Collegeland II

 Quintessential Carpenter Goth New England, eh?

The antibiotics are working but too slowly for my liking. Please forgive any listlessness to my style. Problems breathing tend to make me a little blue, a little anxious, all too fragile. So time to distract myself with beauty, in this case, the beauty of Collegeland.

These tall zinnias (with butterfly,) were growing on a gorgeous hellstrip half a block from a crop of dorms. Luscious color and attractive cup shape to the opening buds. Here's some more from the same hellstrip. Sage and Sedum, yum.

Walking around Collegeland is lovely for much the same reason Northwest Philly is lovely, though the regional style is somewhat different. I have come to really admire the virtues of the  urban village: older, well-built unique houses pretty close together, different sized lots, big trees, sidewalks, front porches, short front paths, and either no fences or see-through fences.

 This being New England most of everything is wooden, well made and well kept up.

I do not know why my heart is so much in New England, but it is. As a kid I had no interest in America at all, all I wanted to do was read about and imagine the British Isles. I even felt a bit angry at being born in a place that only had a few centuries of recorded history. Shouldn't God have known better? I was SUPPOSED to be English.

But New England grew on me. Camp and college, trips and family history, realizing that early American history had its interests too, till now I would love to be able to spend 8 months of the year there.

And garden there, they do have lovely gardens and the shorter, cooler, less-humid growing season makes for fresher, more intense gardens.


Speaking of gardens, while walking we came across...

This is a several acres park, owned by a private foundation and open to free public access.

My guess is that a lot of volunteering, love and money has gone into creating and maintaining this oasis.

If you read the history of the park you will find a common story often behind such worthwhile efforts. It started out as the estate of a rich family whose money was made in less than exemplary ways (Southern slave-holding, in this case.) Over time, as descendants multiplied, spreading out the cash, and the costs of grandeur rose, keeping up the estate became harder as the descendants became gentler or softer, depending on your view. In the end the land is given to a foundation or local government. The social cache of the founding family and friends usually provides enough status to draw in the financial resources needed.

In the end, good is made to come from bad.  The community gains from what were originally misdeeds and mistakes.  And  gardens rise celebrating the sweeter irony of what it means to be human.

 I love Collegeland and it's liberal, civilized, prosperous, protected, historical world. There is no community that lacks absurdities, hidden cruelties or silly conventions. These things are even part of what makes community, just as there are no communities that lack all virtues either. But as the balance of virtues and vices go, some communities do manage to weigh up far better on the virtue side. And Collegeland, to me, feels like one of them.

Collegeland I

Last weekend off to Collegeland, New England

Was looking forward to spending 4 days up there. There is a beautiful bike trail we have yet to do and I have heard rumour of a bookstore/restaurant over a waterfall. But I came down with something--either a bronchial infection made worse by allergy induced asthma and sinus problems, or a sinus infection made worse by yadda yadda yadda or walking pneumonia (or so said the Doc. today.) So we came home early.

 Collegland was, as usual, a treat. Great company, great food, great history, beautiful scenery. A valley of prosperous culture kept alive by one of America's surviving thriving industries--education.

Everywhere you turn, crosscurrents of architectural styles. In the pic above are Modern, Victorian and what I call Deco Regency (later comment, --but perhaps what others call  Hollywood Regency )

I'm not sure what 1920s-30s Neoclassical is usually called but it makes for a visual I like (see house above.) The term Deco Regency makes me think of Cecil Beaton's style, so it seems fitting. Here I would usually go off on some lyrical, semi-scholarly wax, but my head hurts--

Of course, most of any New England urban village is made out of wood,  often painted to show off the great millwork. I should wax off on this too, but maybe I should wait till I get my meds tonight. Antibiotics, steroids, AND codeine, should make life more interesting. And who knows what it will do to my prose style?

Personal Limitations

The personal limitations each one of us have to face, own and perhaps break through, can be excruciatingly difficult.

I've written about my older parents. One thing I'm learning from my relationship with them is that when you drop anger and self-righteousness you can find yourself in a  messy place. Anger, so neat and clean and often justified, is also an easy out.

Without my anger, I'm  seeing how much I disassociate within myself, how much I compartmentalize different awarenesses, making it hard for me to integrate everything.

All good stories, in some way, recount how anger, fear and disgust disconnect, while love connects. So, looking for something concrete I could do to grapple with all this-- I went to take pictures (which I love,) of two longstanding fears/hates: machines and basements.

And through the camera I think I was sorta able to make friends with what otherwise weirds me out.

I found an accidental Miro,

And an almost-elegance,

Like unearthed, unearthly jewlery.

But still, a lot of the stuff was pretty gross,

And dispiriting.

