Eyeglasses | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
The origin of optics goes back 4,000 years to crystals used by ancient Egyptians to — I’m guessing — read jokes. (“Why was the Egyptian kid so confused? His daddy was his mummy.”) Today my #2 stay-put pursuit is reading, mostly news and novels, using the miracle of spectacles. Melted sand shaped to bend light that makes objects appear larger and clearer? In my book that’s (more…)
Cone | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Each day I try to accept the bounty of fallen pine cones as a wind-blown blessing, a gift from God. But those spiky bastards won’t stop littering the yard despite my slow-breath offering of gratitude and oneness. It’s clear that cosmic union only goes so far towards (more…)
Leaf Edge | East Wenatchee, WA | March 2020
These days comfort comes from life-enhancing routines. Stretch, walk, cook, eat, read. Small tasks — scrub, sweep, rake, sow — have become daily highlights. Once rushed; now savored. Sunlight brightens this particular spot, a potted plant, as it likely has for years. But I’ve only noticed it recently, since time (more…)
Planter | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Gardening ranks low on my personal priority list, right below colonoscopy. I never really liked the idea of weeks of watering, weeding, waiting for seedlings when I could easily travel — down the street, across the state — to appreciate flowers, fields, forests, already grown by someone else. Well, shucks, that’s changed. Stay-put protocols now elevate gardening to a high-status activity. It connects us to Mother Earth, to the miracle of seeds, to the pleasure of backyard zucchinis and, Lordy, even more backyard zucchinis. I’m slowly beginning to understand the (more…)
Rinsing A Spoon | East Wenatchee, WA | March 2020
The spoon gets my vote for best all-round dining utensil. You fork fanatics will poke and stab at this assertion until you inevitably admit the obvious: You can eat almost anything with a spoon, but slurping soup with a fork is a painful path to starvation. These thoughts arise while washing dishes in isolation, letting the mind wander even when (more…)
Items of Interest | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
You think our days of isolation are filled with ice cream and tickle fights? No siree. We’ve purged closets and dug up treasures.
Clockwise from upper left:
• A 1969 copy of Spanish artist Francisco Ramo’s “Darwin’s Ape,” a high school graduation gift from my parents.
• Dad’s cap marking his tenure on the USS Silverstein, one of the Navy’s destroyer escorts in the Korean War.
• A souvenir flag from Veterans Day ceremonies in 1980 at Arlington National Cemetery (not related to Dad’s military service).
• An Underwood Five manual typewriter rescued from a Catholic charity shipment to Guatemala and given to me in 1972 by (more…)
Apple | East Wenatchee, WA | March 2020
I’m fascinated by starlight, particularly today’s photons flung from the Sun straight to the stool in our kitchen. In fact, everything rises from such solar energy — the coffee I sip, poodle paws twitching in a dream, Jimmy at the 7-Eleven, an apple in evening’s glow, the virus that jangles our nerves. This illumination from afar connects all of it, all of us. I slip my bare tootsies into (more…)
First Tulip | East Wenatchee, WA | March 2020
One escape from disheartening headlines likely blooms in your own backyard. While all seed-born life encapsulates Mystery (a speck expands into the spectacular), flowering plants do it best. Every blossom, a puzzle of complexity, presents a working universe of colors, scents and textures. And behind this mystical mechanism radiates an ephemeral signal to (more…)
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