webcowgirl | Entries tagged with marking the seasons

Wow, sparkly conversation hearts, for those who really want to sink their teeth into Twilight. Sometimes it's sad to be completely out of a cultural phenomenon; sometimes it's hysterical.

Uh, I am in a quite good mood today and feeling cheerful, much like I did yesterday. I was really happy to be back in London and back to my normal life, off at Inn Noodle last night and then seeing Birmingham Ballet GO MY LONDON LIFE W00T. Work is mellow right now and rather than being anxious and frustrated, I'm able to just settle into some solid planning for next week and not stress out. Also, it looks like I've got two sets of visitors coming over May and then June, people I am really looking forward to seeing, and I'm pretty happy about that, too. And the ballet last night was a lot of fun. And I have good books to read and the grass is sprouting in my back yard and I saw clematis in bloom down the street from us and some new cookbooks to entertain me. My house looks like a tornado came through it (that being us) and I can't connect to YIM at work, but overall ... exuding spring-like good vibes today. I bet it's because

booklectic convinced us to go to Mondello, so even though it was wet outside I was finally able to get an orgone recharge. "Ocian in view! O! the joy!"

Today Red Lion Square had blooming yellow irises - Dutch, I think. Pretty!

First, there's a three day event this weekend, "The Big Draw," taking place at the Wellcome Collection and other sites, that I'm pretty excited about.

The website says, "Drawing on Life' is a free interactive festival celebrating drawing and life, with leading artists and scientists, in a jam-packed programme of events and activities exploring what it means to be human."

Doesn't that sound like fun? I'm especially interested in "Paper Diseases: the Little Theatre of Disease and Desire presents a theatre of bodies, bones and operations; a stage on which diseases perform, where quack doctors and grave-robbers play the hero and bodies are excavated, dissected, investigated, formed and re-formed through drawings, animations and paper cut-outs." "Snails in Art, the Art of Snails and the Joy of Camouflage" and "Deadly Pretty Things" (aka draw your own flow-in-the-dark disease) also sound like fun.

I can really only go on Saturday due to plans on Sunday and, er, work on Friday. Does this sound interesting to anyone else?

Second, this quote from Proust is perfect for autumn: "The patches of white in beards hitherto entirely black rendered the human landscape of the party somewhat melancholy, like the first yellow leaves on the trees when one is still thinking one can count on a long summer, when before one has started to enjoy it one sees it has already turned to autumn." (Finding Time Again p. 235.)

Welcome to the first day of autumn. Where do the days go? It seems that just a short while ago I was filling three giant suitcases full of the stuff I'd need to live in England for two years, and now the two years have come and gone and I still have no idea of what the future holds (but I've managed to aquire a few more suitcases). The leaves are still green out and it's been warm but I can tell by the way the shadows fall from the bridge into the river that summer is truly over.

I always think of this song as fall goes on:

"The falling leaves drift by the window
"The autumn leaves of red and gold
"I see your lips, the summer kisses
"The sun-burned hands I used to hold"

"Since you went away the days grow long
"And soon I'll hear old winter's song
"But I miss you most of all my darling
"When autumn leaves start to fall"

(Song by Johnny Mercer, my mental jukebox plays the version from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He based it on a French song, apparently.)

Yesterday walking through Red Lion Square (it's a fenced garden with a sheltered coffee shop in the middle) I saw a blooming daffodil. Okay, it wasn't blooming all the way, but it was opened enough for me to tell that the little cup inside was orange instead of yellow. It was so cool! It is spring. Also, I don't know much about trees, but I can tell what almost any annual flower is just by looking at its early-spring planty growth. In front of my computer right now is a vase full of red anemones, a flower I never had much luck growing, but at £2 for the bunch I was willing to take the gamble these would bloom in a vase. I've also been watching the pink hyacinths I stuck in a shallow dish and then abandoned on a windowsill bloom over the last three weeks; it's lovely to see them through the cracked curtains in the back bedroom, with the rooftops and steam behind them - spring in the city! I'll try to take a picture of it before it's too late. This Sunday,

wechsler took a picture of me in the Blossoming Trees of Mystery in Bishop's Park, and I'll see about posting that, too.

