Once again, I forgot to post yesterday. It was a long day of activity, ending with a trip up to Maryland for a visit to a close friend from high school. I fly back home tomorrow. After several days of lots and lots of walking, it was nice to have a day mostly sitting around today. On that note, here is a photo I took yesterday of some people sitting around on benches in the Hirshhorn museum sculpture garden in DC.
Oops. I apparently completely forgot to post yesterday. What with leaving home before 4 in the morning, travelling, meeting up with and hanging out with my sister, then rushing to get some work done for a couple of deadlines, I went to sleep with apparently nary a thought for my poor blog. It was only this evening as we poked our heads into a Tibetan shop that I reflected on my post mentioning the Tibetan prayer wheel that I realized that a whole day had passed since I’d last posted.
Anyhow, I took a ton of photos yesterday, but will only share a few for now. 1) a duck and 2) the neighborhood where we are staying and 3) my “office” where I worked last night (in the upper bunk of the room in the hostel/hotel where I am staying with my sister.)
Tomorrow will be another full day. I’ll have more time with my sister, and then will head up to Maryland to visit a friend from high school. (So we’ll see if I remember to post.)
I shouldn’t stay up too much later, as I have an early flight. I’m meeting up with my sister in DC for a few days, and then visiting a friend in Maryland. I have to get on the road for the airport before 4 a.m., which just doesn’t seem right. I’m still packing, which turns out to be a challenge, because I apparently need to pack for multiple seasons. It looks like there will be some nice weather a couple of days, but when I head home Monday morning, there may be freezing temperatures.
Speaking of not being sure how to dress for the season, I noticed this small tree displaying some wardrobe confusion yesterday. Note the spring-like blossoms. And the fall foliage. On the same tree. (See the little springy rosy blossom buds peeking out from behind the autumnal yellow leaf?) I feel you, little tree.
I’ll hopefully still remember to post while I’m away. I have a lot of work to get done, too.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had nightmares about missing an election. Happily, there were no impediments to me casting my vote today. It’s been a hard day to focus on work, feeling like the future is in the balance. In spite of that, I was fairly productive.
I woke up extra early today, hoping to catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse. I set the alarm for 5, and somehow woke up before the alarm. I bundled up and went outside in the dark to look for the moon. After some wandering the yard and up towards the street, I came to the conclusion that the moon was too low on the horizon for me to see from our heavily wooded neighborhood. I was not motivated to go out driving by myself to seek out higher ground. Eventually, the sky lightened and turned to pink with the sunrise, and I went in to drink my morning tea and do the crossword puzzle.
It’s been a long, long day. I know that most of the country’s election results won’t be in for quite a few hours (if not days) yet. However, I’ve already seen the fantastic news that Maura Healey has been declared governor of Massachusetts. So at least there is some good news to hold on to.
So, I’m off to bed.
My grandmother was a remarkable woman, and her home was full of remarkable things that she’d accumulated during her many trips visiting far off lands. In my mind’s eye, I can still see many of the items laid out with care in her house: on the mantle, the bookshelves, and various end tables. One fascinating and beautiful object was a handheld Tibetan prayer wheel. It had a cylinder of metal worked with intricate patterns, which was mounted on a wooden handle such that the cylinder could spin. It had a little chain with a bead attached to the cylinder, so that when you spun the cylinder, it would make the little beaded chain click and clack. My grandmother explained that there were prayers written inside the cylinder, and that when you spun the wheel, these prayers were released into the universe, over and over again. I would think about this, as I spun the wheel, and listened to the clickety clack of the bead. I would imagine the prayers flying out from the wheel and out into the world.
I thought of this object, as I wrote postcard after postcard in the last few months. Writing the cards was meditative and soothing to me, channeling my energy into the messages. I felt a little like writing the messages was a bit of a prayer released into the universe. Little wishes that our democracy will stay strong, and that our future will be one of hope. I would repeat these mantras to myself, as my pens scratched out messages on card after card. I sent these messages off into the universe (as well as off into the US postal service).
