When I returned to New York from my summer travels, I went for a morning walk in Riverside Park along the Hudson River. As I walked along, I looked down and saw a round fat fluorescent yellow fuzzy caterpillar undulating her way south while I was striding north. We passed, me careful not to step on her, and her apparently oblivious to me and minding her own business, but we were both on the same path.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Bonding with Nature: Part 5—St. Louis—Domesticated Animals
Dogs: In July, I took the dog tour of St. Louis, visiting my friends. I greatly enjoyed the company of a beautiful small black sweetheart of a standard poodle who rides skateboards and sits in my lap; a super-friendly golden retriever who loves to play ball; two rhodesian ridgebacks, one of whom jumped up and kissed me as I entered the house (or scratched above my lip, if you want to be literal); and a super-cute and beautiful and playful Tibetan terrier—my friends call her “a diva”—who jumps hurdles and plays on a see-saw and guards her territory with great attentiveness.
African Grey Parrot: I was out in the pool with my friends David and Alexandra and their daughter Scarlet. David had also brought out their African Grey parrot and placed him in his travelling cage close by the pool, so the whole family was there. We were talking about education, and David said, “You can find anything on the Internet these days.” An authoritative, commanding adult voice from outside the pool says, “Such as?”
Yes, it was the parrot, and apparently he does such things all the time.
He also dances to his favorite songs, and has a vast repertoire of tricks. At one point he was sitting on David’s right arm about a foot away from the cat David was petting with his right hand, all completely at ease with the situation and focused on the topic of conversation.
When I stood to leave at the front door, the bird called out cheerily from the other end of the house, “Good-bye!”
African Grey Parrot: I was out in the pool with my friends David and Alexandra and their daughter Scarlet. David had also brought out their African Grey parrot and placed him in his travelling cage close by the pool, so the whole family was there. We were talking about education, and David said, “You can find anything on the Internet these days.” An authoritative, commanding adult voice from outside the pool says, “Such as?”
Yes, it was the parrot, and apparently he does such things all the time.
He also dances to his favorite songs, and has a vast repertoire of tricks. At one point he was sitting on David’s right arm about a foot away from the cat David was petting with his right hand, all completely at ease with the situation and focused on the topic of conversation.
When I stood to leave at the front door, the bird called out cheerily from the other end of the house, “Good-bye!”
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Bonding with Nature: Part 4—Missouri
A Butterfly: I was almost run over by a butterfly walking the streets of St. Louis—a big black-and-yellow butterfly flew straight at my head. I ducked, and then thought, “What? Did I just dodge a butterfly?” And laughed. And watched it flit all around. Stay with me, I thought.
Another Rabbit: As I walked the same St. Louis neighborhood, I saw a little brown rabbit in the grass between the sidewalk and the street. He froze at the sight of me. I squatted down a few feet away, and since I didn’t have a cat to scare the rabbit, I decided to just wait, breathe deeply, relax, and let the rabbit know, I just intended to be good company. The rabbit loosened up, hopped around a little, came a bit closer, and we shared a little corner of the earth for a time. Then a car whizzed by and scared the rabbit off.
Damesflies, spiders, butterflies: On a lake in Missouri out at Innsbrook, I paddled a kayak one morning. A spider crawled up on the bow right on the center line; then a little closer to me, landed a damesfly on the same center line. A couple of butterflies flitted around on the sides. Escorts. The damesfly kept returning after the others left. In the morning light it looked jet black. It flew close and lit on the kayak where I could watch it closely. It was smaller than a dragonfly with 4 wings, but right on top of one another, not spread out like on a dragonfly, and with a shorter, smaller, stick-like body. Later that day, I was floating on the lake, lying on my back on a raft, and the damesfly came back. This time he was a shimmering, shining, midnight royal blue—my favorite color—the color of the sky at a particular time of night. He lit on my stomach, and I watched him for a long time. He flew off, and came back with his mate. One’s tail curled under, and the other mounted on top, latching on to the space between the head and the tail, with its own tail straight out. The one on bottom looked black, and now the one on top was black with 2 turquoise blue patches—one on the head and one on the thorax-area. They mated on top of my stomach for a long time; flew off; came back; off and on, all afternoon. They looked like Sanskrit when they were together.
