between cobblestones

I think of it as chamomile but have no idea what it really is. I've seen it growing in various places around the park, looking like an aquatic plant shyly masquerading as a terrestrial one. Here it's mixed in with the heart-shaped pods of Sherherd's Purse.

animals in heaven

On Tuesday I returned from Maine where we buried my grandmother on Raymond Cape. My little one and I took the train back here from Rhode Island, following the tracks that run along the Connecticut shoreline. It was very foggy so we often looked up to a view of pure milk, nothing visible except a few pilings under hints of enormous, invisible bridges. I dozed off and for a second entered some light-filled paradise which reminded me of vignettes I'd seen modeled inside scallop shells as a child, the silica encrusted castle of the Sea Horse King. I heard a voice say "she's really enjoying the animals here," which caused me to imagine my grandmother restored to her prime delighting in all the exotic, docile and extraordinary animals groomed by angels in heaven's stables, because how could there ever be a heaven without animals?

She had died the previous Thursday, my sister had called to tell me she wasn't doing well a little before I had to go pick up my kids from school. I was pretty upset so it seemed best to walk, and when I reached Prospect Park Southwest was amazed to see an enormous and immaculatley dapper raccoon ambling in the middle of the sidewalk. For some reason my dog didn't bark at it, and it slowly made its way back in through the park's wrought iron fence and up a silvery grey tree trunk a few feet beyond, it's grey belly blanching to white against the small tree's smooth bark.

It struck me as unusual to see a raccoon in the afternoon so I checked the clock to see what time it was. Later I found out it had appeared at the same moment my grandmother found the breach that leads from this world to the next. In all the years I've lived here, I've never seen a raccoon, although I've heard about plenty of the trouble they've caused. Of all the moments to finally see one. It was good company for a difficult moment. Life without animals is unimaginable, and so is death.

gems of bad weather

Binding in the Stragglers

In his remarkable treasure "All Things Being Equal" Chuang Tzu tells an exemplary tale of two men who met their ends by opposite means; one by having all his focus on his internal state, to the extent that he didn't see the approaching tiger that ate him, and another so focused on externals that he didn't recognize the disease that ate him from the inside out.

This parable came to mind when I was teaching my daughter to braid Challah last Saturday at Kolot; as you probably know, that's how you make a braid, you keep returning alternating stragglers back to the center. It seems nature itself is always trying to find a balance, and our bodies are constantly and imperceptibly making small adjustments to keep us in the best possible state of comfort and wellbeing, as best it can. Fullness and emptiness, activity and rest, focus and diffusion, standing and lying down, joy and pain take turns bringing us to a stable center just as last week's beautiful weather has given way to these days of rain. The braiding is a kind of dance that we are always a part of, a weave that wends through the stream of our lives. You could say this dance is the constant. It brings to mind the squaredance I attended last Friday, especially the part where each individual weaves her way around the circle taking the hands of each other individual who comes along. No one is left out, and the weave is immaculate. It wasn't meant to be anything but a good time but I can't help but observe that it was also a beautiful ceremony paying homage to nature's constant, the creation of metabolic, psychological and social balance.

Honestly, I can't say enough about Chuang Tzu in regards to the clarity of his thought, the seeds of beauty in his wisdom or the poetry of his language, and I can't say enough about the anagogy of the squaredance, and who could ever say enough about Challah?

a little creepy?

Some strange ball hung between the prongs of our metal fence. On close inspection it turned out to be.... a ball of baby spiders!
Maybe they bundle together like that for warmth, or maybe they are all listening to story spun by a nanny in the center of the ball. It's a little like the volvox form in another language.

There seemed to be neither egg sac or mother in the vicinity. A little web surfing reveals that a Garden Spider like this is their mama.

sheen on a leaf

Since the branch suspended the leaves at eye level I was able to notice the copper that glazed their topsides. Surprise!

Thanks to the litter mob that manicured the Midwood so thoroughly this week, I'm sure the forest appreciates it even if those that toss their refuse on the ground hardly notice.

freshly cut keys

Maples do get busy early.

fig leaf & angle parking

At the Community Board 7 meeting Tuesday night I got to watch the DOT representative tear the proposed angle parking plan in two pieces in front of an audience of neighborhood residents very much opposed to the plan. It was a relief. I'm relieved for the residents of the West side of 11th Ave. who would have had people's exhaust pipes fuming their homes and people backing up towards the sidewalk where children play, but even more relieved for those on the East side of the street who would have lost the parallel parking zone which now serves as a buffer against the traffic speeding down the street. But what will we do about that God forsaken corner of 19th and 11th, a de facto ramp for the expressway, where pedestrians take their lives in their hands whenever they cross? How many automobile accidents have I seen there since we moved in? For a while there it seemed like a weekly event.

round the hood