Eastern Point – Page 5

misty hibiscus palustris

Before Tropical Storm Isaias arrived on Tuesday, and after filling the car with gas and dropping off our mail-in primary ballots, we went down to the beach and the turtle pond for an early morning walk. We never lost power here, in spite of the high winds, but I see on the news the rest of Connecticut was hit much harder.

Unfortunately the storm didn’t bring much rain here, which we could have used because we’ve had so little this summer. In these pictures you can see that Beach Pond is almost dried up, all that remains are puddles and mud. Normally there would be lots of blue-gray water behind these wildflowers.

My heart always skips a beat when I see the swamp rose mallows are blooming! They seem to be a perfect shade of pink. When I was little, pink was my favorite color. My parents even let me paint my bedroom walls pink. Blue has replaced it as my favorite color in adulthood, although I think you could call the muted shade on my current living room walls a dusty rose.

8.4.20 ~ Eastern Point
rabbit-foot clover

Down at the beach I noticed these curious tiny puffy pale pink flowers (above) growing between the rocks. And there was a solitary gull (below) letting the waves wash over his feet. You can tell the wind was just starting to pick up from his ruffled feathers.

After taking the online Joy of Birdwatching course at The Cornell Lab Bird Academy, I took their suggestion and joined the “Connecticut Birds” Facebook group. It’s a private group with about 6,500 members and you cannot share the beautiful pictures other members submit. What a treasure trove! And the members are so helpful when you need assistance identifying a bird.

Even if you don’t know you need guidance! Back on June 24 I saw a solitary eider swimming in the river and honestly thought it looked like a juvenile loon. But someone in the group suggested it was a female common eider and that she had never seen one before! I looked it up and agree with her identification. At first I thought this bird was another common eider but now I’m going with a non-breeding male, or a juvenile, mallard, unless I get corrected again. 🙂

timelessness and quiet ecstasy

7.14.20 ~ ring-billed gull cooling his feet at Eastern Point Beach

The humidity lowered just a tad on Tuesday morning so we snuck down to the beach for an early morning walk. The only gull out and about was on the rocks, a ring-billed one with his bright yellow legs. He wanted to be friends and walk along with us.

When we went down on the sand he decided to come, too, and lead the way.

pardon me while I cool off my feet again

Then Tim spotted a butterfly flitting about on the wrack line!

When it moved to the sand I tried to get a shot of it with its wings open.

Yet there are other windows through which we humans can look out into the world around us, windows through which the mystics and the holy men of the East, and the founders of the great world religions, have gazed as they searched for the meaning and purpose of our life on earth, not only in the wondrous beauty of the world, but also in its darkness and ugliness. And those Masters contemplated the truths that they saw, not with their minds only but with their hearts and souls too. From those revelations came the spiritual essence of the great scripitures, the holy books, and the most beautiful mystic poems and writings. That afternoon, it had been as though an unseen hand had drawn back a curtain and, for the briefest moment, I had seen through such a window. In a flash of “outsight” I had known timelessness and quiet ecstasy, sensed a truth of which mainstream science is merely a small fraction. And I knew that the revelation would be with me for the rest of my life, imperfectly remembered yet always within. A source of strength on which I could draw when life seemed harsh or cruel or desperate.
~ Jane Goodall
(Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey)

I’d sit on logs like pulpits
listen to the sermon
of sparrows
and find god in Simplicity,
there amongst the dandelion
and thorn
~ Jewel
(A Night Without Armor)

We now have 144 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our town. Our county (New London) has 1,345 confirmed cases. Of those 4 are still in the hospital and 102 have lost their lives. I fret over the figures coming out of North Carolina and Georgia, where my children live. Stay safe and take care…

after dinner light

“Picking Honeysuckle”
by Sophie Gengembre Anderson

Morning — is the place for Dew —
Corn — is made at Noon —
After dinner light — for flowers —
Dukes — for setting sun!
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #223)

morningtide

Canada goose papa watching over his family in Avery Pond

One morning, four days after the beach “opened” for the season on June 20, we got up early and headed down there before it opened for the day. What a difference! Now that people have to pay for a pass to enter between 8am and 8pm the freeloaders and all their litter, cigarette butts and dog crap have disappeared. Peace is restored and we had such a lovely walk!

killdeer parent and three tiny chicks
near Avery Pond

killdeer on the run after the speedy little chicks

In contrast to the tranquil Canada goose family, the killdeer parents were beyond frantic, chasing after and chirping to their three chicks, who were darting all over the place and in every direction. It made getting their pictures next to impossible! They blended in well with the gravel.

Someone is tending some beautiful rose bushes near the entrance, along the chain link fence.

I love the contrast between rusty old metal and fresh new flower.

The water was very calm on the river/estuary side of the point.

Another risk factor to worry about:

The two stretches of DNA implicated as harboring risks for severe COVID-19 are known to carry some intriguing genes, including one that determines blood type and others that play various roles in the immune system. In fact, the findings suggest that people with blood type A face a 50 percent greater risk of needing oxygen support or a ventilator should they become infected with the novel coronavirus. In contrast, people with blood type O appear to have about a 50 percent reduced risk of severe COVID-19.
~ Dr. Francis S. Collins
(Genes, Blood Type Tied to Risk of Severe COVID-19,
NIH Director’s Blog, June 18, 2020)

I have type A blood. Fortunately my husband, children, and grandchildren are all type O. Reading this article made me glad that we haven’t let our guard down and continue to remain firmly self-quarantined. And now our governor has ordered out-of-state travelers to quarantine for two weeks when entering Connecticut because of the way COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire in so many other states. I’m glad to know he is still looking out for us. The numbers are getting very alarming again.

