silent sunday
the harvest of a troubled year
Hard, hard it is, this anxious autumn,
To lift the heavy mind from its dark forebodings;
To sit at the bright feast, and with ruddy cheer,
Give thanks for the harvest of a troubled year.
From the apprehensive present, from a future packed
With unknown dangers, monstrous, terrible and new—
Let us turn for comfort to this simple fact:
We have been in trouble before . . . and we came through.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
(Thanksgiving…1950)
vase de chrysanthèmes
We have ceased trying
to tie up all loose ends.
We have discovered
that life does not need to be neat.
We have more questions than answers,
and this is a great delight to us.
We trust the Mystery of life
without having to possess It.
We cherish the feeling of awe
that has grown within our soul.
~ William Martin
(The Sage’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life)
to drift into a brown study
On Saturday my son-in-law came to my rescue and figured out how to get pictures from my camera onto my laptop, and then patiently taught me how to do it myself. My daughter spent most of her weekend organizing and updating my important papers, accounts and digital information, for which I am grateful because I am so brain-numb and overwhelmed these days.
On Sunday my friends came over for another long walk and this time I brought my camera along. Naturally I forgot to bring an extra battery but I did get a few pictures before the battery in the camera ran out. It’s a start. I’ll get the hang of things again eventually.
The change of the landscape’s prevailing tint from green to brown is not a cheerful one. Look wheresoever one may, he is pretty sure, in November, to drift into a brown study, and this is seldom exhilarating.
~ Charles Conrad Abbott
(Days Out of Doors)
I never noticed before this old abandoned car a little way off the trail. (above) It’s been completely filled with rocks. We wondered how long it’s been there.
Also on Saturday my granddaughter and I took a walk and she found three broken-off beech twigs with yellow leaves intact. She brought them home and put them in a vase for me.
a hole in the world
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
(Letter to Witter Bynner, October 29, 1920)
The above words perfectly describe this strange new chapter in my life. Widowhood. I am still numb but doing well, thanks to all the love and support of family and friends. There is so much to do!
It took me a whole week to suddenly understand that I had no idea how to transfer photos from my camera to my laptop. Countless times Tim had offered to teach me how to do that and now it’s too late. What a gut punch that realization was.
Writing an obituary took a lot of time, it felt like a labor of love, trying to honor this wonderful man who shared over fifty years of life with me. It finally got published in a local newspaper but I also put it on a permanent page on this blog.
Family and friends have been taking walks with me. At some point I hope I will start posting with new pictures again, and trying to catch up with my blogging friends. All in good time.
Tim
After a long and very ordinary day of chores and errands and making plans I suddenly lost my best friend. We were watching TV together, late in the evening, a program about building modular housing. Tim was making an observation about the process when he had a heart attack and died. This was how he had hoped his life would end, without having to suffer through a prolonged illness, and for that I am thankful. Farewell, my love. I am numb, and so lost without you.
11.11.25 Edit: It wasn’t a heart attack. The cause of death was ‘ventricular fibrillation resulting in sudden cardiac death.’ Cardiac arrest is different from a heart attack.
sunlight over the meadow
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina
This will be my third Walktober post from North Carolina; my first three were posted while living in Connecticut. Again this year Dawn, over at her Change Is Hard blog, will be hosting. There is still time to participate if you wish to share a walk or other experience this month, and you can find the simple instructions to do so here.
I decided to try a new location for the walk this year. The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh is 27 miles away from home so it was a bit of an expedition getting there. (And due to rush hour traffic in the late afternoon it took us one and a half hours to get home afterwards!) The museum is surrounded by a lovely park with walking trails, so we picked the Upper Meadow Trail.
Butterflies and bees were all over the hillside meadow we explored, and we spotted two new-to-us kinds of butterflies. We even saw a honey bee with a pollen basket on her leg, filled to the brim. There was an interesting sculpture to ponder, and wildflowers and grasses as far as the eye could see. It was definitely worth the trip!
I don’t build small models or draw detailed plans first.
I start with a vision, a dream of what I want to do, and see where it goes.
~ Mark di Suvero
There blows the yellow crested reed,
The autumnal queen of flowers.
~ Samuel Alfred Beadle
(The Golden Rod)
To see my past Walktober posts select the Walktober tag in the categories below this post. When Dawn collects the links to everybody’s posts in November, and then posts them on her blog, it’s fun to take a look at all the different places other bloggers have visited, and read about the experiences they have had.
not knowing
Poetry –
but what is poetry anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail.
~ Wisława Szymborska
(Some People Like Poetry)
suspended
It’s been almost two years since we followed this trail in late December 2023. Tripp Farm Trail is part of the maze of trails weaving through the 750 woodland acres of Carolina North Forest. We finally got ourselves a detailed map of all the trails from the University of North Carolina.
As you can see, the woods are still decidedly green. Fall colors don’t peak around here until the second week of November. Which makes November less bleak than we were used to in New England, but makes October here feel more like a September up north.
(this one made Tim think of the sword of Damocles)
We don’t see birds often in this forest, but the last time we did this trail I found a bluebird. This time Tim spotted a woodpecker, way high up on a tall snag. There’s a reason we never see birders here — or even people with cameras — but I’ll accept this small gift with gratitude. We’re there mainly to forest bathe in the phytoncides the trees give off!
The world of machines is running
Beyond the world of trees
Where only a leaf is turning
In a small high breeze.
~ Wendell Berry
(This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems)