In Florida, I spend most of the year hiding from the sun. It is intense, demanding, and prolonged. Summer lasts for six months, and seasonal changes are too subtle. Transitions between seasons are not defined by the equinoxes, and I often refer to the Farmer’s Almanac for long-range forecasts of cold fronts to pull me through. So, I welcomed January and February with prolonged cold fronts with a scattering of sub-freezing temperatures, as well as a grey-clouded sky which concealed the day’s sun. Change is good, and I crave extreme changes because they seldom happen.
So today is a break from the cold. It is seventy degrees and sunny-- the type of weather Northerners envy during mid-winter; the type that causes sane people to uproot their families, leave communities, trading their life for one in sunny Florida to not shovel snow. Today I’ll appreciate the sun, because I’ve been without it. I head down to the lake to see what colors the sunlight will generate. Lately all has seemed grey, so I’m looking for colorful signs of winter on a sunny day.
I think of St. Jovita, who was a Christian martyr decapitated for refusing to honor the sun. A pagan soldier attempted to coerce the deacon from Lombardy to worship the sun, but Jovita refused, only honoring God as the creator of the sun. The lake, a namesake of the martyred saint, is bathed in sunlight for most of the year. Today, I enjoy it like an old friend I’ve not seen in awhile, and I find colors that tell me it’s still winter.
A wooded area on the southwest side of the lake has a forest floor rich in textures and growth. A carpet of dense, wet leaves covers the floor that is scattered with wild coffee plants. They look like Christmas holly bushes, their deep evergreen leaves are stiff and waxy and shelter small, vibrant red berries like awnings. The plants are scattered as deep into the brush as I can see, and they’re beautiful. A generous mix of lima-green marsh ferns also covers the woods. On the periphery of this virgin forest are ligustrum trees with blackened leaves from the frost, which are now crowned with new tender leaves and bud clusters, healthy and katydid green. Mid-winter is showing its impatience for spring. The grass on the hillside that leads to the lake is dead, but instead of brown, it looks cinnamon in the bright orange sunlight. Mixed within the rusty grass are bright green weeds, and in the distance the sunlight glows on a grassy area as if a dusting of yellow pollen lay on top of the blades. The hillside looks like a muted patchwork quilt of green, rust, and yellow, blurry but calming like an Impressionist painting. Part of me enjoys the false- spring day, and part wants the grey and cold back because there hasn’t been enough change. It’s not change I fear, but stagnation. As I drive home, azaleas and dogwood trees in neighbors’ yards are beginning to bloom.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Prompt Entry Four
The Florida Sandhill Crane
Grus canadensis pratensis
I adore Sandhill Cranes. I first noticed these graceful and awkward birds when I moved to Pasco County in Florida. It was the first time I lived in an agricultural area-- The first time I connected to natural Florida in the ten years I lived in the state-- The first time I saw the cranes. The 3-4 foot birds would gather together, stroll and feed in fields with their families. It was the most curious thing to me to see a bonded pair with one or two “kids” like a human family strolling through a park. Adult feathers of Sandhills are a washed-out slate grey, like the color of cedar shingled homes on a New England Coast. Juvenile cranes look like ginger, pot-bellied stuffed toys. They walk close to their parents and when they are sub-adults, before finding a mate, their plumage becomes an attractive mix of cinnamon and grey. At the time I would observe the Sandhills, I was always with my family, too. I was raising my son and daughter by myself, and the three of us were inseparable like the crane families. We would go for a walk down the long dirt road that led to our house. We’d see a crane family crossing the road, one behind the other. We would sit around the table for dinner, and we’d see the cranes drilling their beaks into the crop soil for their meal, mate and children drilling right along side. And just as I would call out to my curious son who would wander into the neighbor’s yard to grab an orange off of the trees or pet the calves, the Sandhill parents, too, sounded their trumpeting guard call through the air to alarm their family to stay near and warn predators. My children are older now, and we rarely are in threes. There is one Sandhill Crane that stands or sits, posing in the field by Lake Jovita. She seems to be there every day. Yesterday she stood in the grass in front of where I parked my car, as if she were waiting for me. I wonder if there were many solitary cranes those years when I noticed the families. Do I notice her now because of my own solitude?
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Prompt Entry 3
Winter Solstice
On the Winter Solstice, Kurt told me they’d start the fire in his back yard just before sundown.
I shed my responsibilities at the office for Christmas break, left the roles that I play locked behind the door until January. The holiday schedule would soon have the same pressures and time restraints as the work I just left behind. Both schedules gave me black and white dreams.
