It’s a miracle that I could make this movie. I carried the anxiety for a very long time, four years. It’s a philosophical book and expensive movie, a scary combination.
~ Ang Lee
(Associated Press)
a philosophical book and expensive movie
vegan ♥ paleo
To look for a “healthy” diet can be as discouraging as a search for the “true” religion. I spent many years extricating myself from a belief system which had at one time seemed to have all the definitive answers my teenage self was yearning for. One would think I might have learned a lesson or two about words and ideas that sound too good to be true.
Some of my readers may remember a few passionate posts I wrote back in October of 2011, when after reading several convincing books by cardiologists I decided that Tim & I should become vegans to try to reverse his heart disease. In my mind it was a done deal, the final answer. But in the months following our change to a vegan diet, Tim wound up in the hospital twice, which left me feeling demoralized. It was as if eating plants was making things worse, not better.
One day last fall, I happened to catch another cardiologist being interviewed on TV, and he was talking about the evils of gluten and wheat, and how consumption of grains leads to obesity, heart disease and diabetes. And so began another round of research for me, more books, more websites, more theories to contemplate. To make a long story a bit shorter, we have switched to a paleo diet, or caveman diet. Wild game, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised poultry. Lots of vegetables. Nuts and berries. Hunting and gathering. No wheat or grains. Keeping our fingers crossed.
This time around I’m not looking at this change as The Answer carved in stone. It’s an Experiment to see if anything different will happen. I’m the daughter of a scientist after all. Maybe the food we choose to eat has nothing at all to do with heart disease, though somehow I still think it might. But cardiologists don’t seem to agree on the best diet for heart disease, so I won’t list all the authors of the books I consulted. Staying off of the bandwagon for the time being.
Last week we did have some encouraging news after Tim went in for a checkup. He lost some weight and his progress pleased his doctor for the first time since his original heart attack five years ago. Let’s hope we’re finally on the right track, although I am keeping myself carefully skeptical, just in case…
awakening the heart
by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Muse, bid the morn awake,
Sad winter now declines;
Each bird doth choose a mate,
This day’s St. Valentine’s.
~ Michael Drayton
♥ Happy Valentine’s Day ♥
journey through wonder
Dreaming is a journey through wonder, surprise, and freedom.
~ Anthony Lawlor
(A Home for the Soul)
A dream is a massive magic trick of the mind. No amount of science could explain away the mysterious wonder.
~ Dave Matthews
(Twitter, November 14, 2008)
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers)
There is nothing like a dream to create the future.
~ Victor Hugo
(Les Misérables)
21 inches of snow ~ 2.6.78
2.6.78 ~ Ledyard, Connecticut
Snow memories… Blizzard Charlotte keeps reminding us of Blizzard Larry, which stormed through Connecticut thirty-five years ago on February 6, 1978, when we also got 21 inches of snow. Our son was two years old at the time, and was already showing signs of the outdoor-loving guy he was to become.
Yesterday I kept thinking about these pictures and so decided to learn how to use the scanner today. Nate (we used to call him Nat, but his friends changed his nickname to Nate) moved to Georgia in 2011 and he very much misses New England and snow. Tim set up a webcam for him so he could watch the blizzard outside our kitchen window on his computer as the storm was in progress.
While flipping through the photo album I came across this picture of my sister Beverly and the swan she sculpted from a snowfall the year before, in the winter of 1977.
21 inches of snow ~ 2.8.13
Connecticut averaged about 30 inches of snow, down here by the coast in southeastern Connecticut we got 21 inches. Below is the first peek out the door the morning after!
Our governor has banned all use of roads today – we won’t be going anywhere any time soon. Our neighbor’s son has been digging out his mom’s car and thankfully he will be doing ours, too! It’s heavy wet snow. The workers with the snow-blowers to clean off the sidewalks have not even arrived yet.
Relieved of shoveling responsibilities we decided to take a short walk. The wind is still blowing and biting. That’s me in the next picture, bundled up and ready to proceed.
