We Remember – September 11, 2024

Today was a beautiful September day. Brilliant sunlight in a cool, blue-sky morning. Just like the morning of September 11 2001, when the world changed.

Now it’s been 23 years and we still gather to remember, still remember in the little moments of the day. How today was like that day that was so different from other days. A day we remember in fine detail: where we were, what we were doing, who we were with, what we had planned, what happened to those plans.

I just packed up the big thick book that has lived behind my computer since being published. It’s the book compiling all the remembrances of everyone killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11. Most have small photos and some remembrances from family or a co-worker.

As I picked it up to pack it, I opened it and flipped through and read the names and remembrances of the two people I’d known through dancing. I didn’t know them well, but I knew them. And they knew each other. One was on a plane and the other on top of a tower. I remembered them and the discussion amongst the dancing community about how to respond to this violent act.

Now it’s 23 years later and we don’t have that before life of never imagining such a thing could happen. We can only work towards a world that won’t do it again. We can only remember their names.

As I do every year, I pause to remember the day, the two I knew, the thousands I didn’t, and all of us left behind in a different world.

REMEMBER

911, quilt by Mary Beth Frezon, 2001. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong of the Michigan State University Museum
Posted in Poetry and Lyrics, quilting, Sept. 11 | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

How’s the weather?

I achieved a lifetime goal – I set up my own weather station! I had recently taken the NWS Weather Spotter course and hoped to do this even more. But now I have a great place to put it and I look forward to watching the clouds roll by AND know what the rest of the weather is doing too.

powered by Ambient Weather

Posted in Administrivia, badass-ness, geeky stuff, In the neighborhood, overhead, taking time to look, weather | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Harry

Yesterday Mom and I said a sad farewell to Harry, after a thankfully brief and sudden illness. His fondness of sleeping everywhere on the bed but especially by my head and his being one of those notorious licking cats will not soon be forgotten. Be at peace our big purry boy.

Posted in cats helpful cats, CatsOfMastodon, family and friends, kittens | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

If May is Here…

… can geranium season be far off? Yup Martha Washington geraniums in the house!

was going to start a larger painting – sketched it in loosely even, but I decided to do a quick sketchbook paint as a warm up.

Posted in Do the Work, taking time to look, the creative process, watercolor | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

May First, 2024

It’s hard to let go of National Poetry Writing Month. Last night I was glad to watch an array of people reading a stunning array of poems to close out the month and help raise funds for poetry in the schools and other good causes. Thank you Academy of American Poets for that fine ending to April.

I sat awhile today watching the birds. I finally made a list (see at the end of this) and found I had identified by sight sixteen species of birds in just a couple hours and it was a good thing. Beautiful songs, varying behaviors, coming to the little space where I provide food and water with lots of places for them to hang out safely. I was quite honored by their presence, humbled really. There’s so much good and beauty in the world if we stop and look for it.

The still light of afternoon
shimmering with song, of
so many birds. I weep
for their colors, for knowing
their names, that they come
here to my tiny yard.
Perhaps the clatter of life grinds
but here we are and I am
second coffee to the left
a hedgerow of spent daffodils
separating me from the road
So much today is flying
even the sotto voce clouds
even as they whisper by

Below: Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Baltimore Orioles.

I saw:

  • Ruby-throated hummingbirds
  • Red-bellied woodpecker
  • Downy woodpecker
  • Blue jay
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Tufted titmouse
  • White-breasted nuthatch
  • Gray catbird
  • American robin
  • House finch
  • White-crowned sparrow
  • Baltimore orioles
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Common grackle
  • Northern cardinal
  • Rose-breasted grosbeak
Posted in birds and chickens, clouds, Do the Work, gardens and flowers, life around us, NaPoWriMo, Poetry and Lyrics, sonnet, taking time to look, the creative process | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment