Author: alejna

haiku acrostic, acrostic haiku

Here are two short poems:
1.

Hallmarks of these lines comprise
Allusion, evocation and expression
Impressions of nature and sensation
Kept short in sound, long in symbol
Using a constrained scheme

2.

planted rows of words
reveal another pattern
sprouting in the fore

A couple of days ago, I solicited suggestions and requests for things to post to help blow me out of my blogging doldrums, and said that I would respond to them in the order received. Sally was first in line and gave a lovely list of suggestions.¹ First on her list was a request for either a haiku or an acrostic. As you may well be aware, it is often hard for me to choose one or the other when “both” seems an equally valid choice. So I decided to do one of each form, but made each one be about the other type.

Craving more? I seem to have a shocking shortage of haiku in my archives, but I was terribly tickled that Ally Bean recently composed a haiku for/about me². You should go read it.

I did once make another acrostic, which was also rather meta. I’ve played around with other poetry forms, too, usually in response to a Monday Mission³. You can find a tanka, and another tanka in the form of a tanga, as
well as a villanelle (about pants). To see other less structured instantiations of my bad poetry, check out my tag “bad poetry.” I find such exercises fun, given my general love of playing with words.

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¹ Up next, I will probably hit the first item off the next commenter’s list, and then run through the commenters a second time for their next items on their lists. If you have not already done so, I’d love a comment from you on my last post to suggest another post theme. The more the merrier!
² It was as a prize for getting an answer right in one of her posts.
³ Monday Missions are a now-dormant group blogging activity that I enjoyed.

in no particular order

I have been struggling to decide what to post. It’s not that I have any shortage of things to post. Just the opposite. I have too many photos I want to share, too many stories. But when I find time when I could conceivably put together a post, I spin. I come up with reasons to not post each particular thing, at least right at that particular time. There are two many photos of this set. I have too much to say about that story, and not enough time to write it. These photos are now months out of date. (Who wants to see Christmas photos now? Or Halloween ones, for that matter?) I’m saving those photos for a theme I have in mind. (But I never get around to running with that theme.) I sometimes wish I had some method for deciding what to post when. That’s probably why I have participated in the Friday Foto Finder thingy, and used to love things like the Monday Missions¹ and other group blogging activities. For that matter, this is why I kept up the Themed Things Thursday for so long. Such bits of structure make it feel a bit like there is a reason for my rhyme. (Or a rhyme to my reason?)

I know that it doesn’t have to be that way. This is my personal space, and I can post whatever, whenever. Lately, though, it feels like my posts are more like “never” than “whenever.”

So, would you (whoever you are) like to help out? Leave a question or a request or a suggestion or even just a word in the comments, and I will post something in response. In the order of comments received.²

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¹ This is a now-defunct blogging activity whereby a host would select a format or style (like a real estate ad, a course description, or campaign coverage) for participants to use for a post. I just looked back through my archive with the Monday Mission tag, and these were some of my funniest posts, if I do say so myself. And I do say so myself. I seriously crack myself up!

² I don’t, however, promise that what I will post will necessarily make any sense to anyone who is not me.

interpreting Jack Frost’s cryptic scrawls on my car

When the weather turns cold, but the snow isn’t falling, any remaining drops of humidity in the air get applied to whatever surfaces are left exposed outside. While it sometimes looks like my car has been draped a sheer but sparkly fabric in the morning, other times the frost appears in lines and shapes that resemble hieroglyphics. I don’t always know what to make of these weird drawings and cryptic messages.

Yesterday when I got in the car, there was a thin, long white zig-zagging line across my windshield, and I thought for sure that the windshield had cracked, but it turned out to be another one of the frost’s practical jokes: the apparent crack wiped away with a finger tip.

Here is a collection of some of the insane ramblings that Jack Frost has inscribed on the surfaces of my car.

This bit looked like the start of a spiderweb, or maybe the beginnings of some sort of dastardly plot.

These bits look like someone was at work with an Etch-a-Sketch.

Who can say what was meant by this:

I wished I could have gotten the phone’s camera to focus better, but I was cold. But I thought the message looked important.

Dire warnings written on the tail light?

A treasure map drawn on my rear window?

I’ll let you know if I am ever able to decode this.

Has Jack Frost been leaving you cryptic messages as well?

first flakes of a snowstorm (friday foto finder: beginning)

The past month has been a blur of activity. Or, I suppose, given the subject of these photos, a “flurry of activity” would be a better fit. Deadlines. Holidays. Deadlines. Festivities. Deadlines. And lots and lots of baking. It’s hard to know even where to start. Happily, this week’s friday foto finder theme of beginning gave me a thought of where to dig in.

