Tag: periwinkle

Sunday reading 4/8/12

April 8, 2012 /

It’s gray today, but there are flowers everywhere. Daffodils by the walkway, periwinkle all along the the old foundations by the lake. The birds are also everywhere. The woods were filled with the sound of a woodpecker drumming on a tree while we were on our run today. Yesterday robins covered the yard, heads cocked, hopping along almost in unison.

I didn’t manage to read anything online this week to recommend. Not that I’ve read nothing worth recommending, but I’ve not had time for personal reading beyond a half hour or so at bed time (Zone One, Colson Whitehead). As a result, no new stories.

But as a little something, how about an old ghost story? I love ghost stories, at least those with a certain feel, and “The Upper Berth” by F. Marion Crawford fits the bill. One of the great things about having kids who like books is the way they can help you re-experience the thrill of stories you read long ago. “The Upper Berth” works well when you’re all snuggled together on the couch and can enjoy the sensation of being more than a little creeped out.

A picture break

March 19, 2012 /

Outside, it’s the kind of day that makes you grateful to be alive. Inside, it’s all pain and suffering and working on unbearably boring things. Suffice it to say, there are days when I covet the ability to write a high concept story, if only to make it easier to summarize it in an exciting way.

But I’m kind, and I won’t drag the rest of you through that particular mire. Instead, pictures! Why? Because I’m occasionally clever, and am able to not only remember to snap a few, but also to load them onto this creaking relic of a computer.

This is a foundation. With trees! There are few things I love more than old stone foundations with trees growing out of them. Actually, there are quite a few things I love more, but I also love these. The reservoir I live beside swallowed whole towns when it was built. Before the flooding began, the houses were dismantled, but the cellar holes remain, here and there and everywhere. In another month they will be filled with ferns. The forgotten patches of daffodils will have bloomed already, but the old apple trees will just be starting.

One of the things about reservoirs is that they have water. Really! This time of year, the streams are full and busy draining into the lake. They’re not as full as they are some years, as there’s been no snow to melt, but they’re running. I could easily be convinced to sit beside running water until I grew roots and leaves and had to stay forever. Especially streams like this, with the incredible green of the mosses on the rocks and the burble of the water.

One last picture. Along with foundations, there remain other signs of the lost towns. Rusty buckets, bits of pottery, random bits of metal. These stairs are one of my favorites relics. They are surrounded by periwinkle, which will also be blooming before long. They’re along a dirt road, and while they lead to an old foundation, they’re situated in a way that looks more like an invitation to a pine grove. To either side are gnarled maples, half dead and half alive, and further back is a small meadow.

That’s as much of a break as I get today. Enjoy the world.