Following our Return from the Excursion
I spent two days unpacking Boxes
although with the exception of a folding bed hadn’t figured out what needed to be done
with their contents by the weekend. The radio kept things lively; a semi-trailer overturned in Reno’s “Spaghetti Bowl” just in time for Friday’s rush hour and of course the government’s antic entertainments remained unceasingly unfunny. Warmer weather Saturday brought out
an abundance of Sentient Beings, from mice in the Cathcart Chair
to contemplative Lizard[s], all of whom lead one to wonder why it isn’t sufficient to live and let go as opposed to that infernal Monkey Brain’s restlessness to Do Something…or at least do something to compensate for the damage the monkeys keep doing. A little late, this late date, for me to suddenly start Taking Action, but as anyone who’s ever taken acid knows, we limit our sentience to survive by necessity, as do, within other parameters, these others…
the lizards, say, or Our Bird, a Say’s Phoebe as it turns out, Say’s Phoebes
undescribed by a white male [and therefore nonexistent] until 1820 when the 19th century Quaker Thomas Say, on an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, nailed it. Acknowledged or not Phoebe seems quite content with the insects and indigenous building materials
the earth provides.
Meanwhile the lizards and the dogs and even I are quite happy to hang on the porch and watch
the sun go down or come up. At Radar I looked for descendants of a lizard who’d lived for years on the cliff outside my studio and would, when nothing else was pressing, gaze out over Grass Valley, but she was not in evidence; perhaps last year’s fires came too close. I hope not. I won’t presume to speak for the mice, who seem much less comfortable with their existence.
Mammals; we’re all so insufficiently sentient and overly exceptional, right?
Well…maybe. Anyway, Monday morning,
just enough time to capture the Tamarisk in flower [which here on the Smoke Creek are not invasive, though as the climate continues to warm they may change their minds]
before heading down the road
to California, which reminds me of how little I like driving back to it, and trust this time’s the last
time for some time…
Meanwhile come Tuesday it was “Chump Dumps Iran! Israel ecstatic!” Me I guess I’m just too steeped in left-wing propaganda to find that celebratory…kinda wishfully apocalyptic it seems, but then those fundamentalists get a lot of jollity out of their Ends of Daze, hey, red cows ‘n’ all..
Just a few months ago I was sent to Peterson by an unfamiliar bird feeding along with the finches, sparrows and the chickadees, which turned out to be a phoebe, in this case an Eastern Phoebe, very similar to Say’s but with a white/light grey breast. The Eastern Peewee is also similar but with “narrow white wing bars”. For the sake of future simplicity they are all flycatchers.
Speaking of which, I think the lizards are so still (and seemingly calm and content) because the stiller they are the more likely that something edible will fly near enough that a flick of the tongue will do the trick. Deep inside they may be just as dissatisfied as the mice, but not as cute. Nature is grand!
As for that unpacking the array shown suggests a Louise Nevelson period, but I suspect you will resist.
I too was impressed with the Nevelson – like array. Also loved the series of landscapes watched and worth watching.