just photos

We head back east after an Ohio summer -- first through early morning commuters, then into sunshine and open country:

Irene

Hurricane Irene blew through here, swelled the Deerfield River beyond recognition, and opened my eyes a bit. Water is a reckoning.

Here the waters sweep across the athletic fields on campus, lapping at the door of the pressbox at the top of the football stadium:

Evening falls on the face of the waters at the end of the first day -- and it did feel biblical as the rains came and the waters rose.

This was main street in Old Deerfield, high water still a couple hours away. We were lucky. 30 miles to the north and beyond, Vermonters lost plenty.

Next morning, out come the paddlers.

Paul captured a couple new paths to the waterfall (thank you, Raymond Carver).

a snatch of conversation, remembered

A cut-and-paste of Hazel's side of the conversation the other day as she worked away at her painting table, listening all the while (unbeknownst to me) to the music I had going in the kitchen while I worked on dinner; the latest Gillian Welch album was playing and she called out these thoughts (my own answers, inconsequential, omitted here):

"Is that sad music? ... Is someone alone? ... There might be someone who needs help... Maybe the girl has nobody to fix her up... That may be it... There are some people who need help and they don't have a help person."

I think she heard, could feel, the sounds of Welch's music.

extra thoughts, while bathing a four year old

How many times have you done the things you do every day? And so when do you fall through your own self and your thoughts and then arrive at a place of revelation, fresh understanding? Do those moments surprise you when they happen? Or do you plan for them, hide in the weeds in ambush as they come on down the road? And what does revelation wear when it passes you by?

So here we are in deepest Ohio -- my mind's eye turning back to the rug shop in Marrakech -- that place and space and time, suspended, beautifully patterned -- embroidered, now embellished.

Ohio

It's now August -- mellowed version of summer is settling in: cooler evenings, gold light filtered through green at the end of shorter, burnished days, a few whispering yellow leaves drift down from somewhere above -- subtle changes that are felt more than seen, really. These last eight weeks we've been in northeast Ohio -- hometown summer now drawing to a close. Hazel's birthday has come and gone, my own work waits patiently around the corner of the next thought, Paul pushes steadily on toward the end of his first summer of masters work in mathematics.

We've met new friends along familiar hometown streets -- on the way to and from the Saturday morning farmers' market downtown; Hazel swims -- in her fashion -- better now than at the beginning of the summer; the garden I planted around the old pine stump in the folks' front yard has filled in a bit (hydrangea, iris, lavender, lilies, prairie sun rudbeckia, lupines, delphinium); Hazel writes her name with ease and paints and paints and paints.

A few photos that float to the surface of the waning summer:

Hazel in her new blue wings at the end of her birthday:
Silver mercury votives flickering beneath the kitchen window on a July evening:
Hazel's birthday cake -- she'd requested a blue velvet cake with a layer of yellow then orange then pink frosting -- and so behold, the odd cake, a kind of weird, dark-and-dirty aqua green:
Hazel at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I have always, always loved this great expanse of satisfying, stone-striped wall.
Cleveland Orchestra plays at Blossom, all Russian composers:
Early July storm, looking north:

I'm pretending I'm not working

A friend from high school (because she's going to Morocco with her family) wrote to say she liked the blog -- so sweet. In my day-to-day of school and school and school I give feedback and comments and grades, scribble this-s and thats in margins all the live-long day, but so rarely hear anything back -- I, of course, want someone to scribble compliments in my margins. It was nice. (Thank you, Melissa!) Also, it reminded me I have done pretty much zilch when it comes to my own shit. You know? How do we keep going if we don't feed ourselves?

You know what's new? Paul ruptured his Achilles. January 20. Good grief. And, I suppose, in a way it has been good -- in the sense of the glorious and sparkly silver lining: Grammy for Hazel, workman's comp for our bank account, endless help from my mom in the daily grind of the household. Then Grampy arrived! I wasn't there for the reunion, but apparently Hazel gave him a hug that brought the roof down. Grateful.

Here are a couple shots from when Paul was still upright and crutchless, before he heard that crazy booming-loud (internal) snap and simultaneously felt the gunshot, fell to the ground, wondering who it was on his frosh-soph prep school basketball team that brought a gun to practice. For real.

One of the first big snows that blew in from the south -- they've all been from down yonder, not up north.
Beautiful craze of ice-crusted sparkle.

And watch out, Shirley Temple! Our girl likes to do her dances sans undies!

And a footnote: here Hazel sees her first fireworks, Boston Common, New Year's Eve 2010: