I see it backwards

It's a long story.  Left handed.  That's part of it. 

Before I learned better, I used to open books from the back.  My piano teacher was a little surprised when I tried playing the treble line with my left hand and the bass with my right.  And, my poor mother will never forget discovering "TENAJ" written in crayon on the paper box at the head of the driveway.  (I won't go into how energetically I denied having done the writing ...)

Lots of times I see things backwards.

so -- end of introduction -- on to this morning

I woke up right on time and knew in an instant that I wasn't quite up to par.  Nothing in particular wrong.  Didn't feel sick.  Just didn't feel good or energetic.  Talking myself out of the almost daily walk turned into an unexpectedly divisive internal battle.

Eventually, the walker in me and the photographer in me won.  The camera and I made the walk, but with a twist.  I would ride to Pine Ridge Club when Tal went over for his 9:00 tee time.

When we arrived, the parking space next to the golf pro was open.  A staunch Clemson fan, he drives an open Jeep which declares, coming and going, his devotion to South Carolina's major upstate school.

And, this morning, it happened again.  I saw it backwards.  I was delighted.  I felt better.

Clouds

Yesterday was simply one of those days.  I like the word "charmed."  In actuality, nothing extraordinary went on ... nothing noteworthy for anyone but me, and probably Tal.  But, it was our day and I was aware every minute of that fact and that I was both aware and engaged. 

No, you don't have to endure any minute-by-minute details (or to decide not to wade through a long essay about it).  Rather, I'll let two images made just before we came inside for supper do the talking.  We had walked to the water's edge to put out corn for the reclusive wood ducks who reside at the head of the pond -- and who have eggs in the two duck boxes.  The sun was low in the sky and the clouds were dramatic.  I looked out -- and then I looked straight up.

This is a portion of the westward view.



This dizzying sight is of the clouds casting shadows on themselves.
 (West is at the bottom of the image.)

Icing on our cake ...

Plan B

"Welcome to Moe's!"  That was Plan B.

Plan A had been taking in the Kumquat Festival in Dade City.  (Yes, there IS such an event; check out the link for details.)  After a breakfast of sausage and pancakes we were off in two cars -- knowing, in general terms, where we were going.

Well, turns out the Kumquat Festival is a one-day, Saturday-only event, a detail not quite made clear in the newspaper article that got us interested in the first place.  We toured the center of Dade City, noting carefully stacked street barricades, row upon row of porta-johns and almost empty streets.  We weren't alone in our confusion; others like us cruising through town stopped pedestrians who shook their heads and gave us the bad news.  No kumquat smoothies for us this year. 

Instead, we had an energetic lunch at Moe's.

It was a good afternoon for photography both outside and in. 

Tal and I walked back to Alex's school where the palmetto trees have been carefully dressed.  This image is pretty in color, but I like the way the black and white treatment allows the spiral of the outgrown fronds to show.

During the late afternoon the sun cast shadows, thanks to the vertical blinds, almost the length of the living room.

And, before the start of the Pro Bowl, Mom and Lizzie tended to Lizzie's music homework.  Given a 4/4 time signature, they worked out note and rest values and even wrote properly conposed measures.  In fact, they were supposed to tap their feet and sing some of what they wrote, but both drew the line at that bit of instruction.  I don't want to sound melodramatic, but I think Dad would have taken sublime pleasure at this particular sight.

With a twinkle and a drip

Sun! 

Yesterday was so cold and misty it was almost possible to watch the ice form on the bare tree branches in view of the house.  From pine trees in the woods to the nandinas on either side of the front door, most plants and trees are bent under the ice's weight.  But, when I went to bed last night, the moon was a dark orange, glowing smile hovering just above the trees on the far side of the pond, casting long, deep shadows across the landscape, leading right up to the bedroom windows.  Eerie and spellbinding.  I had stepped out onto the front steps earlier during the evening to whistle up Whitby and was greeted not only by four little wet feet in need of a towel, but by a canopy of bright, twinkling stars behind scattered, fast-moving clouds.  I knew today would be bright.

Today's major activity was traversing our newly passable driveway.  The Bi-Lo on a Wednesday (aka old person day) was simply irresistible.  Although I'm not one who minds being couped up, it was rather nice to be out and about and sociable -- even if it is the grocery store -- after several days at home and inside mostly.

By late in the day the view was still primarily white.  But, I had the sensation that the world had begun melting and dripping away.  We explored the yard, the four of us -- Tal and I entertained by Whitby and Belle's experience at skating on the back yard's slick icy-snow slope toward the pond.  Eight little feet scrambling for traction.  360s followed by a silly, bewildered, dizzied expression at the end.  I shouldn't laugh.  Could have happened to us with not-so-amusing results.

A quiet and wonderful, twinkly, drippy day.

More and more I and the camera are attracted to patterns.  These are shadows across our front yard in the early afternoon.  Sadly, the angle of the sun and the lasting-power of the ice-encrusted snow didn't come together ideally.  Tiny points of brown grass were beginning to show through already.

  

Long shadows

We left Weatherford OK this morning before the sun had risen over the eastern horizon. Within 20 minutes or so our car was casting a very long shadow on the pavement precisely in the direction we were travelling. While that felt a little strange -- to be following that shadow so exactly, I was surprised by how sad I felt when I-40 changed direction and our shadow moved to run along beside the road, casting a moving shadow over the fields on our right, our two-wheeled silhouette flashing along, popping up occasionally at fences and narrow strips of trees growing in low spots, then going back flat. It seemed to me as though we were touching those fields in some way, leaving a mark -- which, of course, we were not.

Again today the terrain changed with great speed -- Oklahoma, across the plains of the Texas panhandle, well into New Mexico -- Grants, to be precise. There were times that I would have sworn we could see the curvature of the earth when we looked from horizon to horizon. Then, could come stretches with trees lining the road, other stretches with ridges on either side, those ridges being probably a hundred miles away. At one point we travelled in a straight line for 60 miles, each time we crested a rise seeing the road on the rises before and behind us.

Normally, when I'm not driving I tend to fall sleep. (But, then most of the long distances we drive are on I-95, and it's best to sleep through as much of that as possible.) Again today, though, I didn't sleep at all, watching instead, hoping that I'll remember, knowing, though, that everything my eyes were taking in would likely become a long blur before nightfall, if not before. Truth is, the land -- its mysteries and it surprises -- is stunning, beautiful, forbidding, welcoming, vast. Every passing mile opens up something new, reveals wonders.

I realize it has secrets to share, the land. There are stories that could be told -- human and geographical and geological. As we travel along, I cannot help but wish I understood more about how the terrain has evolved over the eons, and wonder how people have survived in the barren, beautiful, lonely landscape. What were their struggles? Did the joys come anywhere near offsetting those struggles? Perhaps my noticing the 75-mile an hour shadow our car casts constitutes something of a nod of acknowledgement to the land and to those people, most of them nameless and forgotten.

Now, as I write about the day and about shadows, perhaps I am writing not so much about shadows, literal and figurative, as I am about how fleeting life is, how limited the actual marks are that we do leave.

Day Three
Three States: Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico
548 miles