We heard many limbs snapping off trees during the peak of the storm. These evergreens (below) behind our unit normally stand tall and straight. They are terribly bent over now by the weight of the snow…
After we finished checking out the back we decided to take a walk up the road, which is normally very busy with traffic. It would seem everyone is in compliance with the travel ban.
Returning home through the other end of the parking lot we found another evergreen between three other buildings weighed down by the snow.
Sadly, there was a terrible incident at our condo complex this morning. I heard a woman screaming and quickly went to look out the window. A small group of people had gathered around the woman but I couldn’t see what was happening because of the snow drifts. Soon a policeman arrived and our neighbor later informed us that someone’s dog had attacked and killed someone else’s dog. I was stunned. Tim later saw the policeman taking away a little body in a black plastic bag. Rest in peace, little dog…
There’s our neighbor (above) still working away at his massive shoveling job! We went back inside and had some hot cocoa, feeling a little guilty that we had not done any shoveling to earn such a delicious reward!
grackles by the sea
Last April we took a trip to visit our son and daughter-in-law in Georgia. When we got home I started posting pictures on my blog of the places we visited, but never finished. Since I have a little time now I decided to post some more of our photos. (For anyone interested, the first batch of pictures started here.) The following pictures of boat-tailed grackles were captured at the Howard Gilman Memorial Park on the waterfront of St. Marys, Georgia. The park has a lovely large water fountain and on the day we visited it was doubling as a bird bath!
To claim, at a dead party, to have spotted a grackle,
When in fact you haven’t of late, can do no harm.
~ Richard Wilbur
(New & Collected Poems)
Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can’t even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.
~ Barbara Kingsolver
(Animal Dreams)
Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone’s horizon sweeps someone else’s. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much.
~ Gregory Maguire
(Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years)
photos by Tim Rodgers
winter appointments
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Walden)
Oh! where do fairies hide their heads,
When snow lies on the hills?
When frost has spoiled their mossy beds,
And crystallized their rills:
Beneath the moon they cannot trip
In circles o’er the plain:
And draughts of dew they cannot sip,
Till green leaves come again.
~ Thomas Haynes Bayly
(Songs & Ballads, Grave & Gay)
oh deer!
Not too long ago my friend Kathy, over at Lake Superior Spirit, looked around her little house in the snowy Michigan woods for colorful or meaningful objects to take outside and put in different places in the snow for a photo shoot. She suggested I might try it sometime.
Well, sad to say, it hasn’t been snowing much here in southeastern Connecticut since the winter of 2011, which was the snowiest winter we ever had. But I decided to carefully pack up the most meaningful of my objects, a large doe figurine, and head out to hunt for a little patch of relatively unspoiled snow.
We wound up at Haley Farm State Park and chose a few spots on a crumbling, lovely old stone wall. For the first picture, which is my favorite, I positioned my doe on a stone that had fallen in front of the wall. For the second spot I put her up on top of the wall so she was a little above the camera. Tim suggested the third setting, placing her on the ground in front of the wall. The little birds came from home, too, as they are usually perched with the doe on a special shelf in my room.
It was fun, Kathy! Then something wonderful happened after we had packed up my precious doe and her little bird friends. A few people came along with their dogs, who were off-leash. Some of my readers may know that I’ve been afraid of large dogs ever since one bit me when I was a toddler. But I watch Cesar Millan on the Dog Whisperer all the time, trying to understand dog behavior and overcome my deeply entrenched fears.
With my deer totem safely in my bag and my husband by my side I watched in awe as three dogs, who seemed to belong to several different couples, greeted each other and asked each other to play. All agreed and a fast game of chase ensued! I suppose dog owners see this kind of thing all the time but for me it was amazing. The dogs were running like the wind, making huge circles around a tree, and barking for the joy and thrill of being alive. Their energy was boundless, and they whooshed close by us several times. I wasn’t afraid! I could interpret their behavior correctly! Tim took the camera and tried to get a few pictures. I will never forget this experience!