I was feeling grumpy about being up before the sun rose, but the clouds in the sky just turned into cherry frosted blueberry ripple, so now I feel better.

Ooh, and the river's gone from murk brown/grey to "blushing," just like a ripe peach. I like that.

Proust is at page 347 - he's been at "the little circle's" salon, at Mme. Vedurin's rented country home near Balbec. People have been making fun of each other in a rather mean way. I find it hard to understand why anyone would choose such company.

After having read a bit more of Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, I'm noticing Proust's total and complete avoidance of commonly used phrases (i.e. "raining cats and dogs"). Now it's a bit of a game for me, to see, when he goes into one of his bizarre little descriptive noodles, what the easily available description for what he's discussing would have been.

Ever since I read The Gossamer Years, I've become aware of the many little things that mark the passing of the seasons. We're not talking the decorations in the stores, but the changes in the light, the clouds, the weather, the plants, that show that time is moving on, and that it has circled back on itself.

In Phoenix, this was a little hard for me to do, as the change in the seasons was more suble. Once I started paying attention, though, I saw the markers: the ripening pecans and the time in the spring (usually March) when the air was filled with the smell of orange blossoms stand out for me. The monsoon skies of late July were too obvious to refer to.

Now that I am in a new place, I am looking for the markers here. And I found a new one today, that will be "the end of fall/start of winter" Thanksgiving-y time for me: seeing full grown, brown and white mottled swans - this spring's cygnets, almost all grown up but still hanging out with their parents - swimming on the river. Today I saw a group of six, two beautiful white ones, four teenagers, all still together. I wonder when the cygnets will leave? It did make me happy to see that so many of the brood had made it to maturity.

It looks like my trip to Palermo is off. Would anyone be interested in dropping everything and taking a three day weekend, Monday off, to go somewhere warm? Anyone? Bueller? Just let me know ...

The sun has just come up and to the right the river is pink with a rosy haze over it. And the blocks of Victorian flats facing it are just glowing their little hearts out, red light on red brick, softened through the water droplets.

Meanwhile the river right in front of my window, on the other side of Putney Bridge, is still in shadow, and little clouds of mist are rising from the water like steam from a cup of tea. The tower of All Saint's church is turning an ever more golden shade as I sit here and type.

It's gorgeous outside today. Fall is taking it's time this year. I'm glad it's not too cold outside, but more than happy to leave summer behind (except for the shortening days). I will be unable to resist the urge to go out to lunch.

It's election time back home and I've actually managed to get my ballot in. I'm almost a pure Stranger ticket voter, though I couldn't handle voting for Jean Godden even if she was the only one on City Council who told Mayor Nickels to stick it. Supposedly he's creating a Dubya style "ignore the legislative branch" government in Seattle - couldn't say I didn't see it coming. I'm also voting against the transportation taxes - too much freaking money for roads and the Sound Transit expansion to Tacoma is just stupid. Why can't they wrest control of the rails away from the money sucking freight companies and actually develop a decent train system? I despair.

I've also put in a special request to a friend who's moving here for a solid influx of Mexican groceries. Just looking at the website where they were selling this stuff was making me drool last night. I've completely run out of tomatillo sauce and red enchilada sauce. I sure hope he comes through! I've also got several cookbooks on order - with luck

shadowdaddy will come back from the states with the raw power needed to keep my food going for years!

The bike ride to Hyde Park was really great. Walking around in the leaves in the park was also great, and I noticed that, because the foliage is a lot thinner, you can see the views of the park better. There were a lot of people out and it was ... I don't know, I felt like I could feel the pages of history passing by me, if that makes any sense, even though with the girls picnicking out of their plastic Sainsbury's bags and the Muslim woman walking by talking on her cellphone it was all very here and now. We got a snackie snack at the pavillion next to the Serpentine and ate it while watching people puttering around on boats on the lake.

