Photography Ups and Downs

February 9, 2012 by scillagrace

So my son’s fabulous camera, a Nikon D-80, is showing ERR on the display. Somehow, the camera isn’t speaking to the lens. Not sure how this falling out occurred, but to restore them to their previous relationship will require some mailing back and forth and money that he doesn’t have. Bummer! Nevertheless, we went out to the Nature Center with two Panasonic Lumix cameras that I got for free from Steve’s aunt. We walked around the lake and found the frozen waterfall below the dam. And he showed me how to focus manually, which really made me happy! We are now sitting at the dining room table, laptops side by side, playing with our pictures and spooning up some re-heated chili while a chicken roasts in the oven. Here are some of my photo results from the day:

I have lots more playing around to do and more to share, but this will be enough for today. I’m spending time with my son!!! 🙂

Soaring Hopes

February 8, 2012 by scillagrace

What is it in the air? That scent of wet earth, that change in light and warmth, that lengthening of days, that springtime feeling that quickens the pulse, that vitality? Dare I call it ‘hope’?

My definition: n. A kind of trust or confidence…but not necessarily about a specific future outcome. It points to a relationship and carries a sense of intimacy.

Why today? Because my son is coming to visit me for a few days. My only son. He’s about half my age now. I remember writing a poem about this kind of surging feeling when he was about 7 years old. “A brilliant day in April…” it began. I saw him walking home from school, baseball glove on hand, tossing a ball in the air and lazily catching it while his white-blond hair sucked a sunbeam into his entire being. What was I feeling? Pride? Joy? Awe? That womb-love from the Hebrew scriptures? Yes. Absolom, my son, my son. Coming home to me.

Ah, progeny. How we load that concept with cultural baggage. What is the reality of this young man’s life? That’s what I want to learn. The economy sucks. Student loans suck. Losing your father sucks. Growing up is difficult. And the world is a wonderful place.

What can we make of this visit? While I wait for it to unfold, I will make chili and a clean place for him to sleep. And I know he’s bringing his fabulous camera. It’s a place to start.

Down By The Riverside

February 7, 2012 by scillagrace

Gonna lay down my burden…

I ain’t gonna study war no more.

Gonna lay down my sword and shield…

Took a walk by the Mukwonago River yesterday. Heard lots of geese honking raucously, actually ridiculously. “Sounds like a barnyard!” I said, imagining donkeys braying and cows lowing. Actually, there was a barnyard of sorts across the river. On the slope leading to the water there were about a dozen white domestic geese. All along the waters edge, there were wild Canada geese splashing about, enjoying the sunshine. I wonder how they size each other up? I wonder what their honking was all about?

We watched a video from the “Life” series, narrated by David Attenborough (our hero!) that featured footage of killer whales and leopard seals hunting. I had seen a clip on the internet somewhere of killer whales tossing a seal around and many people commented about how cruel it was that they were playing with their unfortunate victim. David Attenborough, narrating the scene of a leopard seal eating a penguin, described how it has to fling the body away from the piece its teeth are holding in order to rip off a manageable chunk of meat. That made a lot of sense to me, and it dawned on me that the killer whales were probably doing the same thing. Are non-human animals ever cruel, I wonder? I’ve seen a real game of cat-and-mouse, but I’m not sure that’s about cruelty. Then again, we have bred animals to demonstrate cruelty. Fighting animals and hunting animals who attack other animals for reasons other than their own survival can be said to be cruel, I suppose. Is it a human notion to cultivate violence for other ends, like status, power, sport and such? Or do animals have that trait as well?

As I am typing this, a hawk has come to perch in the maple tree outside my bedroom window. He is probably waiting for the sparrows and squirrels and cottontail rabbits that come to my garden chair looking for bread crumbs and popcorn kernels. Here’s a shot I just took through my dingy window:

He’s still there, swiveling his head about, looking with his sharp eyes for his next meal. It isn’t about war, it’s about food. He takes no more than he needs. What about us? When we take more than we need, are we at war? And what do we really need?

