6.11.22 ~ Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut
When I read about a new Poetry of the Wild outdoor sculpture installation at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum it seemed like a great opportunity for a “new” place walk. So off we went, four days after Tim’s surgery. It’s hard to believe how much energy he has now!
close up of mini-garden by the entrance to the museum
It was one of those beautiful June days with bright sunshine, blue skies, greenery everywhere, low humidity and perfect temperatures. To get to the sculptures and poetry we walked down a grassy hill, enjoyed the antics of a catbird (they’re everywhere this summer!), crossed a picturesque wooden bridge and found ourselves in a lovely garden.
garden at the rear of the Deshon-Allyn House
rear of the Deshon-Allyn House
gray catbird
It’s hard to see in the pictures below but part of the sculpture is branches growing up out of the chairs. It’s difficult to distinguish them from the branches of the tree behind them.
“Forest Dialogue” by Ana Flores
There were three poems on display like the one below but because of the angle of the sunlight the camera couldn’t capture the other two. But this poem touched me, especially at this point in our lives when it would be nice to find it possible to live it all over again.
“I Will Want to Love You” by Michael Bradford
American robin
tulip tree blossoms
tulip tree blossom
summer sky
red maple seeds
buttercup and bug
I ask you to pass through life at my side to be my second self and best earthly companion. ~ Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
When the hot an hazy days of summer land on us it will be nice to think back on this lovely day shared with my best friend. ❤️
10.23.20 ~ Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center Mystic, Connecticut
It’s been a challenge finding red leaves this autumn, while dull yellows are everywhere. Looks like our nights haven’t been chilly enough to encourage a brighter display this year. Perhaps the drought is a factor, too. But I continue the search. On Friday we walked on the Denison Farm Trail at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center.
amber
To get a really good, colorful display, you want to have chilly nights alongside sunny days. The sun helps stimulate the leaves to produce sugars, according to the National Wildlife Foundation. Then the cold nights close off the veins that allow the sugars to escape back into the tree. It’s these trapped sugars that eventually show off the brilliant reds and violets; if this process falters, you get more dull-looking browns and yellows. ~ Scott Sistek (KOMO News, October 17, 2020)
nature’s art on a boulder
Our drought continues, but was lowered from extreme to severe. We’ve been getting a little rain here and there, and next week more is expected. It was a very cloudy day.
lemon chiffon
I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. ~ Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
eastern white pine cone
beautiful erratic covered with moss, lichens, fallen leaves and vines
dull can be very pretty
turning crimson?
I have tried to delay the frosts, I have coaxed the fading flowers, I thought I could detain a few of the crimson leaves until you had smiled upon them; but their companions call them, and they cannot stay away. ~ Emily Dickinson (Letter to William Austin Dickinson, Autumn, 1851)
Tim spotted a glacial erratic off the trail
and another one
this glacial erratic juts out into the parking lot
On the way home I finally spotted some red in Old Mystic. It wasn’t in the woods and it had wires going through it, but I took what I could get. 🙂
scarlet!
Looks like we’re hunkering down for winter and the growing surge in the pandemic. I hope our bubble holds. Statistics:
New London County now has 3,456 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of those, 23 people are in the hospital and 136 have lost their lives. That’s 1,497 new cases since September 30 when I last reported.
Our contact tracers continue to report that they have observed many instances of family and social gathering connections. We are also seeing a significant number of cases associated with sporting events. Cases associated with institutions (schools, long-term care facilities, etc.) remain relatively low. ~ Ledge Light Health District website
Groton is now a “red alert town.” We are advised to cancel gatherings and events with non-family members. (We’ve been doing this all along, but our neighbors haven’t.) The Parks & Recreation Department has suspended all programming.
If I could, I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. ~ Charlotte Brontë (The Life of Charlotte Brontë)
I’ve acquired many labels in my sixty years: highly sensitive person, introvert, obsessive-compulsive, painfully shy, homebody, bookworm, social phobia, agoraphobia, chronic depression, chronic migraine, chronic anxiety. But none of them got to the crux of the matter more definitively than autism.
Feeling like an odd-duck for all of my life I started suspecting autism (or Asperger’s syndrome) a few years ago. Little hints in the occasional magazine article. (Caring for elderly relatives for most of my adult life I’ve spent countless hours in medical and hospital waiting rooms reading magazines.) But last October I read an autobiography written by someone who had been been “diagnosed” late in life. His experience compelled me to read a few more books on the subject. And then a few more. My curiosity finally led me to consult with a neuropsychologist who confirmed my suspicions in December, one month shy of my 60th birthday.