Paddlefish: Meanwhile, on the same lake, kayaking the same morning, about 10 feet from my boat, a huge fish jumped straight up out of the water. It was about 4 feet tall and very thick with a huge paddle-shaped bill. It looked prehistoric. “What was that?” I paddled back as fast as I could. As I floated that afternoon, my only concern was whether that fish would jump up underneath me. It never did, but it did jump all around. There was more than one fish. All over the lake, huge fish with paddlebills would leap high in the air. I watched them all weekend, and asked a man who was kayaking by the shore what they were. He said they were paddlefish, and they were stocked in these lakes because they were bottom feeders and kept the lakes clean, and they were also sources for caviar. According to Wikipedia, the American Paddlefish is the Missouri State Aquatic Animal.
Another Rabbit: As I walked the same St. Louis neighborhood, I saw a little brown rabbit in the grass between the sidewalk and the street. He froze at the sight of me. I squatted down a few feet away, and since I didn’t have a cat to scare the rabbit, I decided to just wait, breathe deeply, relax, and let the rabbit know, I just intended to be good company. The rabbit loosened up, hopped around a little, came a bit closer, and we shared a little corner of the earth for a time. Then a car whizzed by and scared the rabbit off.
Damesflies, spiders, butterflies: On a lake in Missouri out at Innsbrook, I paddled a kayak one morning. A spider crawled up on the bow right on the center line; then a little closer to me, landed a damesfly on the same center line. A couple of butterflies flitted around on the sides. Escorts. The damesfly kept returning after the others left. In the morning light it looked jet black. It flew close and lit on the kayak where I could watch it closely. It was smaller than a dragonfly with 4 wings, but right on top of one another, not spread out like on a dragonfly, and with a shorter, smaller, stick-like body. Later that day, I was floating on the lake, lying on my back on a raft, and the damesfly came back. This time he was a shimmering, shining, midnight royal blue—my favorite color—the color of the sky at a particular time of night. He lit on my stomach, and I watched him for a long time. He flew off, and came back with his mate. One’s tail curled under, and the other mounted on top, latching on to the space between the head and the tail, with its own tail straight out. The one on bottom looked black, and now the one on top was black with 2 turquoise blue patches—one on the head and one on the thorax-area. They mated on top of my stomach for a long time; flew off; came back; off and on, all afternoon. They looked like Sanskrit when they were together.
Paddlefish: Meanwhile, on the same lake, kayaking the same morning, about 10 feet from my boat, a huge fish jumped straight up out of the water. It was about 4 feet tall and very thick with a huge paddle-shaped bill. It looked prehistoric. “What was that?” I paddled back as fast as I could. As I floated that afternoon, my only concern was whether that fish would jump up underneath me. It never did, but it did jump all around. There was more than one fish. All over the lake, huge fish with paddlebills would leap high in the air. I watched them all weekend, and asked a man who was kayaking by the shore what they were. He said they were paddlefish, and they were stocked in these lakes because they were bottom feeders and kept the lakes clean, and they were also sources for caviar. According to Wikipedia, the American Paddlefish is the Missouri State Aquatic Animal.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Bonding with Nature: Part 3—Colorado
Flickers in Ft. Collins: My friends Pat and Michael have two flicker houses under the eaves of their house, and the flickers have babies. The flickers have lived there longer than they have—they came with the house. Every time we sat out on the deck to eat, we watched the flickers feed their babies, fly in and out of their home, and watch us. Parallel universes.
Big hummingbirds in the Southern Rockies: We visited another friend in the Southern Rockies, who lived high in the Ponderosa pines on rocky red dirt land overlooking valleys and mountains. The largest hummingbirds I’ve ever seen darted in and out of the pines and sipped at the feeders she hung all through the trees around her house. They took their time and moved slower than other hummingbirds. The air was thin and clean and fresh; time was leisurely; and we lived in another dimension.
Big hummingbirds in the Southern Rockies: We visited another friend in the Southern Rockies, who lived high in the Ponderosa pines on rocky red dirt land overlooking valleys and mountains. The largest hummingbirds I’ve ever seen darted in and out of the pines and sipped at the feeders she hung all through the trees around her house. They took their time and moved slower than other hummingbirds. The air was thin and clean and fresh; time was leisurely; and we lived in another dimension.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Mountains and Molehills
While I was waiting for Hurricane Irene to hit Manhattan, I was channel surfing and landed on Channel 1006—Free Movies on Demand. I chose Climate of Change, a 2010 documentary about people around the world fighting for a sustainable way of living. The stories ranged from Papua New Guinea, Togo, and India to West Virginia, where people whose families have lived in the Appalachian Mountains for generations are fighting to save their mountains from blatant, needless, and greedy destruction.