Matthew Barney at the Serpentine gallery: God, that man is always good for a laugh. Anyone that has to explain their art that hard is just trying to be deliberately obtuse. I found the video of him bouncing off of a trampoline so he could make little marks on a wall just a big fat ball of comedy. He does make me wish for my beloved Clyfford Still with his belief that people who will understand his art will and that he didn't need to sit around and explain everything. Matthew Barney desperately needs a little more mystery in his work and a little less, "Hey, this is the digestive system! Get it? The digestive system! I'm consuming and excreting!" Somehow it all comes off a little Bart Simpson, though I quail to think of what he would do with industrial quantities of Vaseline.

We made it home in good time (conclusion: I won't be biking to work, it's too far for me to go with a time deadline) and raced to the grocery stores (they close at 5!) to get the ingredients for tonight's dinner. I'm apparently a shopping whiz now as I made it in and out in thirty minutes. Now we're folding laundry and watching the internet go up and down and waiting for the roast to finish up. I'm serving it with a side of slightly Italian not-exactly turnip greens, which will be made with a bit of hot pepper; I think it will be very good.

What will we be doing this time next year? Got only knows. I am amused that today is the birthday of both

trishpiglet and

motomotoyama, who perhaps have far more in common than I might have ever expected of two people born on the same day. Oh, those Scorpios!

The weather just seemed too promising for me to stay indoors today, and with my surprisingly early night last night (in bed around midnight), I was up quite early. I resolved to at last try the "Beverly Brook Walk," billed as a 6 1/2 mile walk along a brook from the Thames up to, I don't know, Malden something or another, but through Richmond Park.

It was, indeed, a lovely walk, except for the crappy bit on Upper Richmond Road. We saw lots of fallen leaves and blackberries clearly past their prime, little rats scampering in the undergrowth (they were cute), guys playing cricket, the rad overgrown cemetery near Putney Heath, big old fungus growing out of the side of trees, the adorable pond at the center of Barnes Common, deer kind of playing with each others antlers (not too serious yet), adorable little girls on shetland ponies, and all of the split buckeyes you could want.

shadowdaddy was sad because there weren't any salmon in the stream, but, well, so it goes.

We didn't make it all the way to the end of the trail because we got a text from our friend Elliot, who had a car for the day and wanted to do something fun. So we met him at Richmond Park's Robin Hood Gate (meaning we walked 5 1/4 miles, not too shabby!) and headed off with no real goal, but wound up at Hampton Court Palace. We decided to just walk around, but through good fortune the formal gardens weren't bothering with ticket collection, so in addition to the lovely roses on the back end of the palace, we got to stroll through the gorgeous misty lawns (with the crazily shaped trees) surrounding the giant fountain with the river way extended to the gates, and then the wacky curlique ultra formal garden with lollipop trees, inverted cone bushes, filigreed lawn, and general craziness. It was very OTT and "it's good to be king."

And it was lovely and it was a nice day and everything was quite good except for my knee. We came home and met

wechsler, who'd kindly bought the ingredients for Swimming Rama.

shadowdaddy cooked while I folded clothes, and afterwards we played a game of Alhambra, which I rather surprisingly won. All in all, it was a very nice day. I am enjoying fall.

Riding into work on my bike, the trees in the park were pillars of green and mottled ivory, arching overhead. Once on the banks of the river, the air was perfumed with roses and the buttery scent of jasmine.

I felt again like I did last week watching Jordi Savall playing the "musicall humors" of Tobias Hume; heaven is a place we can be now, heaven is here on earth. It may be only rare moments of perfect beauty when we can really experience it, but I felt it again, flying through an air dense with the flowers of late spring, as I rode my bike to work this morning.

It appears that early May is purple flower time: there are lilacs and wisteria galore when I go walking around the neighborhood near work. I even saw a double columbine (which happened to be purple, though they aren't necessarily any color). The wisteria I walk by on my way to King Street (on the street that parallels the Hammersmith Bridge road) is the most gorgeous, so pretty that I want to sit across the street and sketch it. They seem like they're passing their prime, though. But the roses are coming on and they smell lovely! I saw a yellow climber yesterday that went three stories up on the road to Riverside Studios - it was amazing!

