Monthly Archives: January 2013

Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

A Cold Night Under the Cold Moon (with Jupiter right beside it)

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Winter                                                                               Cold Moon

And down we go.  -10 right now.

Woollies met tonight at Mark’s.  Warren, Bill, Frank, Scott, Tom and myself.  Mark served up chili, a perfect meal for a cold night.

(source)

We talked about working beyond our comfort zones, out on the edge.  Mark says he remembers the edgy times when he’s out there, adventuring, not the comfortable times.  Warren’s edgy moment fast approaches as he signs off from the Star-Tribune and begins another life in his third phase.  He’s excited.

Bill’s wondering who he is now, after Regina’s death.  He says he’s up to the task of finding out…and I agree.  Frank’s helping drunks and bringing Lakota ways into his own life.

I had a chance to talk about the solid turn toward writing that I’ve been torturing these pages with.  Consensus was I’d already decided.  I will exercise my right to wait a while before formalizing it, especially with the Art Institute, but I’m going all in with the writing.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Feelings

Hello In There, Hello

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Winter                                                                                Cold Moon

I guess it was inevitable.  After all the psychic work over the last few weeks, the last year, I’m beginning to head into a heavy place.  Low energy.  There is, too, the cabin fever syndrome.  Not out much.  Staying down here in the basement, reading, translating.  Working.  Then working out.  Sleep.  Get up.  Repeat.

Don’t know how long this will last, though I do know enough about these moods to know that they usually precede a creative period.  It may be that my work on the Edda’s, on thinking about the next revision of Missing, plotting for Loki’s Children; it may just be that all that has to go into the pot and cook awhile.  Meanwhile I’m on emotional simmer.

 

Weather +Climate

Looking at the Outside from the Inside

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Winter                                                                              Cold Moon

11 below this morning.  We’ll heat up to -4 for a high then plunge back down to -14 tonight. We’re having a brief shot of what used to make up a much more substantial portion of our winter, bitter cold.  We are colder than we are snowy.  Or, at least we were.  Now we’re not much of either.

Back into the Edda’s this morning.

Faith and Spirituality

Roots support wings

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Winter                                                                                   Cold Moon

“My heart wants roots. My mind wants wings. I cannot bear their bickerings.”

— E. Y. Harburg

It has taken me a long time to resolve this dichotomy.  It drug me from Indiana to New York City in the summer of 1968, then pushed me back home in the fall.  I moved to Wisconsin, then Minnesota, all the while traveling as much as I could.  Wandering made me feel free, but it also made me feel homeless.

Now that I’m into my 42nd year in Minnesota and my 43rd up north, I feel I’ve gotten roots in the state.  It  took me three marriages to find Kate, but she’s given me roots in a relationship.  I moved 17 times in the Twin Cities and twice outside it before we moved to Andover where we’ve now lived 18 years, 19 this July.  Although I do not feel rooted in this town, I feel very much rooted to this place, this land, this home.  Even this county.

Here is the resolution that came to me, not long ago.  Without roots the mind cannot take wing.  Anchoredness, embededness, place stable give the mind freedom.  It does not have to occupy itself with the troubles of daily life since they can become part of a routine, a healthy routine, yes, but still a known quantity, a given.  So the roots reach down deep for stability and nourishment, deep enough to support the mind’s marathon to the end of the cosmos and back.

With solid roots the mind can at last break free, run out of its traces into the realms where only the mind can go.  Roots support wings.

This may be, probably is, obvious to you, but it took a while for me to understand.

 

Cinema and Television

Shirley Valentine

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Winter                                                                          Cold Moon

We’ve lost 33 degrees since noon.  Now 3, headed lower.

Just watched Shirley Valentine, a British coming of age movie featuring a 42 year old housewife whose friend wins a trip to Greece and invites her along.  It’s a bold move for her; she’s never left England.

On the island (Mykonos) she begins to enjoy just being Shirley Valentine.  She meets a Greek guy.  Eventually, not because of the guy, she decides to stay.  To live her life; her Shirley Valentine life, not her wife life or her mum life.

This is a funny movie, a sad movie, a hopeful movie.  Just right for a rapid temperature fall.