Some was funny (it would have been cheating to move things to make a better pic, but sometimes reality conspires with you.)

So, all in all, I'm slightly amazed how much grott I unthinkingly braved in search of a decent shot. Which tells me something--though I'm not quite sure what.

And in my personal life, I am grateful that circumstances have been such that I have been able to let go of anger, and have the opportunity to deal with this stuff while in an otherwise peaceful, supportive environment. I need all the love, affection, peace, vitality and support I can use in order to work out some stuff  I've never thought I could work out -- but which I now think, I might be able to resolve.

From the Haunts of my Yout: 2

From age 4 on, one constant in my life has been the beachclub. It's not a fancy club. A place with a big wooden swordfish over its entrance is never going to be chic. It is a comfortable club. For me, it's always been just right.

It has a huge pool, here semi-empty during adult swim. My first year swimming in it, I was too small to touch bottom. Here's a little girl having an early lesson in bravery. I feel for her.

There are bathhouses and cabanas and lots of boardwalk. Everything is built out of wood and covered in about 20 layers of white, grey or bright aqua paint. And after 10 days of opening, everything needs another 20 layers. 

The bathhouses are around the pool; the cabanas face the dunes with a bit of sand in front of them, which makes a great place for kids to play.

And here is my Mom reading.

Part of what I love about the ocean side is its spare beauty. When clubs or houses get too opulent they get in the way of that beauty. This club does not do that.

And of course there is the ocean. Which is the point of the whole thing. The wildest thing on earth. 

There is something about the salty spray, the cool dunk into the freedom of lessened gravity that makes me almost unspeakably happy.
                                                    



I also love beach walks. I walk eastward towards a big rock 
 along a jetty where I've been meditating since my 20s. In the pic below it's the one on the left that sticks up like a chair. For some reason its name is Philip.

Further on is the house where I learned to play poker (and much else.) I stop about there, turn around and come back, since if I go on I will run into the crowd from the next club. 

All in all a pretty simple world, but one I have affection for, will always have affection for, even though I do not live there anymore.

When you face the wide ocean, you can't ignore its sublimity. It seeps into you--the wildest, most beautiful thing on earth.  It's an outburst of joy, salty, spare and jubilant.

My next post on my garden blog is going to be about a bacteria in the soil that when breathed in, appears to heal some human afflictions.

I wonder if there is something about the sun and the sea that does the same for us.

As of yet-Untitled

Light,
Early and late
Combs out the trees.

Something, not fate,
Turns the keys,
And your state

Finds its freedom.
Now, to relate,
Creates.

(The metaphor 

Of metaphor's 

just bait.)

A little more
Uncomplicate,
Then wait.

Preserve what
Believes last,
And tell plain.

The Truth's
In the Space,
Not the frame.

From the Haunts of my Yout

The end of a street on the point where we live

 My parents are getting older. Going home to see them has taken on a deep poignancy I had not expected.

 At their age, the property is a bit much for them, but they love being there.

Before turning into the driveway

This backstop was once covered with white climbing roses. People who came over to play tennis would complain they couldn't see the ball.

It is not easy being 82, even if you look this good at 82.

Mom

My Mom has such light aqua-grey-blue eyes they hardly show up in photos. And while the flesh changes the eyes do not, exact same eyes as when I was young.

And if it's not easy being 82, it is even harder being 99.

Dad

Yet here is my Dad, out back, shucking the corn, and below, resting.

Dad and Mom

How they manage, I don't know. But they do. They both have a a stubborn tenaciousness that amazes me, --and I'm not exactly untenacious.

The home they have created has always been comfortable and unpretensous. It's formed my taste more than I can say.

In the pic below I am taking my own picture against my favorite 60's wallpaper--which just happens to be in the first floor bathroom.

Me

57 is a lot easier that 82 or 99, but this shows me that I still have enough vanity to know I need to do something about my teeth.

My other favorite wallpaper is in the back house, or what has always been called the barn, though why I do not know. When my parents were younger they would rent it out.

I think this is Schumacher. It's huge feathers, quills really, all scribbling away. I love the way Mom even had it put on the ceiling.

The main room has a cathedral ceiling. Most of the furniture and fabrics are in shades of brown and black. There are lost of animal motifs; somehow, am not sure how, the leopard print does not look tacky. My only gripe as a kid was that my shell and sea glass collection ended up in a case behind the game table.


As a kid it was a fun place to hang out in. A bunch of us could be out there and not have to worry about being too loud or wild.

When this all does become too much for my parents, this place, where so much of my consciousness was formed, will go away; just as, with time, my parents will. Funny, sad, and infinitely sweet, how precious the minute particulars of the ephemeral become.