It’s good to know my beach sanctuary is available to me again, at least for the summer. Looking forward to many early morning walks on the sand.

The salt of those ancient seas is in our blood, its lime is in our bones. Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments, or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.
~ Loren Eiseley
(The Unexpected Universe)

I like this place, and willingly could
Waste my time in it.
~ William Shakespeare
(As You Like It)

We are nature. We are nature seeing nature. The red-winged blackbird flies in us.
~ Susan Griffin
(Made from this Earth: An Anthology of Writings)

morning at the beach

4.1.20 ~ sidewalk greetings, Eastern Point Beach

Noon — is the Hinge of Day —
Evening — the Tissue Door —
Morning — the East compelling the Sill —
Till all the World is ajar —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1060)

On Wednesday we went down to the beach earlier in the morning and found it less populated and more peaceful. Chilly, but wonderful! Staying connected with family and friends and even feeling better physically. Full of gratitude.

4.1.20 ~ looking west, New London Ledge Lighthouse and Tyler House

Spring! Back at home in my garden, the chionodoxa (glory of the snow) are out! What a cheerful greeting and welcome home. ❦

4.1.20 ~ chionodoxa popping through the mulch

an explanation for all the confusion and difficulties in your life

How do you explain to the people around you that what you need now is to just crash and do nothing for a while until your head feels normal again, when you don’t even know what’s wrong with yourself? … I think it’s important to keep in mind that when we define the severity of a person’s Autism, it’s only a measure of outward behavior and doesn’t really reflect how much one is affected by the condition internally. Those of us who appear to have low severity may actually need more than is apparent to the eye. … Sometimes I think of myself as part of a lost generation (or generations), the ones who had to go through life with Asperger’s unknowingly. And I’m hoping that in the future, with better education and understanding, the Aspie youth of the future will have a completely different experience. … It’s a nice feeling — a relief — to finally find an explanation for all the confusion and difficulties in your life, but it would have been even nicer to have known it all along.
~ Michelle Vines
(Asperger’s on the Inside)

Yesterday I spent the day reading and then shredding all the journals I wrote when I was in my late 20s and early 30s. (I’m in my early 60s now.) Something I’ve been meaning to do for a few years because there was a lot of very personal stuff in there.

What was strikingly revealed to me as I read is the painful struggle I was having with autism for years, trying desperately to figure out what was “wrong” with me. The evidence of impaired executive functioning jumped out at me on almost every page, so obvious from what I know now, so baffling back then. I wanted so badly to live like a “normal” (neurotypical) person, to figure out how to get along in this world.

As I read I kept saying under my breath, “no wonder you were so damn tired all the time.” It’s exhausting trying to make your brain work with a different operating system. I can’t help wondering what my life might have been like had I and my parents and my husband known about autism and if I had had some meaningful support. But it IS a huge relief to have it all make sense now.

self-quarantine

There are 12 detected cases of COVID-19 in Connecticut now, and no doubt there are plenty more undetected cases. Our self-quarantine continues. A few days ago we drove down to the beach and encountered this solitary gull withstanding the wind. It was good to get some fresh air.

The days are passing slowly, hours filled with jigsaw puzzles, yoga, chores, cooking, watching movies, video-chatting with family. Anxiety comes and goes. Hoping we are doing our share of “flattening the curve.”

Flattening A Pandemic’s Curve: Why Staying Home Now Can Save Lives

portrait setting

Last night we went down for our last supper from the concession stand at the beach. (Tonight will be the last night it is open but it is supposed to rain today so we won’t likely be going down there.) As we were waiting for our order my gull friend flew to the post nearest Tyler House to greet us. I took a few pictures and then was suddenly inspired to try out the portrait setting on my camera. The gull was happy to keep posing.

9.1.19 ~ this is where he was standing for his portraits

When some people approached by land and a noisy little motorboat came close to shore, he took off and didn’t come back while we were eating on our bench. But I was grateful for the short visit we had.

9.1.19 ~ a young ring-billed gull who watched us eat our supper

I expect we will bring our own food down to the beach on warm autumn days, but I have to say, this was the first summer I’ve actually enjoyed in a very long time.

a cast of characters

8.16.19 ~ Eastern Point Beach
This is probably a laughing gull somewhere on the road to adulthood.
It takes them 2-3 years to gain adult plumage.

He kept a close eye on us, staring intently as we ate our supper.

This young ring-billed gull decided to attract our attention with all sorts of antics right in front of our bench.

His long call was not very long or very loud, thankfully.

They grey freckles on his head are fetching.

This guy kept his distance as he was performing
the amazing “feet” of standing on one leg.
He stayed like that the whole time we were eating.

Now to the left. Perhaps he was doing some gull yoga.

There were no herring gulls there that evening, not even my friend with the mangled leg. But we were well entertained by these visitors.