Sidewalk Saturday in Italy

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

Sidewalk Saturday, RAIN

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

Sidewalk Saturday

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

Sidewalk Saturday: Fresh Snow

Squirrel tracks, salt tracks, cat track, dog track 

Sidewalk Saturday

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

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

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

 

Death at the Spiral Grove

 

Beaver Skull Pond, 3R

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

Beaver Skull Meadow and Spiral Grove Rambling

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

Boardwalk at Hamlin Marsh, photo by Mary Stebbins

Mourning Doves

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

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

Erin and Mary at Radisson

Walking the Visible trail 

walking with Sara at Great Bear

 

Ignoring my Own Advice Again

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

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

from yesterday's walk 

Willet Pond

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