A sheltered place to bed down for the night

Fresh water, clean air, plants and sunshine

I don’t want to be burdened with war, status, power, ego or contention today. I want to live like they live “down by the riverside”. It seems peaceful and natural. I could just watch this hawk all day….

While the gettin’s good…

February 6, 2012 by scillagrace

All of our snow seems to be falling on Europe this year, so we’re going to seize the opportunity to do some spring hiking in February! “Let’s get while the gettin’s good!”, as they say. (They who? Not really sure who says this any more…)

Here are some early spring photos from my walks this weekend:

First robin in a ginko tree

Red-tailed hawk feathers

Fertile farmland

Blue and gold (for Helen)

Enjoy the white stuff, my friends across the pond! I’m going mud walking!

Photo Essay: County Grounds

February 5, 2012 by scillagrace

The Milwaukee County Grounds are steeped in civic history. The insane asylum, the poor farm and the tuberculosis sanatorium were all situated here in the early 1900s. The government took on some additional responsibility for “the poor, the destitute and the marginalized” by creating four cemeteries in the area, alternately known as “The Poor Farm Cemetery”, “The Almshouse Cemetery” or “Potter’s Field”. Today, the buildings are crumbling, the cemeteries are marked with plaques, and the grounds are frequented by hikers and dogs. There is a monarch butterfly trail that has been carefully maintained by volunteers and the park district has taken over one building there for offices, but the future of this area is uncertain at best. There is talk of power lines and park development as well as commercial development. The land lies adjacent to a 6 lane freeway, the medical center complex, and a water reclamation plant. For now, it is the only open land that I can walk to from my house, yet it maintains a ghostly connection to its civic past. I often try to overlook the traces of the human community there and photograph only wildlife. Yesterday, though, I decided to open my eyes to whole of it. Here are some visuals:

Playing Chess with Death

February 4, 2012 by scillagrace

Last night, I watched Ingmar Bergman’s film “The Seventh Seal”. There’s nothing like hitting a gray mood smack on the head with a black & white film about Death! Yargh! Into the breach, mates….

First of all, the photography. Beach scenes, faces, clouds and silhouettes, clean, stark, intense. They just put me in a mood to ponder dark and light without looking away. Bring it!

Characters. One of the questions Steve always asks after we watch a film together is “which character do you think is most like you?” The characters in this film are icons of human stereotypes, in a way, but rather like the roles in a medieval morality play. The knight is questing, always. He wants to know and understand; his intellect is never satisfied. Steve has a lot of that in him. Jof, the juggler, is a childlike observer. He is easy-going and happy, and he has visions. He sees with his heart and doesn’t understand why others don’t see what he does, but he doesn’t preach about his visions, he writes songs about them. I think Steve has some of that in him, too. I identify with Jof myself. The squire is shrewd, ironic, confident and direct. He seems very grounded in his ego. There are some other players, more simply drawn: the actor, the cuckold smith and his loose wife, Jof’s young wife and their baby, a silent girl who attaches to the squire, a witch and of course…Death.

How each of these folks engage with Death is fertile ground for the imagination. If you’re questing, trying to find answers, strategically engaging Death in a game of chess, what is the lesson you are likely to learn? That Death doesn’t have any answers, but he’s going to win the game. And how would you take that? It makes me think of my younger days, when I was in the throes of religious fervor, convinced that I was learning the big answers to the most important questions. I wrote terribly pretentious poetry and harbored judgments about everything. I thought I was going to “figure it all out” eventually. That was after Death’s first visit to me, and before his second. I had a few close calls in between that made me think I might be on the right track. His re-appearance convinced me that I wasn’t really onto anything. So, the questions remain. I like how the knight gets increasingly comfortable with inviting Death to sit down and join him. He learns a few things, he postpones the inevitable, he diverts Death’s attention away from his friends for a while, and he even shows Death that he can be happy while they play. I am learning from his example.

The scariest part of the film is the depiction of fear itself. The wailing and flailing and pleading for mercy is utterly desperate and triggers all kinds of panicky feelings in me as I watch. I do NOT want to slide into that. That’s the worst evil in the film. Those people are being tortured and destroyed from the inside out. It gives me the shivers! This is a great example for me, too. I don’t have to engage with Death in this manner. I have other options.

