I took this photo: Friends are good
Little Cat recommends her favorite book.
I took this photo; it needs no explanation.
I took this photo: It’s a bunny rabbit
There was no display of huge teeth or horrible monsterness.
Abandoned buildings have long held intrigue for me. Who built them and why did they leave? Where did the builders come from and how did they get there – were they escaping hardship elsewhere or pursuing the dream of their own land? Did they arrive by wagon train or on foot? Where did they go? Did they die in some tragic pioneer episode – botulism or a massacre? Did the wind or the loneliness drive someone mad enough to murder their family and walk off into the winter? Perhaps a more pleasant scenario, a bachelor farmer married the love of his life and moved to town. Or the family outgrew the honeymoon house and built a new home closer to water or in a more protected location. The possibilities are endless.
Then, of course, there is Monty Python. Yes, I know this sounds like a non-sequitur. Remember in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when they arrive at the cave where the Grail’s location is written on the wall? The cave is guarded by a most horrible monster with huge teeth.
As the knights sneak up to the cave and look upon the entrance they see a rabbit quietly grazing. The knight, aghast at the idea of fearing a rabbit, berates his squire, “You bloody tit! It’s a bunny rabbit.” The assault on the cave does not go well but eventually the knights prevail, the rabbit is slain, and the final words of the dying man who wrote the location of the grail are revealed. “The holy grail is in the castle of Aaaaaaaaaaah.” Unable to complete the sentence before dying, the man merely wrote his last gasp rather than the castle’s name.
This still makes me laugh. And I still quote this movie more often than I care to admit. I mean, sometimes it’s just necessary to exclaim, “She turned me into a newt!”
Right. Abandoned buildings. I often trespass. It’s not always intentional and it’s certainly never in the form of walking up to someone’s house and peering through the windows. Unless, of course, the house happens to be abandoned.
I’m fascinated by the construction, by the things left behind, the things that have moved in, the sounds, the views through the missing windows or the leaning doors, even the smells. I’ve found whole barn owl families, pack rats, phoebes, barn swallows, cows, horses, and trees living in abandoned houses, stoves with pots on them, closets with clothes still hanging, curtains at the windows, and pantries with dishes, bottles, and tins.
As I debated whether this particular building was too far from the road for relatively unobtrusive trespassing, a pickup stopped, the driver rolled down the window and told me I was welcome to take a look. Dilemma solved.
It was built with logs and had been expanded, the stacked logs of one structure butted against the cut logs of the addition. The roof had mostly collapsed and an elderberry shrub grew in the middle of a room up through the roof joists. Shreds of wallpaper hung in a few ragged sections – it was cloth with frayed edges and a delicate, pale green leafy pattern still visible.
There was a door between the old section with the log cabin-style stacked corners and the more recent addition. Picking my way through the litter on the floor and ducking under the fallen logs, I stepped through the door and slowly turned to view the whole room, to look out of the windows, to look back into the old house.
And then I saw that I was not alone.
A shiny black bunny eye and twitchy nose were the only giveaways. Perfectly colored and absolutely still, there was no display of huge teeth or horrible monsterness. Just a bunny hanging out above a door in an abandoned house. But… how did it get there? Where did it come from? Did its family get too big and expand into this new home? Maybe it was a bachelor bunny courting a cute girl bunny in a downstairs condo. And who knew rabbits could climb walls?
I took this photo for the sheer delight – it is not often you find a rabbit watching from above a door frame. There was no evidence of rabbit viciousness but, sadly, also no scrawled note telling me who the people were or where they had gone.
I took this photo: Yoga fashion
Warrior II fashion: snow pants, Sorels, and a hard hat.
The US yoga industry has exploded in recent years: hot yoga, power yoga, radiant flow, restorative, aerial, zen bootcamp (huh?). As the yoga possibilities have expanded, so too have the clothing opportunities. From its perhaps simplistic origins to a $27 billion industry in 5000 short years. No, wait. That should be 4990 years of yoga and 10 years of booming industry.
