smoke gets in your eyes or the new normal

As I came over Trout Creek Pass into the Arkansas Valley, I could see the smoke gathering in the southern part of the valley around Salida. Smoke got thicker as I came further south, over Poncha Pass, and down into the San Luis Valley.

The West Fork complex fire (a combination of three fires) was burning up Wolff Creek Pass...burning at this point some 60,000 plus acres of dead, dead pine beetle killed forest...about 80 miles to the southwest. As the prevailing winds blow toward this end of the valley, it is a smokey time at the hot springs where I came for the weekend.

I guess this is the new normal. Summer means forest fires in the Rockies...not just in Colorado but all through the west. Another fire burns just west of here in Saguache. And others go off around the region.

So, what to do? Well the smoke often embellishes the sunsets...that is an upside.




But it will take years, perhaps decades, to clear out these dead forests. Travel in the summer in the mountains needs to be flexible...one has to be able to choose a spot to camp but be willing to move ( quickly if necessary) to another town or forest. Not a good time to plant oneself down to a
"permanent first or second home" in these hills. Better to be here in the winter when the snow storms can be predicted with greater precision that where a spot fire may land from a wider conflagration.

How quickly this symptom of climate change has occurred. How quickly we have to adjust. How slowly our governments and ways of thinking make change. We will, however, move along...plod along...perhaps at the pace that earlier homo sapiens set out some 200,000 years ago to spread across the continents.

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Biked this afternoon to Roger Williams Park, a few blocks from Ingrid's place. Hot and humid...but also very green. No need for underground sprinkler systems in this climate...the ground is muddy from last night's rain.





The parkland was donated to Providence in 1871 by the great-great-great granddaughter of Roger Williams. Betsy Williams was the last descendent to own the property, the final part of the land which Roger purchased from the chief of the Narragansett tribe in 1638. For which he had been severely criticized by other settlers who believed the land should be taken from these "rude unChristian savages." But then Williams who first postulated the separation of religion and government and who welcomed all settlers to this colony, Quakers, Jews, Baptists, was a man of strong conviction.

I bike past a cemetery to get to the park...lots more cemeteries in Rhode Island than in Colorado but then people lived and died here for two hundred years longer...





The road curves down past a statue...placed in remembrance of a 19th century businessman by his grandson...but what is the story here? Some sort of allegory but hard to figure out exactly what....





Then the road curves down by one of the seven lakes that make up the park's 480 acres.





Then life intrudes...coming around a corner...a burnt out car, two young women somewhat shaken, an officer calling in the incident. Apparently the car caught on fire rounding that same curve just a bit before I did...




Then back through along the road, through some of the forested areas (the park was designed by a landscape architect in the 1880s...around the time of Central Park...when cities felt the need to "open the lungs of the city to Nature")...




And then in the distance a white marble temple...reminded me of the aesthetic ideal of the great lawns of English homes which probably inspired this scene...





And people using the temple to frame their own lives, their own stories....





While around the lake others are more concerned with more prosaic concerns...like fish.




And, then, biking home....with a stop to pick up some additional items for dinner...like littlenecks with corn and chorizo...from the Edgewood Cafe.





Good ride for a late weekend afternoon.

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Location:Afternoon in the park

Water

Got up this morning listening to the sound of rain against the windows. Being the first one up at about 5:30, I came down to the kitchen, emptied the dish washer, cleaned up the remnants of last night's late evening snacks, made coffee (french press for the family, expresso for me), cooked up some oatmeal, read a New York Times article on restaurants in Hudson County where I grew up, remembered one of my first jobs as a bus boy in Tedesco's, an Italian restaurant on Bergenline Ave that had great bread and mussels.




I continue to hear the soft hits of raindrops on the window. Coming from Colorado with our seemingly perennial drought, I think of how they have all this water on the East Coast and they just let so much of it run into the sea. Filling estuaries like those of Pawtuxet a few blocks away and, then, making its way into the long Narragansett Bay and finally into the Long Island Sound. ("Sound" coming from the Dutch, "sund" meaning, I think, strait...at least that is the translation in Norwegian).