Known as "mountaintop removal," coal companies literally blow up mountains using tons of explosives, flattening the mountain and the landscape until it looks like a barren alien landscape from outer space. These companies--corporations, people--have already destroyed a land mass the size of Delaware, and they're continuing to blow up as many mountains as they can as fast as they can, destroying as they go the communities and lives of people and the other creatures who depend on the mountain ecosystems. The companies say flattening the mountains makes the land more usable (for tract houses, box stores, shopping malls, I suppose, as long as you don’t care if you can drink the water or breathe the air and you like living in an arid manmade desert) and that it’s the most economic way to extract the coal (employs a lot fewer people and they get a lot more coal a lot faster). It may do that, but it also unleashes tons of poisons into the air and water and land faster and in higher concentrations than we’ve witnessed before, and certainly more than we can handle, and it destroys the waterways and the homes and the beauty and rich life of mountains where families have lived for seven generations and more.
The people who live in the Appalachians are fighting this violence with all their lives, and many movies and websites have been and are being made.
Still, compare the mass media coverage of Irene with the coverage of the ongoing destruction of the Appalachian Mountains and its entire ecosystem. Almost everyone in the country now has heard of Irene, and the pictures of the destruction are played over endlessly.
Here I was sitting on a couch in my comfortable home, waiting for a storm that barely materialized, inundated by media coverage of said storm, and at the same time watching a little known documentary on an obscure cable channel that showed ongoing massive destruction on a much larger scale—more permanent, more devastating, by far—and completely preventable and unnecessary—made for and by man’s greed—and almost no one knows about it!
I am not minimizing the destruction that Irene did cause--my heart goes out to those who are suffering--but in terms of loss to life, community, and the environment, the damage is miniscule compared to what’s going on in the Appalachian Mountains. Boardwalks can be rebuilt. Power lines reattached. Homes rebuilt. Trees replanted. Lives, of course, cannot be replaced. Neither can communities. And neither can MOUNTAINS.
Where is the media coverage of this ongoing, completely preventable, manmade catastrophe?
Goodnight, Irene. Good morning, real world.
Climate of Change http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1563712/
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Bonding with Nature: Part 2—Montauk
I was walking my friend Sadie’s beautiful grey Bengal cat Nigil on his leash in her Montauk neighborhood, when we saw 4 rabbits in a yard. Nigil stopped and twitched, all muscular attention. The rabbits froze. I watched. We all waited. Then, after about 5 minutes, it occurred to me that there was no reason to scare the rabbits, that I should just move Nigil along and let the rabbits continue their fun in the grass, so I did, and to my surprise, Nigil came along peacefully. There are always more rabbits. Besides, he had a surfboard to ride.
One afternoon, Sadie and I were walking along the beach in Montauk right at the edge of the water, when we saw something move between the rocks. “A sea worm,” Sadie said. It was a long rusty red worm creature with lots of little legs. I said maybe it was a millipede. We didn’t know what to call it; we just liked the way it moved—undulating and curling in and out of the rocks in the cool, shallow water. It moved with a rhythm all its own.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Bonding with Nature: Part 1—New York City
I’ve had a lot of fun outside this summer, both in the city and travelling. Here is the first in my series of close encounters with other creatures:
I was sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park in New York City, reading a novel, when a squirrel jumped on top of the bench about 3 feet away and started running straight at me; then stopped a few inches from me and stared; then ran off; did it again; ran off; did it again; ran off; did it again.
Several women caught my eye, and one said, "I guess he wants your attention." I agreed, and we all laughed, saying we’d never seen anything like it. It set the tone for the rest of the summer.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
More Smells
Montauk smells open, salty, and sweet—wild beach roses, wild grasses and shrubs, pine trees, sand, big skies, and vast ocean—with hints of sunscreen.
The Berkshires smell clean and earthy—dark moist rocky dirt, thick woods, ferns, pine trees, wildflowers, gravel roads, blue lakes—luscious, so rich and deep and sweet I want to lap it up and bathe in it.
Ft. Collins, Colorado, smells fresh and clear—sandy desert plains, scattered shelters of grass and trees, rushing rivers and rippling lakes—spacious, with lots of room for the imagination.