Weather +Climate

And the North Wind Doth Howl

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Winter                                                                              Cold Moon

As Kate and I got up from our nap, the north winds had begun to howl.  The arctic air has swept down over the tundra, over the occupied southerly reaches of Canada, skimmed Lake Superior and the Boreal Forest, which ends here where we live, and blasted its way into Andover.  That’s why I visited the bees today.  At noon it was 36, now its 10 and the temperature will continue to fall, the windchill as well.

It is now the winter of my content, a warm home, a good wife, loyal dogs and a place to work.  Plenty of books, broadband and plasma TV.  The isolated life has never been more connected.

 

Bees, Travel

Bees and Hikes

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Winter                                                                               Cold Moon

Checked the bees this am.  A midwinter are you still alive check.  Colony 2.  No.  As I’d expected.  It was weak going in to the winter and even though I fed them a lot at the end of fall I doubted their supply.  Colony 1, though, the ornery one is still vital.  I needed to know now because this is the time to order package bees.  I have to decide whether to order one  package or two.  Leaning toward one since the parent colony, colony 1, will be a divide in May, leaving me with three anyway.

Outside for the first time in a while.  I’m going to get my winter hiking legs back over the coming weeks since I’m planning an inn to inn hiking vacation, a belated 65th birthday trip.  Got to be sure I can go the distance.  I know my aerobic conditioning is in good shape, but it’s all short term work, no longer than an hour.  Got to work up to day long hikes.

Not sure yet whether I’m going to England, Scotland, Wales or somewhere here in the US though I’m leaning towards the Isle of Skye.

Then again, I might just go to Gettysburg, then to D.C. to see the Pre-Raphaelite show at the National Gallery and maybe hop the train up to Philly to see the Barnes.  Still thinking.

 

Art and Culture, Latin, Writing

Personal Best: Cont.

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Winter                                                                              Cold Moon

Focus on writing.  All the best hours.  Really dig into it.  Revise.  Rewrite.  Write.  Market.  Put stuff out there, in the world.

Hang with the Latin.  As a hobby, in off hours.

That seems to be where I’m headed.  The museum?  May have to go.  Still noodling.

Commentary on the news

WTF, ATF

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Winter                                                                 Cold Moon

My morning starts, as it used to for a majority of Americans, by reading the newspaper as I eat breakfast.  In spite of the fact that I hold a digital subscription to the NYTs as well.  A habit I likely will  not break.

Not often, but sometimes, this habit serves up such wildly improbable stories that I’m tempted to comment on them here.  I usually don’t.  Today’s twin cities+region section though.  Well.  Here are the three stories that struck me. (emphasis mine)

These quotes capture it:

“No one has been confirmed as head of the $1.12 billion agency (ATF) since its law enforcement functions were split off from the U.S. treasury in 2006 and the position was made subject to Senate approval.  The gun lobby has objected to every nominee, including the choice for former president George W. Bush.”

“A bill introduced by House DFlers on Wednesday could make it easier for homeowners like Crawford to stay in their homes by prohibiting lenders from beginning foreclosure proceedings at the same time they are working with home owners to avoid foreclosure.”

and, finally, the award for real cheek goes to a lawyer exposed (ha) in Whistleblower:

“Thomas P. Lowe, a Burnsville lawyer who had an affair with a client and “bill(ed) her meetings in which they engaged in sexual relations.”

Some days, you just have to wonder.

Health, Writing

Whew.

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Winter                                                                Cold Moon

Well.  First face-to-face (other than Kate) over the finished manuscript.  Lonnie had some cogent critiques.  My experiment with multiple first person narrators didn’t work for her.  She also wanted to see more character development on major characters.  But, on the whole, she thinks Missing is strong and won’t “require a major rewrite.”  It was fun to talk about my work with someone in addition to Kate.

(Valhalla)

Then the comedy began.  I picked up my eye drops (for glaucoma) and went to Walmart (I know.  But the price was $90 less than anywhere else.) to pick up two 50 pound barbells and two 45 plates for the leg press.  50 pounds I can do.  But.  The two 45’s were in one package.  I cannot lift 90 pounds.  So.  The one time I really needed a knife, which I usually carry, I’d left it at home.

They had that plastic shrink wrap over them.  Had to saw at it with my car key, setting off the door locks, then a beeping noise.  Quiet them down.  Back at it.  After what seemed like a very long time I finally got the package open and pulled them out one after the other.  Then onto home.  Whew.