These first 3 photos are all crops of one photo that I took at the very beginning of a snowstorm we had a couple of weeks ago. I was out with Phoebe at a concert a friend of hers was performing in, and the first flakes of a big predicted storm started to fall as we watched the show. When we left, the snow had just started to collect here and there. We admired the flakes that had gathered on the ledge of the car window, and naturally I grabbed my phone to take a photo.

The conditions were just right such that the big, fluffy flakes maintained their crystalline form, even after landing. Sadly, I hadn’t remembered to bring my real camera. (Not that I would have had much time, as we were in somewhat of a hurry to get home.)

I keep hoping to see more snowflakes like these, but the snow we have had since hasn’t measured up. Our current snow, for example was so cold that the flakes that landed appeared to be just tiny shards of shattered flakes, with no evidence of intricate symmetry. Other snow has fallen wet and mixed with rain.


The beginnings of yesterday’s snow were much less dramatic to see. These tiny flaky bits were seen on our porch rail. I took this photo with a lens extender, but even the macro shot didn’t reveal any six-sided wonders.

To see what other beginnings are to be seen, drift over to the fff blog.fff 200x602

an eclectic row of hedges (friday foto finder: hedge)

This week’s friday foto finder challenge was to share photos on the theme of hedge. Around here, there is plenty of shrubbery and such in the landscaping, but it’s not so common for the bushes to be arranged in hedges. Of course, the term hedging my bets came to mind, but that didn’t generate any photos either. I found myself checking out the definition of hedge for inspiration:

From Dictionary.com¹

hedge [hej] Show IPA noun, verb, hedged, hedg·ing.
noun
1. a row of bushes or small trees planted close together, especially when forming a fence or boundary; hedgerow: small fields separated by hedges.
2. any barrier or boundary: a hedge of stones.
3. an act or means of preventing complete loss of a bet, an argument, an investment, or the like, witha partially counterbalancing or qualifying one.

I didn’t particularly remember taking any photos of hedges, but I thought surely I must have, especially during my travels. I did find quite a few samples, which I’ve lined up here in a row for your perusal. (Though really, this is more of a column of hedge photos than a row of them.) (I also wonder if some of the towering French examples still count as hedges. I suppose that I am hedging my bets by showing so many varied examples.)


2007: Le Jardin des Plantes (“The garden of plants”), Paris, France. A range of hedge sizes can be seen, including some that are rows of not-so-small trees.


2007: The gardens of the Palace of Versailles, France. Off in the distance, you can see what look like rows of box hedges. But I think the tiny specks in front of them are people, so there’s no way they are “small trees.” They are gigantic. The mother-of-all-box-hedges gigantic.


2007: Saarbrücken, Germany. I liked this leafy gate, which enticingly showed glimpses of a hedge maze behind it. (Attempts to photograph said hedge maze in the fading light with the little point-and-shoot I used at the time were blurrily unsuccessful. Here they are, tiny so as to hide the blur:


2009: Parc Güell, Barcelona. Swarms of tourists swarm over a stairway in front of a pretty unremarkable hedge.


2009: Alcázar, in Sevilla, Spain. Judging from my photos, Alcázar is chock full of hedges, some of them quite striking. Funny how they didn’t stick in my memory.


2009: Again in Alcázar, in Sevilla, Spain. These hedges were a bit more unruly.


2012: at MIT, Cabridge, MA. Finally, here’s a hedge that’s closer to home. I’m pretty sure I was looking more at the willow trees, whose dangling strands looked remarkably even at the bottom, reminding me of freshly-trimmed bangs.

To see what hedges others have lined up, and share your own, pay a visit to the fff blog.
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¹ This citation of Dictionary.com made me think of this article: “If everyone still wrote like they did in college.”²
² Of course, when I was an undergrad, there was no Dictionary.com. We had to cite a freakin’ dictionary. Like, a book.³
³ I feel like such an old fart. Imagine me saying, in my best crotchety old man voice, “Back in my day, we didn’t have the internets or wikipedia or this dot com nonsense. We had to dig our references out of the fields by hand, with nothing but spade and card catalog.”

substantially insubstantial

30 days and 30 posts in, this month has flown by. Unlike in years past, I found it quite easy to post daily. The reason for this was likely that, beyond the act of daily posting, I had no particular goals for NaBloPoMo this year. The downside to this comparative ease is that I don’t much feel like I posted much of substance. I was happy to post a number of photo sets that I had been saving in my digital hoard, and I had a few things to say here and there with more words, but I didn’t find myself sharing more of the stories that have been buzzing around in my head that first prompted me to start a blog in the first place. Those stories take time, and time isn’t something I’ve had in abundance this month. In spite of this lightness of post content, though, I still feel fairly satisfied. Having the daily creative outlet, and this commitment to doing something daily that is purely for my own enjoyment, has actually been more satisfying than I might have expected. I am sorely tempted to continue in this commitment to daily blogging–if not actually putting up a post every day, at least spending a bit of time each day working on a post.

