BirchLane.net

May 2003 (updates coming)

Tuesday 27

Collected Stories.

Monday 26

More Rain.

That's life - that's what all the people say
You're ridin' high in April, shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm back on top, back on top in June

I say, that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks steppin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down
Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinning around

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet - a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out - and I know one thing:
Each time I find myself flat on my face

I pick myself up and get back in the race
That's life - I tell you - I can't deny it:
I thought of quittin', baby, but my heart just ain't gonna buy it
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try
I'd jump right on a big bird an then I'd fly

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet - a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out - and I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, laying flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life. that's life, and I can't deny it:
Many times I thought of cuttin' out, but my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here July
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball...
And die
My, my

Sunday 25

Gardening.

Saturday 24

Rain.

Friday 23

Post-Surgery.

Thursday 22

Surgery.

Wednesday 21

Sonata.

Tuesday 20

Traffic Bridge.

Monday 19

Lilacs.

Sunday 18

Out the window.

Saturday 17

Cityscape.

Friday 16

Lawn.  I mowed the lawn yesterday for the first time this year; there are more weeds than ever before but once it was mowed it looked better. Daryl usually mows the lawn now (He gets $20 for it.) but I felt like getting outside today and mowing the lawn can be such a meditative experience for me. I  thought of a story that appeared in The New Yorker called "The Mower," which began:

"She ran every morning at six-twenty. At first I hardly noticed but then it got so I'd look for her, and worry a little if she was late. She'd come out of the trees along the sixteenth fairway, run through the rough down the side, cut across the street--there's a little wooden bridge--onto the third tee, and out of sight. I would never see her after that. Is she finished where she started, though, she must have run four or five miles. Jesus. I couldn't run a mile if you paid me a million bucks. I never saw where she finished, because even though I was almost always on the fifteenth or sixteenth when she started--you cut them alternate days, usually--as soon as she got out of sight I had to go down the hill and do the eleventh or the tenth, and then back into the garage before the foursomes started showing up at seven."

Thursday 15

Imagining Good.

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt" by Thomas Merton

Wednesday 14

Meditation

Colebrook River Lake, Otis, Massachusetts

Tuesday 13

Danielle. We drove to Ithaca today to pick up Danielle. She completed here first year of college.

Monday 12.

Daryl. He collected the offering in church yesterday and as he walked from pew to pew I was struck with his poise and confidence.

Sunday 11

Mother's Day.  She is a good one.

Saturday 10

This Image.

Friday 09

Progress. I think.

Thursday 08

Orchestra. A friend wrote a poem for me:

little.) Our voices were springs first. Before the dog found refuge under her, before I had words, we played springs.

Then, our beds made a 'L' clinging to the walls, her eyes batting closed,
mine last after the silence with her breath, moderated warmth, our hips shook still.
On my side turned facing vertical flowers set to her hips rocking; burying above my head.
A tap, a beat set and giving, her breath soft, picking up, and keeping time through her spindle fingers.


Once there was a spider, in various night greys. Her hips had settled still long before. I watched it cut across the repeating peach garden. The greys mixed so I poked it for proof, one thin index splatted the round grey casing enough to bloom my eyes and paste my face. My hips picked up like a fire alarm, feet feathered for the way to run to the railing, soundless and navigating known bows and creaks. The TV broadcasted from the basement, flickering like a birthday party. I dangled my legs through the openings, my thighs cased by rungs, and sat mute.

They always told me they'd gotten them, when they never had.
I could see him clinging to a printed bloom, hanging wait.

In our room my sister turned in her bed, her hips pushing a reminding beat,
and satisfied, resettled.
Her, with her hands curled by her mouth,
lying on her side,
sighing measures, I was always last awake.

We sleep the same. Our beds are under pianos, next to cellos.
We tap our bones like batons to clear the voices of our dreaming. We raise our hands for pause,
and ensue with a timed drop, and a shake, for emphasis.
We move the springs, we set the beat of our dreaming, tap it with our hips. Something we know, something to do.
We make our beds.
We make something soft.
She eases.
I don't know what I do. I'm last awake.

