More specifically concerning: mt. hood
5.08.01
5 August 2001, around 14.44.
It all comes down to a matter of contrast (if one wishes to deal with certainties). This dislocation springs, no doubt, from the abrupt difference of colors, the infinite bright variety replaced by a limited palette of infinite subtlety; a harsh chalk (or pastel) quality to the lines converted to a skillful watercolor. Even so, […]
11.06.02 – Tuesday
11 June 2002, around 13.44.
When I was around five years old, my father took a sabbatical from the institution and drove the family in a brown Ford van throughout the western United States. We stopped at numerous national parks – Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, the Grand Tetons, even the Badlands: you get the picture. My grandparents on my […]
alma mater
18 August 2003, around 20.10.
Dogs aren’t allowed on the trail without a leash, both to prevent them from harassing other hikers and to keep the dogs themselves out of trouble. In places the sound of the river rises up the gravel slope, and thirsty dogs rush down for a drink and cannot reascend; should the owner go down to […]
inquiry (2)
22 August 2003, around 19.27.
William J. Faubion House Zigzag, OR (built ca. 1908) [June 2002]
inquiry (3)
23 August 2003, around 15.44.
It is a long story and a sad story, not yet complete and not entirely knowable – mainly about the past and how to deal with it. For lack of evidence, I’ll skip the beginning, though the middle is hearsay and the end has not yet arrived. Starting, then, in media res: the old man […]
inquiry (4)
30 August 2003, around 4.18.
William J. Faubion House Zigzag, OR (built ca. 1908) [August 2003]
inquiry (5)
30 August 2003, around 21.15.
Game was plentiful and at times a drove of elk could be seen on Hunchback mountain which at that time was bare of timber. Food consisted of fresh meat they could kill, beans, bacon, potatoes and dried fruit. Together they cut all trees in the valley, mostly alder. One year late in August, they set […]
inquiry (6)
22 September 2003, around 14.13.
Historical inevitability.
have a rest
13 September 2010, around 12.00.
Tuck the blanket around your feet, lean back in your deck chair. Go and have a rest.
out and about
27 July 2013, around 7.03.
barrier to entry
31 August 2014, around 14.48.
Reading at the window, December 2013. There were too many things to do this summer, each day crowded with too of the little nothings that are so necessary if anything is going to happen. Now, though, projects are winding down, and there’s nothing to do but bustle about and procrastinate on those last few things […]
another walk
1 May 2016, around 15.00.
none intrudes
3 September 2016, around 10.26.
up to nature
4 September 2016, around 6.02.
Mirror Lake on an overcast day Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. [ . . . ] If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much. –Mary Oliver, ‘How I go to […]
oneiric
15 July 2017, around 13.32.
The forest is full of noises: the young squirrels clucking and monitoring us, in relay, from the trees; the strange creaking groan, like the slow opening of a door, of the forest settling; then, as we descended, the distant notes of an amateur cornet (or flute) in uncertain melody. No bears or other large mammals […]
mistook
12 August 2017, around 12.00.
out for a walk
23 December 2017, around 10.40.
radiant
22 May 2019, around 10.38.
A rut is only a problem if you don’t like where you’re going.
meander
29 December 2019, around 11.06.
Looking for new paths to familiar places.
A view (48)
15 January 2020, around 15.27.
trees and snow.
13.x.2020
13 October 2020, around 14.11.
Uncanny walk through the woods, jumpy at the metallic rattle of leaves, the tinny sound of rain, the echo of my own footsteps, the distant yip of a dog. At each step the sensation of being watched, perhaps only by a wren, but watched – and warily.
the forest path
23 March 2021, around 5.38.
Sometime near the end of last November or beginning of December I managed to hurt my left heel. For the first two weeks or so I didn’t allow myself to think too much about it and kept my daily routine of walking (usually some three to five miles, depending on the weather and my inclinations), […]
up the road
25 October 2021, around 9.22.
mellowing
24 November 2021, around 9.47.
Knowledge of values, in fact, is a matter of direct insight, like seeing that the sky is blue, the grass green. It does not consist of pieces of information that can be handed from one mind to another. In the last resort, every individual must see and judge for himself what it is good for […]
(b)rambles
5 December 2021, around 14.06.
Another benefite of the village is this, that he shall haue tyme enough to al thinges that he will do, so that the time be well spent, tyme enough to studie, time to visite his frendes, tyme to go a huntyng, and layser when he list to eate his meat: the which layser courtiers commonly […]
slick
28 December 2021, around 8.37.
About two feet of snow have fallen since then, and the highway is slickly plowed, a layer of graveled white on which cars tend to go too fast, with little thought of lane boundaries or chance, but secure in the hope of their destination. Then one returns to the fireplace and the books, where comfort […]
indivisible lines
14 March 2023, around 7.45.
Οὐδὲ δὴ τὸ ἕκαστον ἅπτεσθαι τῶν ἀπείρων τὴν διάνοιαν οὐκ ἔστιν ἀριθμεῖν, εἰ ἄρα τις καὶ νοήσειεν οὕτως ἐφάπτεσθαι τῶν ἀπείρων τὴν διάνοιαν. ὅπερ ἴσως ἀδύνατον· οὐ γὰρ ἐν συνεχέσι καὶ ὑποκειμένους ἡ τῆς διανοίας κίνησις, ὥσπερ ἡ τῶν φερομένον. Again, the process of the mind touching an infinite series one by one is not […]
temporize
28 April 2023, around 7.52.
The trillium are late this year.
qualms before a storm
1 May 2023, around 15.55.
Not a skunk cabbage. The swamp discourages casual camera-carrying. It is the short period of the year when the ground is damp enough, but the weather is dry enough, that fires for burning yard debris are permitted. A week of sun has more or less dried out the massive pile containing three years’ worth of […]
A view (58)
8 July 2023, around 15.33.
byways
13 July 2023, around 4.42.
…scarce appeareth any calamity, but if time be taken and opportunitie laid holde on, helpe and release doth as readely present it selfe, to the comforte of such as trauaile vnder the burthen, as affliction is readie to charge them… —Timothie Bright (A treatise of melancholie)
rixator
19 July 2023, around 10.05.
Quis est enim tam conpositae felicitatis ut non aliqua ex parte cum status sui qualitate rixetur? For who is so completely happy that he does not find something to quarrel with in his own condition? —Boethius (Consolation…, trans. S.J. Tester, II.iv.41ff.)