The southern Rockies southwest of Denver smell like red dirt and Ponderosa pines—rich and heady and spiritual—almost like the piney woods of East Texas where my mother’s family comes from—but thinner and more dispersed with more room to breathe and to distinguish individual scents.
St. Louis, Missouri, smells like brown dirt, grass, trees, and flowers—the meeting of the mighty Missouri and Mississippi rivers, the Gateway to the West—earthy, watery, grassy, flood plains and high rocky bluffs—rich and full like southern and eastern smells, but more spacious like northern and western smells.
The Berkshires smell clean and earthy—dark moist rocky dirt, thick woods, ferns, pine trees, wildflowers, gravel roads, blue lakes—luscious, so rich and deep and sweet I want to lap it up and bathe in it.
Ft. Collins, Colorado, smells fresh and clear—sandy desert plains, scattered shelters of grass and trees, rushing rivers and rippling lakes—spacious, with lots of room for the imagination.
The southern Rockies southwest of Denver smell like red dirt and Ponderosa pines—rich and heady and spiritual—almost like the piney woods of East Texas where my mother’s family comes from—but thinner and more dispersed with more room to breathe and to distinguish individual scents.
St. Louis, Missouri, smells like brown dirt, grass, trees, and flowers—the meeting of the mighty Missouri and Mississippi rivers, the Gateway to the West—earthy, watery, grassy, flood plains and high rocky bluffs—rich and full like southern and eastern smells, but more spacious like northern and western smells.
On a hot, humid summer night, in the woods, in the dark, with no streetlights or flashlights, just moonlight, Innsbruck, Missouri, about an hour west of St. Louis, smells like cinnamon—like a rich, heady stew of sweet wet dirt and grass and trees and berries and flowers and honeysuckle and lake water and horses, spiked with cinnamon. Without the eye to distinguish the sights, the nose takes over as the organ of discrimination, taste, and joy.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Wild Roses
New York smells neutral to me. Sure, there are garbage smells and gasoline and diesel smells and chemical smells and musty, moldy smells—even the occasional whiff of ocean air smells or Hudson River estuary smells, but they are all smeared over a backdrop of no smell. Most of the time, my nose can clearly differentiate the surface smell from the background smell. I know that whatever scent I happen to be smelling at the moment is only temporary, and underneath it all is nothing.
Louisiana is different. The air there is so rich, so dense, so sweet, so heady with rich, moist earth and flowering, fertile green and thick sea, swamp, creek, bayou, and river that my senses are overwhelmed. It’s a gumbo, a stew of so many flavors so thick that it becomes something completely its own creation. And the people who live there don’t even notice it.
I visited there in Spring, and as soon as I stepped out of the airport into the parking lot—even though I was surrounded by cars and still on ground covered by concrete—the air smelled sweet—completely, totally sweet—so sweet I could taste it—and I couldn’t smell anything else underneath it—no neutral undertone. I could smell the gasoline fumes and exhaust of cars on top of it, but the undertone was just sweet—sweet as far as the nose could smell.
I commented on the sweetness of the air over and over on my trip, and invariably every person who actually lived in Louisiana said something like, “Really? It does? I didn’t notice.” Or they just ignored me, which I charitably took as meaning the same thing.
When I returned to New York, I missed that sweetness. I couldn’t detect it anywhere. The nothingness was everywhere, with the overlay of pollution and occasional whiffs of ocean. A friend from Louisiana suggested I plant rosemary and carry some in my pocket. She sent me pressed flowers from Louisiana. It all helped, but where was that deep, overwhelming sweetness?
Then the other day, I went to my favorite park on the East Side, Stuyvesant Cove Park, and there it was. As I walked along the East River, smelling the river smells, the automobile exhaust smells off the FDR, whiffs of body odor and garbage smells from the assortment of humans travelling through the space, and even the pleasant smells of earth and trees and plants, a rich, deep, bright sweetness seized my nose and stayed and filled me—it was the only smell. Some brilliant souls had planted beach roses in the park, and they had grown into big overflowing bushes of bright fuschia-red flowers whose scent had the power to fill the air and follow me and even become the undertone of the park.
Thank you to the creators, builders, and maintainers of Stuyvesant Cove Park—and of all the other parks in New York and their many spots of sensual richness and delight.
The thing about New York is that there are always possibilities for such moments. And Louisiana—well, as my friend said about the gardenia she sent me, “A tad overwhelming, like a lot of Southern things, eh?”