The storm scene reminded me of a camping trip we took one spring. After a balmy evening, a thunderstorm rolled in from across the hills to the west. The sun had set and it grew quite dark, but just over the ridge, the lightning blazed up like bombs in a great war. It was like watching a WWII movie, all black and white explosions in the distance. And we were the only campers in the park, in a little nylon tent. I was kind of scared. I thought about doing the “safe and prudent” thing, striking camp and driving away. Steve asked me, “Why?” Well, because something bad could happen! Bad like what? We could get wet. We could get hit by a falling tree or lightning. We could, but it’s not highly likely. We could just watch it and see what we learn. And we can always get in the car, too, if we want.

So we stayed. We did get wet. We eventually went to the car. We went home the next day. But we saw the most amazing light show and felt the wind and heard the rain fall on every surface with a different sound. And we experienced it together, present, honest, alive. Take that, Fear! Check!

Four Years Ago Today

February 3, 2012 by scillagrace

I’m feeling rather gray and gloomy today, like the motionless monochrome sky. I went out with wet hair, first to breakfast with Steve’s mom, then to do laundry at the laundromat, then to the grocery store. I feel thoroughly chilled. I think my hair is still wet. Yet, there’s no snow on the ground, so I can’t really blame the weather. It’s still far from wintry…not like it was, say, four years ago…

Four years ago, there was a snow storm. Four years ago, the Super Bowl was on. Four years ago, my husband was in the hospital.

I could give you the whole background history on his medical odyssey, but it would come out dry and clinical. What I’m feeling now is more surreal. Let’s just say that he was in the cardiac wing, waiting to be stabilized enough for surgery. Waiting. Like waiting for Godot. There was no sense of time after a few days. Doctors would come and go and offer conjectures and imagine scenarios. I got the feeling that I should simply camp out with him and see what happened. So I did.

My husband was a sports fan, and the Super Bowl game was a big party occasion on our calendar most years. During the regular football season, we’d watch games together on Sunday afternoons and nap through a good chunk of them. I can enjoy the game and root for the underdog or a sentimental favorite, and usually Jim would fill me in on some of the finer points of strategy or history. I guess you could say we were companionable about it. Jim watched a lot of TV in his later years, and in the hospital, there’s not much else to do. “Camped out in the cardiac wing” meant that during visiting hours, you could find me squeezed in next to him on the bed, cranked up in sitting position, watching whatever was on the box suspended from the ceiling. But I thought the Big Game should be more festive. So I asked the nurses if we could watch it from the visitor’s lounge on the floor, on the big screen, and invite a friend or two. They gave their permission.

It wasn’t a party. It was just me, Jim and one of our church friends who stopped by for a while. I brought a couple of coolers with snacks and drinks. I got in trouble for bringing beer. Not that Jim was drinking it, but I guess it was against some rule, because a nurse came by and told me I couldn’t have it there. Jim was comfortably situated in one of the lounge chairs with his IV pole and beepy-thing beside him. We were in clear view of the nurses’ station the whole time. A few other hospital visitors peeked in periodically, but mostly, we were alone. Our friend Dave told us that there was a huge snowstorm outside. Toward the end of the game, we actually lost power for a while. When it was over, it was past visiting hours, and I was concerned about digging my car out of the parking lot and driving home, so I packed up my coolers and kissed Jim good-bye pretty quickly. Three days later, he had his surgery. Ten days after that, he was dead.

I found out today that the two teams that are in the Super Bowl this year are the same two teams that played four years ago today. They will play on Sunday. And I won’t be watching. I haven’t watched a football game in a long time. We don’t even have a TV.

Life changes. Waiting only lasts a while. Those days, suspended in gray like a snowflake, drift down slowly, but eventually, they evaporate, and something else takes their place.

I’m okay with that…I think… Yeah. I’m okay.

Trees’ Company

February 2, 2012 by scillagrace

I took a walk yesterday; it’s still un(r/s)easonably warm. One thing I like about this little residential cell in greater Milwaukee is the number of trees. Here are some shots:

From the ground up: roots...

...trunk...

...branches.