Talk about a paradigm shift! The news actually came as a huge relief. So many things about my life until now are finally making sense.
It can be harrowing to see life through the surreal lenses that warp and tangle and convolute the most simple of activities; activities that the neurologically typical consider ordinary, things like shopping and driving and studying and keeping a job and paying bills and visiting with friends. It can be sad to find that no matter how deeply committed the effort, tenuous results may be all that follow. ~ Liane Holliday Willey (Pretending to Be Normal: Living with Asperger’s Syndrome)
Reading the above quote for the first time deeply resonated with me. I’ve often tried to figure out how most people can simply hop in the car and run out to the store. For me it is a major and exhausting expedition that needs careful preparation and planning and a lot of recovery time afterwards. I’ve never been able to explain why this is to anyone — and still can’t. For me, so many things don’t respond to the ‘practice makes perfect’ philosophy. Now I know why. Now I can make the allowances I need without feeling so badly about it.
No doubt I will be writing more about this astonishing discovery in the coming months.
As we wandered around a corn maze on a perfect autumn day, we came upon an enchanting gourd tunnel.
Gourds are natural born climbers. They seek out anything they can reach to climb closer to the sun. They grow so quickly it can become a daily task to move the vines away from some places you don’t want them to climb on. And once a tendril gets itself wound around a hold nothing short of breaking the tendril off the vine will get the little curlicue to let go. Not even the death of the vine will loosen their grip much. ~ Karen Hundt-Brown (American Gourd Society)
While I looked, my inner self moved; my spirit shook its always-fettered wings half loose; I had a sudden feeling as if I, who never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste life: in that morning my soul grew as fast as Jonah’s gourd. ~ Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. ~ Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers)
The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed;- The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed. ~ Charlotte Brontë (The Poems of Charlotte Brontë [Currer Bell])
Tim was on call last night so I didn’t think we’d be going anywhere today, but he wasn’t called too often and he got enough sleep, so we took a little trip to Madison, which is a 45-minute drive from here. I badly wanted to see Jane Eyre and the only place it is showing around here is the Madison Art Cinema.
4.9.11 ~ Madison, Connecticut
We stopped at When Pigs Fly for brunch and then braved I-95 southbound to reach our destination. We usually wait for movies to become available on Netflix, but we were told the cinematography was amazing in this one, so off we went and I was not disappointed.
After the movie we strolled around the center of town and photographed some of the sculptures. The weather was lovely so we got some ice cream, sat in the car, and watched a squirrel busily foraging for food as we enjoyed our treat. We discussed the various versions of the film we have seen.
Fortunately for me I had read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and all her other books, long before seeing any of the film versions. The story is so long it is difficult to tell in the space of a two-hour movie. For this 2011 version, directed by Cary Fukunaga, I felt the most important parts of the story were included and I actually liked the way it was told with flashbacks.
My favorite production is the 1983 BBC television mini-series of Jane Eyre. I bought it on two video tapes and wore them out just in time to replace them with the new DVD. It follows most of the book and was great to watch in the winter when I had four hours to curl up with a cup of tea and a blanket…
When I went to see the 1996 version, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, I remember being disappointed because it didn’t cover all that I thought it should. But that was about fifteen years ago so perhaps I should give it a fresh try.
The 1944 version with Orson Welles was terrible, in my humble opinion. I found Welles’ portrayal of Rochester about as frightening as it gets. It was like a melodramatic horror movie and not a deep and moving love story. But then I’m highly sensitive and I’m sure there are others who didn’t feel as repulsed as I did.
But I think all the versions I’ve seen have had the heartfelt words that Jane Eyre uttered to Edward Rochester, which sum up what I feel is the main message of the story:
Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! … I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal – as we are! … I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you. ~ Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
To be released in October – a graphic novel, Jane, by April Lindner.
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will. ~ Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
The above picture I found on the web… Had to use something to illustrate what I saw this morning!! There are a couple of mourning doves in our neighborhood who love my garden. (Or perhaps even me?) They are so curious and they will often look for seeds, coming very close to me, studying me while I’m weeding. When other folks are about they zip up to the power lines, their wings whistling, and then sit and watch to see what develops in the human world.
This morning when I opened the door and stepped outside there were four birds in the garden. As I was trying to figure out what the two smaller birds were I slowly realized that they must be baby mourning doves! And then the whole family took off together!
Wikipedia says that the squabs “stay nearby to be fed by their father for up to two weeks after fledging.” So, if I’m calculating correctly, they could be about three or four weeks old! We’ve been living here for 17 years and this is the first time I’ve noticed the little ones.
