little more. The game management people have even taken away the restricted area no trespassing sign because only those old enough to remember when there was a trail here would come here to walk. Most people that old probably don't want to fight through raspberries, blackberries, multi-floral rose and prickery autumn olive.

The trail has so ceased to exist that I must bushwhack around the edges of where it used to be. Because the trail was open and exposed to light, it is now more densely grown with "unfriendly flora" than the woods that surround it.

It is a perfect spring day, shirt-sleeve warm with a cool breeze, not a bit hot. Blue sky, thin clouds, peepers peeping, wood frogs motoring. Aspens are unfurling their catkin-flowers. I am on the not-trail to Lycopodium Power Bay. But, given the intensity of work I have to do, I may not choose to go that far. I came to these woods particularly to avoid the other people who might be out on this spring-fever day. Most won't come here because it doesn't exist in their vocabulary of walking places. Rather than stick to open sunny areas as I partly have been, I decide this is a time to enjoy the woods while the sun can penetrate the unleafed branches and no biting bugs are out yet.

I do wish I'd remember a water bottle, though. Gasp! The exercise and sun are making me thirsty!

This spot is not "scenic," not here, anyway. It's not ugly, but there is little to specifically recommend it. The woods are full of vernal ponds that are full of leaves, peepers, wood frogs, and I think I now hear some other frogs as well. The sun coming through bare trees widely dapples the old fall leaves, the ponds and hummocks. The trees are mostly relatively small, as if the area were cleared 60 years ago, perhaps. Glacial boulders and rocks are strewn about. A pleasant warm woodsy odor fills the air.

I'd like to sit on a boulder and write, but I need to stay on task: sorting and packing, cleaning and discarding. That's what I've been doing, sorry indoor work for a beautiful day, but I'm out NOW and I'm glad. Breathe in the spring. Feel the sun on my cheeks.

Already, one of the woodland ponds is nearly completely covered with duckweed, an indication that it is not a vernal pond but largely present, and that it gets sufficient light for duckweed probably year-round in spite of being deep in the woods.

I am back on the remnant of the trail now because the woods became too swampy and this portion of trail is navigable.

I see my first coltsfoot. YAY!

I come to a newly downed white pine, still living at this point, that creates what looks like an impassable barrier, water on either side and the branches thick and close. I turn off my watch, fight my way through it, and turn it on again. I'll have to repeat the procedure on the way back.

If I had my small folding saw I could make an opening for myself, but I don't.

I pass an area full of bird dropping under white pine and think "owl." The needles are too dense to determine if the owl is home, or if in fact it’s a hawk or crow. I don’t think in my onward flight to look for owl pellets or other “sign.”

(3:53 PM) I reach Lycopodium Meadows and Lycopodium Power Knoll. For me, this place is "Sacred," but because I feel upset by the vastness of what I must accomplish, I don't linger. I walk a short ways toward the bay and stop on a small berm where I can sit for just a moment to overlook the bay.

It's the same bay that yesterday I attempted to reach from the far side but turned back because the geese were nesting.

This portion of the bay is shallow and since I began coming here, is grown up to loosestrife and other weeds. Across the wet fields of dry loosestrife, I see flocks of geese resting on the open water and hear the chorus the vibrant peepers and low engine sounds of the wood frogs.

Young beech trees still have last-year’s leaves and they rattle in a stiffening breeze. I have only seen a single flower so far, the one coltsfoot.

I love it here. I love the solitude. I love the wildness, the traillessness. The company of plants and animals and sun and wind. No trash here. No stink of auto fumes. No mindless chatter but my own.

I turn the Psion off and sit in silence.

(silence---ahhhhhh)

(resume thoughts and observations)

Under my feet is a huge old decaying grapevine and around me, trees of every age and stage of growth, illness, death and decay. The whole cycle of life.

The peeper and frog sounds rise and fall. Guns fire nearby, I hope not too close.

I walked 26 minutes to get here and I’d better start back. So much to do. So little time.

{Note: I discover that I have missed half this journal. It is on the Psion and will have to be downloaded and added later!!!!! This is a result of making back-up files after losing some—the back-up contains the complete journal and I downloaded the incomplete version! DUH!}

Skunk Cabbage on The Invisible Trail

2005-04-10T15:59:00.000-04:00

Skunk Cabbage Along "The Invisible Trail," April 10, 2004

Almost Invisible (the guide replies)

2005-04-10T06:47:00.000-04:00

Between knolls and homesteads

now abandoned wound a road here, long ago.

No straight way.

Grew up to maple saplings, autumn olive

and multifloral rose. A footpath followed

the old road bed ‘til that too faded.

Nothing remains

these days, but deer

tracks crossing. Small remnants, here

and there, of the old trail, almost invisible

(‘less you're mighty keen). Now

the body knows the way, the twists

and turns, the curve of hill and dip of swale,

the best morel and fiddlehead spots, the dens

where foxes lair and beaver lodge and the winter

yards of deer. Think my guiding's

wizardry? It’s naught but long memory, old age.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

For ES

050415-3V; 1C, 1st 5-11-02
note: I changed the Blog date so that the poem would follow the entry for 4-10-05