Sadly, sometimes all that’s left of a great tree is a footprint.

Have you hugged a tree today? Thanked one for matching breaths with you? Photographed one for Earth’s Family Album?

A Bigger World

February 1, 2012 by scillagrace

I’ve been thinking lately about my ego and my mood cycle. Two days ago, I wrote “I feel that expansive, fecund, open sense bubbling up in me, settling me down, inviting me to nurture and set free. Then, a while later, I feel a feisty urge to grab hold and wrestle with my circumstances and force them to conform to some idea in my brain.” Right now, I’m in the restless part of my cycle, and my ego is eager to get to work on something. It gives me a sort of shimmering sense of dissatisfaction, not like something is “wrong”, but like I’ve been sitting too long and want to stretch. I don’t want to get into the habit of simply indulging my ego with any old thing whenever it prods me, though. Steve often talks of feeling like he’s “treading water”, too. He told me this morning that he wanted to work on “pointing his canoe”, which is his metaphor for re-establishing direction and putting energy into venturing forward, so I asked him if he uses some kind of ego energy to address that. He said, “It’s not like that. It’s more like gathering your courage and discipline to step into a bigger world. I think the ego is a smaller world.”

I immediately got my pencil and notebook and wrote that down.

A bigger world. A world that is beyond me, beyond my control, beyond prediction. A bigger concentric circle. I do think we tend to pull back into our tiny, lower-case universe, the one where we feel safe and comfortable and powerful. We can’t really help that tendency, but we can acknowledge it and try to point our canoe in a different direction. I am really inspired by people who do that, and through the network of blogging, I have met a few who I think are paddling away. Maybe they’re not the people you’re thinking of. They aren’t the extreme sportsmen. They aren’t the world travelers. They aren’t the social superstars. They are the suffering, the ones who have met their limitations and crossed into the unknown. They blog about living with their illness, their addiction, their recovery, their brain damage in a way that definitely requires them to gather courage and discipline and step into a bigger world, a world which they don’t master. And sometimes they whine, and sometimes their posts are incredibly boring, but I keep visiting them because I think they are truly onto something. I suppose that I am hoping to witness their breakthrough flight, when they will soar high above the rest of us into that bigger world of awareness. I’m not sure what that will look like, but maybe I’ll recognize it anyway.

I am working on writing a memoir on my husband’s illness and death. Four years ago, he had his last surgery.

The story of how he came out of anesthesia is perhaps a glimpse into that bigger world. My oldest daughter wrote about it in her Live Journal that evening:

“When I saw him after the surgery, painkillers and low blood sugar had rendered him almost completely unresponsive. We tried everything—tickling him, turning his insulin pump off, talking to him, poking him—but the most we could get from him was a groan or a slight shift of position. I told him I was pregnant. Mom said they’d called a rematch of the Super Bowl. I even took a picture of him, threatening, I think, to mock him with it later. Nothing made any difference until I had to leave for work. I squeezed his arm and said “Bye, Dad. I love you,” and in a sleepy, submerged-sounding voice, he said “Love you.” We couldn’t get him to say or do anything else, but every time someone said “I love you,” he would immediately mumble it back.”

So, I think of Jim, hovering somewhere between consciousness and death and knowing only one response: “I love you”. This is the Universe you don’t control.

Unbelievable, Unseasonal

January 31, 2012 by scillagrace

So, here it is, the last day of January in Wisconsin, and the temperature is….53 degrees Fahrenheit?!

Global warming is no hoax.

One of my Nature in the Parks programs for tomorrow was postponed because parents felt that the first of February would be too cold to send their darling children outside for a field trip. They re-scheduled for the 29th of February. What do you want to bet that tomorrow will be about 20 degrees warmer than the temperature by the end of the month? Of course, you never know. But don’t you think kids are resilient enough to be allowed to go outside every day of the year? They pull on their snow pants, and they’re as protected as if they were wearing bubble wrap! And they love it! They dive headlong into any accumulated snow just so that they can bounce back!

Today’s group at the Wehr Nature Center didn’t go outside because they were doing the Skylab unit under the big inflated planetarium dome. But I went out on the trails. Here are some shots: