in the catskills (and fiber things)

Spent the weekend upstate and talked my Ari-love's ear off (and vice verse), cooked and ate lots and lots of delicious things, walked by the reservoir, tromped ever so little in the woods, watched her aikido class, and spent a couple hours wrapping her up in knitted things. Links (& pictures) below. And thank the gods for old and dear friends.

spring greens wrap
silk & seaweed wedding shawl
oily water wrap
ivory bridal wrap
merino forest wrap
dragon wings bridal shawl

the catskills

at jfk, or, the things we lose in the name of safety

There was an old man a few people in front of us going through security the other evening at JFK. He could barely get out of his wheel chair, the poor skinny old guy, let alone walk, but they made him walk through the metal detectors anyway. Someone lifted him up by his elbows from behind and sent him tottering through to someone waiting on the other side to catch him.

Of course he set off the alarm. So they took off his watch and sent him backing through unsteadily to our side. The someone on our side caught him by the elbows and sent him through again. He set off the alarm again so they took his belt and backed him over to our side. Again. He stood there looking forlorn as we all grew restless. He started forward again, got half way through the detector, lost his pants which crumpled and ballooned around his knees. The alarm went off. They took something else from him and sent him back to the our side. He clutched at his pants, seemed to tremble -- with rage or humiliation or mere very-old-person weakness or confusion, who knows? I know I was close to tears, afraid I might say something to get us in trouble. Managed to keep quiet. Still hate myself a little for this.

It took two more times before they deemed him not a terrorist, and I've spent the last two days wondering how in the world this keeps us safe? And even if it does, how in the world is it worth it?

a walk in cochection

dusk on the water, 7.2.11

twenty-four hours on the islands

heading out, 6.30.11

notes from the Coast Starlight (day two)

(The forest primeval. Actually, mostly second and third
growth forest. But still beautiful.)


(Treetops. Also, breakfast menu.)

6.29.11, 3:04pm
Day two on the Coast Starlight. Discovered dining in the Parlour Car. Befriended by the most amazing older couple -- Shirley and Knight -- with whom we have now shared two lunches and a wine & cheese tasting.  Strangely, will miss them with all my heart after they detrain in Portland. Almost within shouting distance of Seattle.  Well, three hundred miles until we sleep in Anacortes tonight.






(Approaching Seattle at last.)

and on the fourth day

(approaching Seattle at last)

notes from the Coast Starlight (day one)

6.28.11, 3:22pm
Dolphins cavorting in the surf. Eucalyptus groves. Sand dunes. Black cows grazing in the scrub. Fields and fields of spinach and strawberries and cabbages and potatoes. Kelp undulating along the shore. Cloud bank stretched like a hand reaching with open fingers to drag you down into the sea. Just some of the things one sees from the Coast Starlight.

bordering on wine country

parallels (also alien spacecraft)

the western rim

north of la

sunset on the southwest chief

albuquerque train station

arizona & new mexico

There's just so much land out there. And fences to divide and parcel it (I wonder what is being kept in and what is being kept out?).  And those red, red jagged rocks breaking into scrub and shrubs and  trees.  And then the land begins to soften, to roll toward mountains, and the horizon becomes more manageable again, losing that vertiginous sense of the earth falling away into the sky.

It's easy to forget sometimes how big this country really is.

colorado

I imagined it was all mountains but apparently it's not (says the ignorant New Yorker).

'and once i knew i was not magnificent, i could see for miles and miles and miles...'*

Do you ever find yourself listening to or looking at something so beautiful, so strangely right, that you almost cry from the crystalline perfect sadness of it? I know you know what I mean.



I had one of those moments just after six o'clock in the morning two weeks ago, in the midst of our cross-country train trip. The rattling of the rails, or that plaintively wailing whistle curling back along the length of the train to our sleeper car, or something else entirely dragged me abruptly out of sleep into the seeping gray of those minutes just before dawn.  Evan was still sound asleep in the bunk above me, and so I curled up with my ipod and my camera and I listened to this Bon Iver song* and watched the sun stretch its way over the train and across the golden flat miles of Kansas, rendered almost mythically, heartbreakingly beautiful by the creeping dawn light.

*Sadly, my magical moment was based in part on a misinterpretation of the lyrics.

crossing the mississippi