The sun hung low, just over the roofs of neighbors’ homes. I headed out to Kurt’s house, a small, freshly painted white home with a tomato-red door. Wild, untamed native flowers and plants covered the narrow patch of land between the home and sidewalk. An arc of Tibetan prayer flags hung by a string at the front door. Turk’s cap, with their green, heart-shaped leaves and cardinal red blooms, swayed in the evening breeze, and wild petunia, with water-color violet chiffon petals, almost hid a narrow path with overgrown ferns that led to the back. The sun paused over the horizon; a golden glow infused the negative space between the trees. I followed the direction of the smell of burning wood. I could see the flames in the distance of the long, narrow land, but no path led to the fire. I felt I was walking through virgin forest. My feet searched for a path as I waded through erect and thick ferns that covered the thicket. I shuffled my feet as if I were checking for sting rays in the ocean sand, but couldn’t find smooth ground. I forced my mind to erase thoughts of snakes. I walked with large steps over the greenery toward the warm, earthy smell of burning wood and then burning sage. I felt as if I had entered Eden through a porthole on the side of the house. Tangerine trees punctuated the wild forest area, closely intertwined with young white oaks and magnolias. I carried store-bought tangerines in a brown paper gift bag, with a tied, red ribbon. Even this simple gift seemed unnatural.
Kurt gives the gift of himself, unadulterated and honest. Once my professor, and now my friend, he inspires by guiding without force. Some students are lost without structure, but his abstractness can inspire if willing to follow up on his references. Within a course on Native American literature, Kurt will also discuss Tibetan Buddhist chants to illustrate the sacredness of sound in cultures. In a Senior Seminar course for English, Kurt began with oral storytelling, focusing on cultures’ collective stories rather than individual authors. Sometimes, as his student, I felt lost. After the class was completed, I was transformed.
I found my way to the group unscathed. Kurt was stoking the fire with a large branch when he turned to smile at me, largely, warmly, and welcoming. I joined his wife and daughter who were making prayer flags for the sweat lodge. We ate tangerines off the tree, throwing peels and seeds into the fire. Once the stones in the fire were white hot, and the sky turned indigo, we celebrated winter solstice in a round hole in the ground, covered with a tarp over a frame of tree branches. Yasmin and I tied the prayer flags inside the lodge. The hot stones were placed in the middle pit of the lodge for the purification ceremony. Prayers were not limited to Native chants. Kurt’s wife sang songs of the blessed Mother and Christ. Friends prayed for the past and upcoming years.
As I walked out of the primitive woods that night, onto the road, and into my car, I wanted to hold the pure feeling from the woods throughout Christmas and through the year. I wanted to hold the wind. I wanted to hold the sky. I dreamt that night in vivid colors.
On the Winter Solstice, Kurt told me they’d start the fire in his back yard just before sundown.
I shed my responsibilities at the office for Christmas break, left the roles that I play locked behind the door until January. The holiday schedule would soon have the same pressures and time restraints as the work I just left behind. Both schedules gave me black and white dreams.
The sun hung low, just over the roofs of neighbors’ homes. I headed out to Kurt’s house, a small, freshly painted white home with a tomato-red door. Wild, untamed native flowers and plants covered the narrow patch of land between the home and sidewalk. An arc of Tibetan prayer flags hung by a string at the front door. Turk’s cap, with their green, heart-shaped leaves and cardinal red blooms, swayed in the evening breeze, and wild petunia, with water-color violet chiffon petals, almost hid a narrow path with overgrown ferns that led to the back. The sun paused over the horizon; a golden glow infused the negative space between the trees. I followed the direction of the smell of burning wood. I could see the flames in the distance of the long, narrow land, but no path led to the fire. I felt I was walking through virgin forest. My feet searched for a path as I waded through erect and thick ferns that covered the thicket. I shuffled my feet as if I were checking for sting rays in the ocean sand, but couldn’t find smooth ground. I forced my mind to erase thoughts of snakes. I walked with large steps over the greenery toward the warm, earthy smell of burning wood and then burning sage. I felt as if I had entered Eden through a porthole on the side of the house. Tangerine trees punctuated the wild forest area, closely intertwined with young white oaks and magnolias. I carried store-bought tangerines in a brown paper gift bag, with a tied, red ribbon. Even this simple gift seemed unnatural.
