As I sat in my chair, shawl around my shoulders (it’s very, very cold outside) reading A Gentleman in Moscow, blinds shut, lamps lighting the room, I thought how lovely it would be to shut out the world, stay in my chair and read all day long. No news, no emails, no fights – just escape.
That isn’t me, as you know. But for a few hours this morning, it was a lovely fantasy.
I am really enjoying A Gentleman in Moscow. The author, Amor Towles, is a beautiful writer. He has created a world within the walls of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow in the year 1922 and I have completely embraced it. I can’t wait to get back to it.
Perhaps I can do the same thing here, never leaving, never having to admit that there are threats upon the horizon. Sigh.
We ran off for a half hour or so yesterday – only that as it was so windy and cold that we had to retreat to the car – to take some photos of the spectacular landscape that is part of our town. I took my new lens, which meant I had to use the iPhone to get a distance shot, but it was fun to play. Freezing, but fun.
Apple orchard against a changing sky.
Our mountains off in the distance. Don says that he loves the clouds in the Hudson Valley. They are always changing, almost always spectacular in their way. Yesterday’s clouds were no exception. Changing by the second, big swaths of mist moving in and out of the horizon, it was a wonder to behold.
Via my iPhone. On the top of one of the mountains, you can just make out the lookout tower that is part of the property belonging to the famous Mohonk Mountain House.
And I saw a woodpecker from the kitchen window – way off in the dead ash tree that is now surrounded by a maple tree. He’s shadowy in these photos, almost as if he wanted to hide from me.
I’m doing my best to find pockets of creativity in my day. Sanity savers: books, the daily NY Times Crossword, my camera, and Don Don Don Don Don. Oh, and vegan Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Imagine how my heart soared when I saw that in the supermarket!
Thank you so much for yesterday’s discussion and for sharing your challenges and the ways in which you strive to achieve balance in the face of worry and despair. Your thoughts helped so many. There is a coming together here that surely provides solace for the soul. I certainly feel that way as I read your thoughts.
Much love to all of you. Peace.
Happy Friday.
Beautiful!
Thank you, Betsy!
Such beautiful photos Claudia. Clouds are so interesting, aren’t they? Years (and years and years) ago we stayed at The Mohonk House over a weekend in winter with a group of friends and loved it! I thought you would enjoy Towles’ writing – it is beautiful. Have a wonderful weekend.
We can’t afford to stay there! But it’s pretty spectacular up there.
I am so enamored of Towles’ writing – have you read his first book, Vera?
It is a pricey place, for sure. But when we were there it was probably 30 or 35 years ago and we had a very good group rate (there were about 20 of us or so who went up for a cross country skiing weekend).
I have not read Rules of Civility. I had gotten it on Overdrive, but had so many books to read that my time ran out. I do plan to get it again from the library. It looks good!
I am going to put it on my list, Vera.
Good Morning Claudia,
thank you for the beautiful pictures. I am living vicariously through your lens because we don’t have a view here. I, too, love seeing the clouds coming over mountains. When we lived in El Paso, we had the view of the Franklin Mtns and watching the clouds come over them was so magical.
I have placed the book “Gentleman in Moscow” on hold at my library. I am number 36 on the list to read it. There is another book you may find of interest. The book is called “The Patriots” by Sana Krasikov. Speaking of bluebirds, have you seen the movie “The Bluebird” with Shirley Temple? Since Friday is our movie night, our plan is to watch “Glory” with Denzil Washington. I have talked too much again.
No, you never talk too much! Don’t worry about it. Share what you want and need to share.
I saw The Bluebird many, many years ago and I can’t really remember it. I will put The Patriots on my list, Trina!
Love Glory – what a wonderful film!
Great photos Claudia! They are a good reminder to us all that there is still beauty in this world. Peace
Thank you, Carolyn Marie.