So the waters, now brackish in the estuary, move out into the great salt waters...providing recreation, scenery, and food for tourists and day trippers.









But also providing the ballast for the earth, a home for the sealife from which our species, this bright mammal Homo sapiens, creating the climate which blankets us all. And, even, yes, providing the winter snows that thousands of miles from any coast, provide the waters for the Colorado deserts in which we live.

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Location:Mather Ave,Cranston,United States

Adelaide and her folks

Well, at least, some of her folks. Because, after all, it is not about the baby per se. It is about the baby as part of a family...as far out as the definition of family may go.




In this case, Adelaide with her mormor and the cat Hobs.




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Or with her Dad who is now off to work after spending the first few weeks with Addie. I do believe he would rather be home but then there is that question of income. It is, after all, not Norway where fathers are obligated to take paternity leave of several months. With pay.
But then that is why there is a family that can be extended. Our son, Jose, had taken the overnight train up from Maryland to Rhode Island to welcome Adelaide...just found it hard to stay awake the following afternoon. Above his supine form are, from the left,




Ingrid, Adelaide, Geoff, Charlotte (the mormor), Halie, Freya, and Tom. Not shown are Nelcy, Alejandro, and Dylan...still in the Dominican Republic. And Jose Jr, the first grandchild, now 14 years old, in Missouri.

All of us at one point have been babies. And even if we are not babies, we still need our sleep.

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Houses

Out walking in Cranston, along Narragansett Bay, the houses...so distinctive, so beginning to bloom in the spring















Some well maintained, some needing repair, some totally redone, all making a space for a family, some friends, some families, pets...all weathering the damp sea air, the constantly changing sea winds this time of year, the rain...all making a compromise between the world and our need to be warm and to surround ourselves with beauty.

Location:Newport, RI

Adelaide Charlotte

So ok here we are...the real reason for your being this month in Rhode Island...for hanging around with Freya, now almost two...making sure that she did not feel slighted by the sudden appearance of a smaller sister...
doing dishes...emptying out garbage...doing laundry...you know...




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And what could be more important than this passing of DNA along to another generation...so much fun. was in a restaurant tonight and a young woman had a small baby with her and I looked and I asked "Two months?" And she looked really surprised as if people like myself would not know the age of a small newborn. "Two and a half months."




But it is not of just one generation at a point in time but all that train of generations, millions of years in their making, their evolution,...all that continuity and innovation.




So we celebrate this birth...and this sharing of our species' lineage...moving down some unknown paths...so much adventure to be had.
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Pawtuxet Village

Late afternoon in the village. The Pawtuxet River still flows past the village to its juncture with the Narragansett Bay...past the colonial homes that were built when this site was an active ship-building port, past homes that were built for the textile magnates who harassed the river's power to run the mills that once lined its banks, past the homes of managers of the Rhodes casino and dance hall that brought throngs out from Providence on the trolley on weekends, and now past the homes of those with wealth enough to "live on the water" and past the shops (restaurants, wine bars, tea shops) that crowd around the small bridge that crosses the water.


Charlotte and I came down to the village for a glass of wine, taking a break from waiting with Ingrid for the imminent birth of her second child. We've been out for a week so far, helping with housework, childcare for first daughter Freya, and moving at a pace much slower from that at home. So we've been a bit house-bound (well that is the meaning of "husband") but the new baby will come when she, yes a she, comes.

In the meantime, it's daily trips to the village (for the New York Times and the morning's first capuchino) and for a walk around a part of the country, so different from the colorado town we call home.

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At home

Only so many backsides of trucks in one day to make you wish you were somewhere else. But the mood brightened considerably when we crossed from the west bank of the Ohio River into the hills and mountains of Pennsylvania.




The road developed curves, and if more narrow than the Ohio Turnpike, it was much more interesting to drive...and we had listened to the 44 Scotland series of Alexander McCall Smith, the adventures of Bertie and Bruce and Dominica, and Ulysses and so many others. It is like signing up for a course in community awareness.