Her lips give, her arms thrown above her head, wrists met, or hands at mouth, a sign for 'eat'. I lay in wait, until silence is unbroken long, readying with my hips soft, pulsing a pace of sleep, making the rate of dream. We tap and clear.
Our hips rock like jazz when we settle.

Wednesday 07 

Where the Road Ends. 

Tuesday 06

Blood Work. (hospital)

Monday 05

Christmas in August. (dvd)

Sunday 04

Johnathan Edwards. We had a guest speaker at Edwards Church today, the reference librarian for Forbes Library here in Northampton, who spoke about Sarah Edwards.

Johnathan Edwards was a college student at Yale when he wrote this brief description of Sarah Pierrepont. The girl, whom he had not yet met, was obviously not an average thirteen-year-old— then or now. Four years later he married her, and together they reared a large family of eight daughters and three sons. (The link about her is interesting.) "They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on him- that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight forever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her."

Saturday 03

Yard Work. I went outside and looked out into our backyard and contemplated the work ahead of me; my plan is to build a rock garden. I borrowed my neighbors chainsaw; I don't really like these machines and I hadn't used one for years but I only cut myself once today and that was when I was trying to start the damn thing and the back of my middle finger hit the choke when I pulled the start cord (it's been bleeding all day but at least I didn't fall down and have the saw fall on top of me!). I cleared away 30-40 saplings. I think I am about two-thirds completed.

Before	After

 Friday 02

The Ferry.

Once upon a time and a long time ago it was, I road the Staten Island Ferry. I was with Betsy, and her sister, Nancy. It was a gray and windy day. And another time, we road the ferry with our friends John and Andrea. 

The Staten Island Ferry was established by Cornelius Vanderbilt, in 1810, a sixteen-year-old who wanted to start a regular ferry service across the Upper Bay and asked his mother for help. She told him if he would promise to finish a project he had started on the family she would give him $100 to buy one boat. They each fulfilled the agreement, and Cornelius Vanderbilt established the Staten Island Ferry. According to some sources, paddling was needed to balance the keel-less boat, and it is thought that Cornelius insisted on doing his own rowing. He had purchased a periauger (a flat-bottomed sailing barge) and repaid the hundred dollars one year later. By then he had earned a profit of $1,000.

The first steamboat was used in 1817. And after interim managements the running of the ferry was taken over by the city government in 1905.The free ferry transports 20 million people a year (70,000 passengers a day) between St. George, Staten Island and Whitehall street in Manhattan. In 1926 the city's original white color scheme was eliminated in favor of a reddish-maroon. This was changed to municipal orange later so that they could be seen in heavy fog and snow. Steam was used on the Staten Island ferries up until the 1980's. In 1817 the cost to cross the harbor was 25 cents and half price for children. This was the cost to ride the Nautilus, the first steam ferry to make the famous trip. The 5 cents fare was established 1897. On October 10, 1972 the fare was raised to 10 cents. In 1975 the fare was increased to 25 cents. On August 1, 1990 the fare went up to 50 cents. Finally on July 4, 1997 the fare for foot passengers on the ferry was eliminated. The Pvt. Joseph Merrill and Cornelius G. Kolff ferries were converted to prison dormitories for Riker's Island. Three of the ferries that were built to make the trip across the harbor were bought by the U.S. Navy to fight in the civil war. The Southfield, Westfield, and the Clifton. Non of these ferries ever returned to New York.

We were very tired, we were very merry –

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

~Edna St, Vincent Millay

Thursday 01

A Path. Find your Spirituality Path

This is an excerpt from what it told me:

Path of Devotion (Augustinian prayer): The majority of saints are of this spiritual temperament as well as 12 percent of the population. ... The essential element of this spirituality, going back to New Testament times, is experiencing a personal relationship with God. Because they read between the lines and catch what is inexpressive and spiritual, those who follow the path of devotion best understand symbols and their use in the liturgy. This path concentrates on meditations that loosen the feelings and expand the ability to relate to and love others. The stress is on the love of self, others, and God.