You take beautiful photos, Claudia!! I love your pictures of the mountains by Mohonk!! I hope to hike there in the spring! Getting out and enjoying nature is always a good way to recharge your batteries!! Have a great day today!!
You too, Francine! xo
Views of nature are truly hyacinths for the soul…..They refresh us and give us renewed strength. Won’t be too very long before those apple trees are in bloom; one of the loveliest sights in nature!….Dianne
I love apple trees in bloom! Soon…soon! Thank you, Dianne.
Thank you for showing pictures of your birds yesterday and today. I love to look at wild birds. My mother was a bird lady and seeing birds reminds me of her when I was growing up. She loved wild birds and we always had a canary or budgie. Once in her later years she had a new canary that laid an egg and it was fertilized and a little one was born. My kids and I were visiting her and she was a mother hen with those birds! She would come home from a day at work (she was an OB nurse and spent the day on her feet taking care of patients in labor)and start taking care of her birds even before she took off her coat. Feeding them special foods, and making sure the cage was clean with clean water. That little bird grew up and she had two canaries. Those are such great memories for me. I always have my “Wild Birds of the PNW” on my coffee table, and a wild bird calendar somewhere in the house. My little grandson loves birds too! Your pictures of the birds are so artistic! Love them.
You’re welcome! You have wonderful memories of your mom and her love for birds. I love them, too. I’ll keep on posting them, Tana. xo
Beautiful photos. I use to get such joy out of taking photos, but have lost that, maybe it will come back. Finished a book yesterday that moved me so much. Starting a Karin Slaughter book today. Reading is saving my sanity!
Mine, as well. If I could read all day, I would. But I’m going to make some calls today about Steve Bannon and Betsy DeVos. Have to have a pocket of time to be part of the #resistance!
Love your pics. We used to live in New York (in a town called Warwick, in Orange County). I think it was the prettiest place, of all the 4 states that we have lived in. Just this wonderful little town tucked away but close enough, by train or car, to get anywhere we wanted.
News from Washington every day is a just a nightmare, however. I don’t even want to confirm if the Republicans have lifted the restrictions on the mentally ill acquiring guns. (Why? Just why?) But I have to admit that I love the #DressLikeAWoman pictures I’m seeing everywhere. Fantastic.
I know Warwick – it’s a charming town!
Yes, why would be want a restriction on the mentally ill carrying guns? Because the NRA doesn’t want it.
I hate that I can no longer watch the news. I have always been someone who loved to keep abreast of what was happening in our world. I don’t remember watching a lot of TV shows when I was young…. I loved to stay in my room by myself and read and write stories…. but even then, my parents always had the news on in the evening. Believe it or not, when I grew up in Chicago and then the suburbs, the evening news was only 15 minutes long!!!!! And my mom had the radio on to WGN all day long, so always heard the news breaks. Now I have retreated to silence.
The pictures are wonderful. Oh, I can’t wait until we are planting our MG seeds and lamenting how long it will be until they sprout. Watching the trees as they bud, and those first lilac scents filling the air! Just wandering the yard weeding here and there and dead-heading can fill hours. I need the sun and some hours outside doing those simple gardening tasks. Watching the wrens build their homes and listening to their song…. those days can’t come soon enough. Have a great Friday, kiddo!
I have done the same. Silence. Not even Public Television’s nightly news, which we always watched. I can’t stand to hear what is happening and I certainly can’t stand to hear his voice.
Oh, I can’t wait for Spring. Something to do outside, something that transcends all this madness. Have a good day!
I am loving those pics! Don’s right….you do have interesting clouds. We have suet feeders for our woodpeckers….three species, all different markings and sizes. So fun to watch…but they are rather particular. We had two identical feeders, with different brands of suet. They only eat from the more expensive variety of suet. Evidently, our woodpeckers are food snobs! Imagine that! Enjoy your day…one distraction at a time! ;)
Love that they are foodies, Donnamae!