So we left behind those massive factories of high fructose corn syrup and climbed and descended into lush green forests and fields. Narrow valleys. Former mining towns. Now quiet. 16 percent of the houses in the town where we stayed for the night were "abandoned." Not foreclosed, not for rent, not vacation second homes. Just abandoned.




But then there is always something amazing. Like the sunset as seen over this valley of so many abandoned dwellings. The way the ski lights turned on, then red, then yellow, then just dark shades of themselves.





So yesterday we arrived, three blocks from Narragassett Bay, at the home of Ingrid, Geoff, Freya, two cats, and about to be joined by a new child, still clinging to the inside of Ingrid's womb. The living room is grey and populated with bright red sofas, a large cadenza holds a tv, now thankfully off, paintings line the walls, an easy chair waits for me. Home, this home away from home. BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Cranston, Rhode Island

On the sides of I-80

So sometimes you pull off the highway at a rest stop and something is happening. For example, a music celebration at a Western Trails stop on the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River. Council Bluffs to be exact.


Besides a Saturday afternoon live concert, old photos displayed how the trails west (which we follow on I-80, parallel to the Union Pacific Railroad, parallel to the Platte River) went across the rivers....





But it is also the way that a stop causes a little burst in the car bubble, the cocoon created by being in an automobile for hours on end, even with an amusing audio book on CDs, the tight constraints of seat, car door, dashboard dictating movement. So you step out of the cocoon into a world....college students arriving at a motel with huge bundles on their backs going to a tuba and euphonium workshop at the local university. Or, as in Iowa City, hitting prom night at the restaurant down the hill. Girls looking beautiful; guys looking awkward. Or, sometimes, at a quick stop, a place with really good ice cream. Or trying to figure out why the family at the next table looks so sad.



It's there...life on the sidestreams of the interstate. But, then, we are just passing through...another 1200 miles to go before we hit the shores of the Rhode Island bay where we are headed.

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Location:iowa city

Animals 2

When you walk around the streets and sidewalks of Salida, you begin to notice animals. Not just the deer in the park or birds on a wire, but small sculptures tucked away on porches and backyards. Or larger ones seeming to be fenced in.







Now this may be influenced by the town's commercial artists who hold forth in galleries. These shops exhibit a range of animal expressions from the iconic to the downright weird. All capture some sense of movement or wildness combined with playfulness.







What I find unique, though, is the way folks...well those at least in the downtown cluster of bungalows...express humor and spontaneity through these renditions of our fellow creatures.











Not that our friends on the wire take notice...but then they perhaps have interpretations of us hidden away in their nests.

Location:Salida

Boston Museum of Fine Art

Some of the warm rooms of the new wing for Art of the Americas embrace and usher the visitor into a 19th century display of art as it was, at that time, displayed. The rooms provide an early example of multitasking...after all, with so much to see, how does one see just one thing at a time?





On the above wall, it took a while to discover the central painting was by Bierstadt's Storm in the Mountains...which could be a riff on the Rocky Mountain landscapes he captured on canvas so well. But how to focus? You have to take your time.

And if you take your time you can discover all kinds of puns and juxtapositions in placement. For example, I was examining a wall of paintings while noting the sculpture in the room and then realized the contemporary scene was being captured in a frame directly opposite. Two visitors to the museum viewing the same sculpture from a somewhat different angle.





But, then, that is one of the qualities of art, the ability to surprise. On my way to the museum, I passed by the monumental open space that frames the First Church of Christ, Scientist. Public space...one of the great gifts that an institution or a city can give to the people...an openness that lifts the spirit after a time in the dark canyons made by streets and skyscrapers.




A poster noted an exhibit of sculptures placed around the portal of the church...I made a trek to see what was being shown...checking the various sites, finding nothing too striking. And, then, I happened to look up (am not sure what made me do so) and there on the bare limbs of the trees were
huge boulders.








The idea of boulders in trees was so unexpected....after laughing and examining the trees with a broad smile on my face, I searched for a "title" for this work, finally finding a small plaque which described the work as having "handmade boulders." Quite huge. Quite realistic. Such fun!

Nice to find artists (and curators) who can make us laugh.

Location:Boston