Note to Spicy Fong restaurant (the aim of my walk today): duck is not the other white meat. That would be "chicken" you put in my Sea Spice Sauce (and vegetables). You messed up my order. I'll be back.

shadowdaddy actually got to walk me into work today as he didn't need to be anywhere until 10 and 10 happened to be an exhibition at Earl's Court. It was cool and overcast today and we saw some seagulls picking on a heron. It was a nice start to my day, and my boss and his boss are gone. Ah, relaxation!

My life is overly complex and it's bad for me to stay up so late because I've gone to see a long show. I'm not sure what I'm doing tonight (sleep, Bueller?), but I guess I could go to Betty Ford tomorrow. Saturday we've got plans to have dinner with a couple J knew in Seattle (day, I'm thinking the Hogarth exhibition at the Tate); Sunday, er, I don't know yet, but Michael Nyman is performing his original score to a silent movie (Kinopravda 21) at the Curzon Mayvair at 1 PM, and I'm leaning toward that even though a picnic either day might be fun. So would a trip to the pub Friday. Bueller?

I took a walk to get some more filtered water for tea and noticed that some white columbines were blooming, as well as some white calla lilies. Gorgeous!

Just had a random Canadian colleague "console" me over the Virgina Tech thing. What am I supposed to say? 121 Iraqis died that same day, and overall I'm far more traumatized by the murders of the burner kids on Capitol Hill last year. Then we were talking about the US pulling out of Iraq; is it already civil war? Would it be better if we just left now? I mean, of course it's about the oil, but is it the oil that's keeping us from pulling out, or the threat of civil war?

Also, I finally broke down and bought the last book in the Bitterbynde trilogy, new, last night while we were waiting for our play to start. Cecelia Dart-Thornton, you have broken me! I'm going to get several books I want sent to my sister so she can bring them over with her, but I figured if I'd been looking for this for three weeks, it was time to give in and just make the purchase.

Current Mood: tired

General announcement: I have pretty much nothing planned from Thursday until Sunday. Anything going on I should know about? Anyone dying to see me (especially on Friday)? I think we may be entertaining friends of

shadowdaddy's on Sunday night, but otherwise I've got just NOTHING on the books.

I don't know how they planned it, but the Fulham cemetary is gorgeous again. The middle is full of these trees that look like their branches are swathed in pink cotton candy, with just a few white ones (vanilla?) to add variety. I can see that the trees will all turn to leaves in a week or two, but it's wonderful to go by (in the double-decker bus) and see this fantasy land of puffy flowers floating by.

In other "marking the seasons by the timing of blooms," I've been seeing lots and lots of wisteria around.

shadowdaddy even pointed out a building to me while we were on the train to Waterloo that had so much frothy purple covering the walls it completely overwhelmed the building underneath it ... in a good way, of course. I also saw a clematis climbing out of its pot when I was walking to work in the neighborhood nearby. It really is pretty here in the spring!

I continue wearing the heart monitor thing until 11 today. I think I've given it rather a lot of erroneous readings - since it goes off on the hour and half-hour, I frequently found it kicking in as I was walking to a meeting or something. Also, it seemed to be getting kind of ... sweaty underneath the cuff when I woke up this morning (yes, I wore it while I was sleeping). I'm looking forward to being done with it.

Proust has been stuck in a long passage in which he's been describing someone's paintings. AAARGH. Finally, while I was waiting for my hair to finish processing last night, on page 903, he has finally met Albertine, referenced most memorably in Fun Home (try the "search inside" feature and you'll see what I mean), but, unfortunately, I'm at page 909 and he's still in the artist's studio (and I have a hundred pages to go still to finish the book!). I did like this passage last night, though: When a mind has a tendency toward day dreams, it's a mistake to shield it from them ... If a little day dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time."