I will be travelling this summer. Look for more reports on the smells of the world!
Louisiana is different. The air there is so rich, so dense, so sweet, so heady with rich, moist earth and flowering, fertile green and thick sea, swamp, creek, bayou, and river that my senses are overwhelmed. It’s a gumbo, a stew of so many flavors so thick that it becomes something completely its own creation. And the people who live there don’t even notice it.
I visited there in Spring, and as soon as I stepped out of the airport into the parking lot—even though I was surrounded by cars and still on ground covered by concrete—the air smelled sweet—completely, totally sweet—so sweet I could taste it—and I couldn’t smell anything else underneath it—no neutral undertone. I could smell the gasoline fumes and exhaust of cars on top of it, but the undertone was just sweet—sweet as far as the nose could smell.
I commented on the sweetness of the air over and over on my trip, and invariably every person who actually lived in Louisiana said something like, “Really? It does? I didn’t notice.” Or they just ignored me, which I charitably took as meaning the same thing.
When I returned to New York, I missed that sweetness. I couldn’t detect it anywhere. The nothingness was everywhere, with the overlay of pollution and occasional whiffs of ocean. A friend from Louisiana suggested I plant rosemary and carry some in my pocket. She sent me pressed flowers from Louisiana. It all helped, but where was that deep, overwhelming sweetness?
Then the other day, I went to my favorite park on the East Side, Stuyvesant Cove Park, and there it was. As I walked along the East River, smelling the river smells, the automobile exhaust smells off the FDR, whiffs of body odor and garbage smells from the assortment of humans travelling through the space, and even the pleasant smells of earth and trees and plants, a rich, deep, bright sweetness seized my nose and stayed and filled me—it was the only smell. Some brilliant souls had planted beach roses in the park, and they had grown into big overflowing bushes of bright fuschia-red flowers whose scent had the power to fill the air and follow me and even become the undertone of the park.
Thank you to the creators, builders, and maintainers of Stuyvesant Cove Park—and of all the other parks in New York and their many spots of sensual richness and delight.
The thing about New York is that there are always possibilities for such moments. And Louisiana—well, as my friend said about the gardenia she sent me, “A tad overwhelming, like a lot of Southern things, eh?”
I will be travelling this summer. Look for more reports on the smells of the world!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
A Tribute to Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Snow and I were born on the same date—July 17th—and her voice sang what my soul felt. She died April 26, 2011, and I have been listening to her music every day since, marvelling at the clarity, strength, beauty, and distinctiveness of her voice. Her songs were love songs, full of humor, passion, heartache, grace, devotion, loyalty, strength, and truth. Listening to her sing grounds me, confirms me, and gives me solace and comfort and joy. May she hear herself now the way all her fans hear her and feel the same deep recognition of a kindred spirit. Thank you, Phoebe. You are a shining star.
Listen here.
Listen here.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Last Lions
Last night I saw the movie "The Last Lions."
I hope everyone can see it. You can read about it, watch a trailer, and register for a sweepstakes to go to Botswana at this link.
Wild lions are being driven to extinction by humans, at an alarming rate. 50 years ago there were about 450,000 lions, and now there are about 20,000.
The 2 filmmakers lived out in the field for 2 years--just the 2 of them, no other crew, in order to minimize their footprint--and filmed 3 different story lines, until 1 emerged as the story to tell. It is an amazing story of one mother's struggle to survive when she is forced to leave her home because other lions are forced to leave their homes when humans settle in their territory. The shots they were able to get are incredible, but what's most impressive is the story itself.
If lions can learn to adapt to new environments and overcome their fears and instinctual programming, we can too. Let's share our home and help one another.
I hope everyone can see it. You can read about it, watch a trailer, and register for a sweepstakes to go to Botswana at this link.
Wild lions are being driven to extinction by humans, at an alarming rate. 50 years ago there were about 450,000 lions, and now there are about 20,000.
The 2 filmmakers lived out in the field for 2 years--just the 2 of them, no other crew, in order to minimize their footprint--and filmed 3 different story lines, until 1 emerged as the story to tell. It is an amazing story of one mother's struggle to survive when she is forced to leave her home because other lions are forced to leave their homes when humans settle in their territory. The shots they were able to get are incredible, but what's most impressive is the story itself.
If lions can learn to adapt to new environments and overcome their fears and instinctual programming, we can too. Let's share our home and help one another.
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