Kurt gives the gift of himself, unadulterated and honest. Once my professor, and now my friend, he inspires by guiding without force. Some students are lost without structure, but his abstractness can inspire if willing to follow up on his references. Within a course on Native American literature, Kurt will also discuss Tibetan Buddhist chants to illustrate the sacredness of sound in cultures. In a Senior Seminar course for English, Kurt began with oral storytelling, focusing on cultures’ collective stories rather than individual authors. Sometimes, as his student, I felt lost. After the class was completed, I was transformed.
I found my way to the group unscathed. Kurt was stoking the fire with a large branch when he turned to smile at me, largely, warmly, and welcoming. I joined his wife and daughter who were making prayer flags for the sweat lodge. We ate tangerines off the tree, throwing peels and seeds into the fire. Once the stones in the fire were white hot, and the sky turned indigo, we celebrated winter solstice in a round hole in the ground, covered with a tarp over a frame of tree branches. Yasmin and I tied the prayer flags inside the lodge. The hot stones were placed in the middle pit of the lodge for the purification ceremony. Prayers were not limited to Native chants. Kurt’s wife sang songs of the blessed Mother and Christ. Friends prayed for the past and upcoming years.
As I walked out of the primitive woods that night, onto the road, and into my car, I wanted to hold the pure feeling from the woods throughout Christmas and through the year. I wanted to hold the wind. I wanted to hold the sky. I dreamt that night in vivid colors.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Place Entry Three
Muted Winter
This morning I drove to the Northeast shore of Lake Jovita, seen directly across from the dock. It was cold again, thirty-six degrees, and the blue sky was hidden by snow clouds, a cotton-covered sky that I remembered well from my Maryland childhood. One look and we knew snow would fall soon, when the wet air would linger and tease. I won’t see snow here, though, unless it is a dusting from a dawn snowfall. I’ve seen Florida snow twice in twenty years. It left a half-inch cover on cars and sidewalks until 9:00 a.m. when the sun and rising temperature melted it all. I mourned the loss of white winters as I walked to the lake house for morning meditation.
Fifty yards from the shore, the lake house sits calmly, as quiet as a tomb. The sliding glass door of the shrine room offers a full view of the Abbey, University and orange groves across the heart-shaped lake. Colorful thangkas decorate the walls of the room with blue, gold and red silk fabrics elaborately painted with Buddhist deities. Small, brass bowls with lit candles line the altar. With the fecundity of spring, the vibrant room warmed the colorless scene outside of the sliding glass window.
After practice, I walked down to the lakeshore. The air was still, and the lake looked like stainless steel. There was no sound. Two Sandhill cranes pondered along the shoreline, their tall grey bodies blended with water and sky. Only their red forecrowns broke the monochromatic landscape. One submerged his head into the shallow water while his partner stayed aware of potential predators. After lunching, the 3-foot tall birds walked out of the water onto the grass, like two beautiful women emerging out of the ocean onto the sand, slowly and gracefully. My presence made the cranes nervous. I walked away leaving them and my memories of deep snow behind me.
This morning I drove to the Northeast shore of Lake Jovita, seen directly across from the dock. It was cold again, thirty-six degrees, and the blue sky was hidden by snow clouds, a cotton-covered sky that I remembered well from my Maryland childhood. One look and we knew snow would fall soon, when the wet air would linger and tease. I won’t see snow here, though, unless it is a dusting from a dawn snowfall. I’ve seen Florida snow twice in twenty years. It left a half-inch cover on cars and sidewalks until 9:00 a.m. when the sun and rising temperature melted it all. I mourned the loss of white winters as I walked to the lake house for morning meditation.
Fifty yards from the shore, the lake house sits calmly, as quiet as a tomb. The sliding glass door of the shrine room offers a full view of the Abbey, University and orange groves across the heart-shaped lake. Colorful thangkas decorate the walls of the room with blue, gold and red silk fabrics elaborately painted with Buddhist deities. Small, brass bowls with lit candles line the altar. With the fecundity of spring, the vibrant room warmed the colorless scene outside of the sliding glass window.
After practice, I walked down to the lakeshore. The air was still, and the lake looked like stainless steel. There was no sound. Two Sandhill cranes pondered along the shoreline, their tall grey bodies blended with water and sky. Only their red forecrowns broke the monochromatic landscape. One submerged his head into the shallow water while his partner stayed aware of potential predators. After lunching, the 3-foot tall birds walked out of the water onto the grass, like two beautiful women emerging out of the ocean onto the sand, slowly and gracefully. My presence made the cranes nervous. I walked away leaving them and my memories of deep snow behind me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
