Tall wave crashes
over cold cement wall
sun pierces through
Cold water floods
across weathered cement
sun sparkling blinds
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Magic Hedge
Montrose Bird Sanctuary has become a favorite Sunday morning destination for me. Used to waking up early, I have often jumped on my bike and headed toward "the lake" before my family awoke.
Despite being a high traffic area, the bird sanctuary still retains it's wildness. I enjoy it's immediate proximity to Lake Michigan.
The lake serves as a nice reminder that the world is much bigger than so my hectic daily busyness. In this way it helps me to relax.
I like to witness the natural energy that is latent in this wild area. The way the sand has been eroded from the edges of the matted grassy area strikes me.
This early in the morning, there are usually a few birders out and about. Apparently Montrose Bird Sanctuary is nicknamed the "Magic Hedge" because most of Illinois' species of birds have been sited passing through this area. Trolling around the internet, I was also surprised to find out that this area had once been the site of a Cold War missile launching site!?!? Yikes... Regardless, I enjoy the early morning kinship of seeing other people, such as the birders, at the "Magic Hedge."
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Playing Ketchup!
This is fun, going through my pictures - my stories, my journal. A year's worth of notes and observations.
In Art School, a stellar professor one day outlined the different types of photographers. One type was the ones who used their pictures as "windows". I knew instantly I was this type.
In the worst sense, art is artificial - a sad way of living life by avoiding it. In the best sense, art is a way of communing with the world, life. To love something is to want to know it, explore it, experience it.
This is a picture of my bicycle from February of this year, 2011. I took a picture of the porteur bars before I removed them to try drop bars. Before these, I had used Nitto "Moustache" bars, though it was on a different frame. I never went back to the Moustache bars. Recently I picked up the wider Moustache bars and I felt like I was steering a tractor. The porteur bars are narrower, and more elegant in feel. You cold easily use the wider part of the bar if you were to stand up to pedal hard. Having my hands in the bends felt nice. This allowed my finger tips to rest on the ends of the brake levers, should I need to brake suddenly - as so often happens in this city of ours...
In the end, I found I loved the vertical hand position of the dropped bars so much more. I was also surprised to find that the more forward position of the dropped bars shifted my torso forward and put less weight on the slim Brooks saddle. Not only was this more comfortable, but I also started using the next higher gear, with no added effort!
Wild Child Nature...
...from the creativity of my daughter, an undulating display of limbs and digits. We are not separate from nature. We are nature, too.
Little Village Hawk
Here is another Wild Chicago Surprise - a bird of prey.
We joked at my school that it was our mascot - the hawk. Hawk seems to be a general term for birds of prey around here. In reality, I think it is a type of falcon. I saw the "hawk" again a few days later - this time in front of our actual school! Alas, I was on the third floor and did not have my phone/camera handy.
BTW, it's the grey thing in the middle, laying claim to a pigeon...
Winter Tomato
In one of my past lives I was a tomato farmer, I'm sure of it.
Recently, when I downloaded the pictures from my phone to the computer, I found this tomato plant. I took it on November 23rd, 2010. It was a brisk November day. But there it was - growing up between the sidewalk, blossoms and all.
Tomatoes are in the nightshade family, same as potatoes. Tomatoes can live a long life, because they come from South America. As we know, near the equator it stays summer year round. One tomato plant I had in a large pot lived for two and half years. When I finally unraveled it, it was a good fifteen feet long. The only reason it died was because I let it. Two weeks before the school year started, my teaching job went into hiatus. So it wasn't watered for a week and died. To tell you the truth, I was kind of relieved. I tend to have too many things going on...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)