Being outdoors all day, in one place, in the cold requires warm clothing, a massive quantity of fuel to stay warm (hot chocolate with heavy cream and butter, please), and enough movement to create heat without sweating.
Enter yoga.
Over the years, the fashionable yoga set has moved away from the simple, but ever elegant, loin cloth. Today’s yoga togs (such a good word too often unused) are something to behold. Strappy tops that require a Ph.D. and schematics to put on properly rule the current scene. Leggings of all lengths and body-hugging forms are standard. Fabulous colors, incredible patterns, material cutouts, and built-in multi-layers compete across the studio for attention.
Enter Tamara.
The common comment that my fashion sense elicits is that I always look put together. To me, this implies that each of my body parts is in its proper place and covered with the appropriate and corresponding clothing items. That seems the least (and apparently the most) I can do in the realm of fashion. So be it.
Ski pants, insulated boots, gaiters, a down coat, binoculars (with harness), and a hard hat seem well beyond the height of yoga fashion. I took this photo for the seeming incongruity of the activity and my clothing. I only have a Master’s degree; I couldn’t get into the strappy things.
I took this photo: Not all who wander are lost
Stairs from the clouds to the clouds, for the clouds.
It is not common to find a perfectly good set of stairs in the clouds on the side of a mountain. Ready to assist any passersby, they stood steady and firm on the landscape.
It was raining but the day was bright and the air mild. Western Oregon is rarely a dry place. I don’t melt. I hiked into the cool, dripping coastal range, eventually climbing high enough that the trees became more scattered, more wind-beaten. The trail, slick with mud, occasionally crossed rock or split around washouts and pools.
I came upon the stairs not far from the mountain peak. Another half mile up a rock face and through twisted semi-alpine plants was the open summit, a granite bald with tortured metal-pipe railing, fully enveloped in cloud.
But the stairs? They were wooden, two by fours and four by eights. There were two sections with a landing and a turn in the middle. The upper section had a handrail on the downslope side, the lower stairs on both sides. The trail by-passed them completely, as if a displeased giant plucked them up, and set them again six feet out of line, but parallel, with the trail.
For 50 years, I was on a known path. It had mud and rocks and unexpected by-passes and washouts but it was well-worn and followed by many. I took this photo the day after my 50th birthday. Since then, I expect stairs in the clouds because they lead to the most amazing of places.
Rhinoceros resort, restore, restart
Extirpated from the wild in most of Africa, I had the good fortune to see black rhinoceroses on a private preserve in Zimbabwe last year.
Finding them after dark, a spotlight illuminated a calf scampering about behind its placidly eating mother. Her horns were cut off to deter poaching and the animals are under 24-hour armed guard.
The black rhino population dropped from an estimate of several hundred thousand in the early 1900s to 2,410 by the late 1990s. The primary cause for this decline is poaching. Several subspecies are extinct.
These photos are fuzzy and full of nighttime darkness and shadows. At first, I was disappointed by them. A year later, they seem to appropriately suit their state in the world.
Wary of the light and strangers, a rhino calf hides behind its mother.
The mama rhino has been dehorned as a measure of protection against poaching. Her dehorned shadow is visible on her calf’s side as it moves behind her.
Rhino back, fade to black. What will the world be without rhinos?
‘Merica
“’Merica. Fuck, yeah. God bless.” Quote (consciously) unattributed
Cynicism and sarcasm toward my country and its future are hard for me to get around these days; sometimes I trip over them in unexpected ways. This was clear recently when two European friends and I spent a month traveling together in the West. We discussed the current state of America – the political climate, gutting national healthcare, the disenfranchised majority, the “love it or leave it” attitude, the obvious homeless populations, and our vast resources.
At some point during our travels, one of my friends, in his extroverted and exuberant way, began saying, “’Merica! Fuck, yeah. God bless.” I was amused, of course. This epitomizes what is both great and not so great about America.