This was a photo I took on November 30, 2010, taken during my participation in Project 365, a commitment to taking photographs daily.

photos of a burned-out mill (friday foto finder: factory)

In this part of New England, the textile industry once dominated. In the towns around where I live can be seen many an old mill. Many of the mills are now abandoned, others have been converted to new uses. This particular mill was once a yarn mill, but in recent decades had been converted to space for dozens of small businesses. About 6 years ago, the whole mill complex was largely destroyed in a fire. The fire started in the middle of the night, so happily there were no casualties. But the businesses were destroyed, and many lost their jobs and livelihood. (It particularly saddens me to think of the many artists who had studios in the mill, who undoubtedly lost years worth of artwork.)

All these years later, the mill is still a burned-out shell. Much of the debris and rubble was cleared out, but large sections of the structures still stand. Here are some photos that I’ve taken on a few different occasions over the past year.


The smoke stack has been converted into a cell phone tower. I vaguely remember that this happened after the fire.


The shell of the rather ostentatious columned façade.


A sign on the fence remaining from before the fire: “No smoking beyond this point.”


I find it a bit eerie to see that remnants of the landscaping survived the fire. Here are some ornamental trees and a hydrangea bush, in their late fall but otherwise healthy states.


I found the striped shadows of these exposed rafters to be quite striking.


A different angle on those shadows, and zoomed in a bit. (Hence the graininess.)


The façade does look very imposing against the fiery colors of a dramatic sunset.

This week’s foto finder challenge was to share photos on the theme of “factory.” To see what other sorts of factories others have found, pay a visit to the fff blog.
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Harvest Home

With the big changes that have happened in our family this past year have come smaller changes. For as long as I can remember, we have spent Thanksgiving down at my in-laws’ in New York.¹ It seems quite likely that we have never before had Thanksgiving here in our own house.

This year, as I said, things changed. Since she is no longer taking care of my father-in-law full-time, my mother-in-law is now free to travel. John’s siblings, who all 3 live in Texas for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, invited their mom to spend Thanksgiving in Texas. This meant that, amazingly, we had no plans to travel ourselves for Thanksgiving. We would have the holiday at home.

While I have enjoyed the times visiting my in-laws for Thanksgiving, I was quite happy about the idea of staying home. I usually do all the cooking for our subset of the family for Thanksgiving anyhow, so that part was not a change. I was particularly happy about the idea of using our own dining room, and using our good china.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of holiday meals at my grandmother’s house. She had an extensive collection of china and serving ware, from a variety of family sources. The china cabinet covered one whole wall of the dining room in her house, with floor-to ceiling shelves hidden away by 3 wooden sliding doors. Setting the table with the fancy dishes was something of a cross between a ceremony and a reunion with much loved friends.

My children will never get to visit my grandmother’s house, but I am quite taken with the idea of starting the tradition of the holiday table here at home with them. (Holiday meals at my in-laws’ had become increasingly simplified and informal in recent years, with dinners typically eaten up in my in-laws’ bedroom at a card table.)

Today, we spent time clearing the dining room of the detritus of various projects, and we set the table in earnest: heirloom linen table cloth, cloth table runner and napkins, glass goblets, special silver, and candles. And, of course, the good china. We donned our fancy clothes and celebrated our bounty and our thankfulness for our family and our home.


The spread. Phoebe is here wearing a dress that had been my sister’s in the late 70s, and then my cousin’s.


Our turkey-less turkey day feast: Tofurkey with roasted root vegetables, stuffing, green beans. Not shown in this photo: fresh baked bread, cranberry sauce that Phoebe made, and mashed potatoes. Everyone participated in the preparation of the meal.


Our feast wasn’t entirely turkey-free: Phoebe made this little guy to grace our table.


Ready to dig in.


My pie. (With a rather sad frozen gluten-free crust, but the pumpkin part was very tasty.)

Hours later, I am still feeling full. And also rather fulfilled.²

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¹ There may have been a few years when my work schedule interfered. I vaguely remember working Thanksgiving the one year I worked as a waitress, and then it’s possible that it was sometimes hard to travel on the day before Black Friday in the years I worked in retail. But even that was a long time ago, as I quit my retail job almost 14 years ago.
² But also somewhat daunted by the thought of all the hand-washing of fragile and heirloom dishes that is yet to be done.

5 photos of imperfect leaves

If you thought I was done posting photos of fall leaves, you were wrong. But this time, there’s a twist: not all of these leaves are fall leaves. Some of them are from this spring and summer.

In each of these photos, it was the holes that caught my eye. As is so often the case, it is the imperfections that lend character. I find it funny that while we seem to often strive for perfection, flaws and irregularities can be more interesting and appealing.