Tonight, on the eve of another momentous US election, there isn’t much more work I can do. So I will continue to send off more wishes that our democracy will hold strong, and that people will show up across the country to make their voices heard.
Shortly after I posted last night (hitting the publish button at 11:59 p.m. or so), I headed to get ready for bed. I started by removing the necklace that I had chosen to wear. As I looked down at the pendant in my hand, the stone evoked the image of the slice of blood orange I had just shared in my post minutes earlier.
It was the first time I’d worn it, after getting it for myself last year. It had caught my eye at a local artisan market. Its sunny yellow called to me on a gray rainy day. (Probably also not a coincidence that sunniness attracted me, since I was deeply entrenched in promoting a local clean energy campaign that featured a lot of images of the sun.) I was entranced by the stone, with it’s elaborate repeating pattern looking like tiny flowers or slices of candied lemon. The vendor, who was the artisan who had designed and done the silverwork for the pendant, identified the stone as fossilized coral. I had never come across this before, and I was smitten. It was only a couple of weeks before my fiftieth birthday, so I indulged.
I didn’t do a good job of keeping track of the artist’s name. (Though looking at my Venmo record, I think I found her name. I can’t find a website for her, though.)
Above are more photos of it, with different colored backgrounds. (Left is on top of the marigold-colored velour top I wore it with. At right it’s on top of one of my new notebooks.) I realized that I probably need to put more effort into finding good light for taking photos of jewelry.
On a completely different note, I am stressed about the upcoming midterm elections. I have not been as closely involved with any campaigns this season. I had imagined that I would be doing some sort of campaign work, such as holding signs or canvassing. But in the end, I haven’t. I came close a few times, but ultimately I decided that I need to conserve my energy. I have a lot on my plate now, with multiple research projects, as well as substantially increased responsibilities in my town government. I’m also still recovering from Covid, and even after more than a month of testing negative, I’m not yet back to 100% and still have a cough when I get tired. I feel like I am making excuses, but I also know that my energy is finite. (It’s a hard truth for me to accept.)
Here I am rushing to post before midnight once again. It’s not that I forgot so much as I have had a busy day.
I just got home from helping a friend to celebrate a big moment in her life. (Namely, her divorce.) She served blood orange sangrias, with slices of blood orange for a garnish. The slice above looked like stained glass to me.
One of the reasons I ran out of time to write today was that I was inspired to make my friend a gift. A number of years ago (where that number is almost 20) I made some gifts for friends writing out messages in morse code using beads. I had big plans to make many more such pieces of jewelry, and stockpiled various tube and oblong beads (needed for the dashes). I spent an inordinate amount of time agonizing about which color scheme to use, and digging through my supplies. And changing my mind several times. And then it turns out I’m out of practice with bending the wire to make the chain, so the whole process took far more time than I expected.
I also neglected to get a decent photo of the finished project. (Namely, a necklace spelling my friend’s name in morse code.) Here are the beads I used: rainbow fluorite tubes (for the dashes), and two sizes of roundish glass beads for the dots and the letter spacers. (See also the finished product in poor lighting, and on an appetizer plate at my friend’s house.)
Only 4 days into November, and I already almost forgot to post. The truth is I’m feeling stretched a little thin and worn around the edges. I have a lot going on, and still somehow feel like there’s more I should be doing, or more I should’ve done. I think this mostly means I’m tired and should get to sleep. I have to get up early and have a long day ahead tomorrow.
So, I fall back to that fall tradition of posting a photo of a leaf instead of staying up later to write. I enjoyed the way this leaf looked as if it were floating. (As well as how it looked a little frayed around the edges.)
It was a long full day, but a good one. I had a bit of a mini-reunion in Boston over lunch with several friends from grad school, as one of them was in town for a conference. I got a bit of work done in the morning, and rounded out the day by watching a web lecture on the state of democracy. During which I doodled, and explored the colors of my new set of 30 gel pens. I determined that they do indeed have 30 separate colors of ink. (See below for color test and 3 stages of doodle. The light for taking photos wasn’t great, so you can’t see the full range in the image. Plus some of the differences are quite subtle.)
collecting tokens 