I was also somewhat annoyed by this antic. It was perplexing. Although I’m not patriotic, being an American citizen has brought many advantages for which I am grateful – among them, it allows me to freely write and publish this essay.
I swear a lot. This doesn’t offend me. I often say, “’Merica. Fuck, yeah,” when confronted with egregious Americanisms.
I never say, “God bless.” I don’t believe in a God, as long as people don’t dump their personal responsibility into God’s hands (or their God onto me), hearing it doesn’t concern me.
I think the phrase is overused. I hear it every day within the dysfunctional political system – the shysters peddling watches and bridges. More poignantly, I see it on the signs of homeless people asking for money, “Hungry, homeless, anything will help. God bless.”
I wonder how the most disenfranchised of our population has come to embrace the most privileged and those least apparently concerned with their fates. Is it an appeal to those they know have the most to give? Statistically, the less you have, the more you share. How is it, that in “the greatest country on Earth,” we have a staggering homeless and hungry population in the first place? Is this not a contradiction?
Beliefs
“Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?” E. O. Wilson
As recently as 2014, 63% of Americans believe with absolute certainty that God exists (Pew Research Center). And, in 2013, only 21% of Americans believed that humans evolved without divine guidance (Huffington Post). Stated in the reverse, this means that 79% (79%!) believe that God created humans.
As an American, this embarrasses me. As a biologist, it frightens me.
“I tend to believe that religious dogma is a consequence of evolution.” E. O. Wilson
E.O. Wilson is one of the great biologists of our time. (Forgive me, Dr. Wilson, for dragging you into this.) He is an Alabaman, an Eagle Scout, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a New York Times bestselling author, and a forty-year Harvard University professor, now Emeritus. He was raised as a Christian and a Baptist – although, he says, “I drifted away from the church, not definitively agnostic or atheistic, just Baptist and Christian no more.” If he is correct, we can potentially evolve past religious dogma.
False gods.
Stopping for coffee and pastries in a seaside town on the fourth of July, my friend specifically bought a cupcake for the tiny American flag stuck in the top. He waved it at passing vehicles and held it up proudly at every opportunity. I shook my head.
To my knowledge, I have never waved an American flag. I find it odd that Americans are so dedicated to their flag and are so vehement about it as a symbol of our country. Should not deeds be the greater symbol of our strength and unity?
We continued north to a local brewery for a tour. On display was a beer glass –a pint glass the like of which is found in every pub, taproom, and brewery in the country – with the brewery’s name and an American flag printed on the side. Shortly after its release, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) confiscated every.last.glass (although apparently, they missed a few). It is illegal to portray the American flag in such (an undignified?) manner. How is it then, that we can wear clothing that puts American flags squarely on American Asses? I asked this but it seemed to offend everyone in the room. Have you noticed that car dealerships have the largest flags? (Be an American. Buy a car.)
Independence day progressed and it came time for the obligatory fireworks. We walked from the campsite along the jetty to the harbor bridge for viewing. Being a dead-end, there was one way onto the jetty and one way off. Both sides of the road were lined with vehicles pointed toward the anticipated display; most people were sitting in their cars with the engines idling. No one seemed concerned that at some point they had to get off the jetty.
My friends were astounded by this display of a quintessentially American way of doing things. It was a recipe for a long night of burning fuel and wasting time. I have long resisted these occasions because I foresee the end result. It is not something I enjoy.
“It’s the American way,” I said.
We continued walking, commenting on the scene. “I can’t believe all these people are just sitting in their cars,” my friend said again. Then, finally acquiescing, “I guess it’s the American way.” With this last statement, we passed a minivan. The passenger side window was down and the dashboard was lined with fireworks awaiting detonation. The man in the seat, cigarette in hand, inches from the fireworks, challenged, “What about America?”
My friend turned, flashed his most beautiful smile, and waved his tiny American flag.
He was rewarded with a thumbs-up.
God bless.
If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. E. O. Wilson