I had to laugh. Food snobs! My blue jays here in SoCalif refuse to eat the birdseed in the feeder. They nosedive for the cats’ dishes of food on the ground (no matter WHERE might I try to hide the bowls!), making SUCH a mess, dry kitty food scattered all over the place…bold they are, of course; jays have no fear of felines OR me! But, gosh, the vivid blue of those males…and I’m just glad to see them return every year; they never stay away for very long.
I saw a blue jay yesterday – that flash of blue that is so gorgeous, especially in a wintry landscape!
A woodpecker visited one of the trees behind my house for a couple of days, and I haven’t seen or heard it since. However, the hummers are slowly returning to my backyard. Unfortunately, I don’t have many flowers now, except for the anemones, daffodils, primroses, and one lone rose. They’ve had to go elsewhere for nectar.
I’d give anything for just one of those flowers, Wendy! Unfortunately, that’s a long way off! xo
Thanks for the lovely pictures! Love your mountains! I live in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, just at 4,000 ft, and I am taking full advantage of their beauty every day because my heart feels well and truly broken. The mountains are a balm to my soul, and I try to drink in their beauty every day.
Loved Gentleman from Moscow—what a lovely book! I, too , am reading and cleaning, and whirling like a dervish and then sitting very still and trying to quiet my brain. I have found that if I read my twitter feed I don’t sleep, so I am trying to wean myself away from that. Sleep is very important to an introvert like me, and losing sleep is quite a travail, so I am trying to find balance in a seriously-tilted world.
I make my calls each and every day. I write emails and snail mails, and send them off with such hopes, but my goodness, each day brings such a descent into evil that I am flummoxed. As a pastor, I am offended by his new turn toward the Christian right and the new cloaking of arrogance and injustice in the guise of faith. I do not question the faith of individual believers—there are many paths to God—but I do call foul when the words of a loving God are used as ‘cover’ for injustice, bigotry, and evil. I am gutted to see hard-won civil rights ripped away so casually and thoughtlessly. We were changed by this election, but that is nothing compared with the seismic changes that have been wrought since Jan. 20.
So, balance and self-care become critically important. And I am trying. Really. But I am militantly turned towards those who are losing the most in our society just now. As a middle-aged, middle-class white woman, that is not me. But, as a citizen of the world, it is my problem, and I have been radicalized by this process towards justice and peace.
Peace and peace and peace,
Leslie P.
I have a problem with those who identify as Christians supporting and/or turning a blind eye to the bigotry, racism, etc. that was a hallmark of the campaign and that is behind many of the executive orders. Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers. I can’t imagine a man who reached out to the poorest, those who were in need, diseased, bereft, saw them as the equal of their fellow men, no one better, no one less than. How can his gospel support any of the actions that are being taken to strip our fellow citizens of their rights?
I would prefer they just came out and owned up to their beliefs rather than support them under the umbrella of Christianity.
Have you read John Pavlovitz’ latest blog post?
http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/02/02/its-time-we-stopped-calling-donald-trump-a-christian/
Thank you for your thoughts, Leslie. I do so appreciate them, especially from a member of the clergy.
Thanks for that link! I agree with the writer, and it gets to the heart of what bothers me about this new turn toward the Christian right–it is a convenient way to cover the worst this man is doing in a way that people somehow feel is ‘hands off’. Whether or not he is a Christian (and I have strong views about that one), what he is doing is emphatically NOT Christian, and we need to call that out. So now we can add unChristian to unAmerican and inHuman. The arc bends….thank God it bends….but my, the wait can be hard to endure.
You both have such eloquence in your words here. I appreciate the intelligence. Much to ponder. My brain is so tired; thinking, thinking, thinking…
xoxo Take some time for yourself, Vicki. It will all be there when you come back. You and your husband should take a drive to the beach. That ocean air will do wonders for you.
He’s been away on a job but will be back tomorrow; good idea. Forget the chores, enjoy the break in the rain…and just get outta here for awhile.
xo
Exactly. People do think it is ‘hands off’ – but it shouldn’t be. It’s hypocrisy and it’s wrong. xo
Every time you post about photography, I realize that I missed a chance. I think I would have liked it as a hobby too. I love hearing about what kind of equipment you used, the conditions at the time you took the shots etc. Don’t why know I never did anything about it when I was younger. A combination of Too Busy & Didn’t Have the $ mostly. Of course if I had a burning desire, I could always start now, but I don’t really. If price was no object, I might, but it isn’t. Next time around maybe. I’m too practical [and cheap] to put much $ into any hobby at this point. I know I’d be thinking of all the books I could have bought, or movie DVDs, or art supplies. Still I love seeing good photography and hearing about the shots were captured etc. I did remember to bring my compact binoculars in from my car this Winter, and am having lots of fun “bird watching” from inside the house. I feel like a bird paparazzi at times, and never dreamed it could be so fascinating. I have cardinals and chickadees that I recognize – and dozens of other breeds. I need to get myself a little field guide for identifying birds. Bright, sunny & cold here too. Have a great weekend. Peace.
#Resist
We have binoculars, but they are sadly in need of replacing! Birds are endlessly fascinating! Have a wonderful weekend.
My mother became an armchair bird watcher in the 70s, so it’s meant an adult-lifetime of me feeding her birds (as she wasn’t often able to do it herself; disabled)…I, in fact, got the first stone birdbath for her (we still have it) and a field guide/book on identifying birds…and I ‘m STILL doing it even though she’s been gone for four years now (same house, same yard; I swear some of the same birds). Lately, I’ve noticed the tiniest little birdies I’ve ever seen, high in the sparse branches of a bottle-brush tree. They’re not babies; they’re just teeny-tiny, perfectly-formed things. Mother came to know which birds were which; I never know a swallow from a whatever, but I’m beginning to want to learn. It gets so expensive, but I can’t not feed the birds; it’s a tradition and I think they’re dependent; I’ve read that you should, for instance, never abruptly take away a hummingbird feeder (liquidy red sugary type) or the hummers can starve. What would our world be without birdsong in a day? It’s the least I can do, to help them live with food and water, especially in summer drought.
I love the apple orchard photos, Claudia. You have such an eye for subject, color; framing the shot.
Keep feeding those birds, Vicki. You’re doing a very good thing!
Hi dear friend! Gorgeous photos! Just beautiful shots. Hope you are doing well and staying warm. We have 30’s one day and 70’s the next – everyone around here is sick. Not me!
Have a great weekend. Will be giving you a call soon. We haven’t talked in a while!
Judy
Way too long since we’ve talked! Soon, my friend.
Fabulous pictures! We used to have 3 kinds of woodpecker that visited our yard. I even have pictures of one on my deck! My sanity savers. Sewing. and cleaning my sewing room. I made 5 nightshirts for myself, and now I’m working on a robe for me and have plans for a long sleeved tee shirt for my daughter. Maybe two. I’m not going to quit until spring or unless trump resigns.
I love woodpeckers!
Keep sewing, Jan. It will keep you relatively sane while we wait for impeachment!
Wonderful pictures Claudia, indeed the clouds look amazing. I hope you’re all doing well, enjoy the reading, it sounds like I need to read that book as well!
You do! Wonderful to hear from you, Susi. I hope all is well!
Beautiful photos Claudia, thank you. I live in a flat, although very beautiful, part of England but I love mountains. I realised this on my first trip out of England, just over the border into Wales, when I was 18. My heart just soared and I’ve been in love with mountains ever since. We have visited our friends in northern California several times. They live in the Redwood mountains and we went to Yosemite one time we were with them. Words fail me when I try to describe that experience. I feel so blessed that I have been able to do that. . My 18 year old self would never have dreamed it possible. Take care of yourself and stay strong.
Mountains are surely magnificent and spending time near them is invigorating and humbling. I’m glad you got to spend some time near mountains, Valerie!