For Morgan and Jo-Jo...

I heard you guys recently learned about Butterflies and their life cycle. Here are some interesting photographs I took of a butterfly drinking nectar from a flower. I hope you enjoy these. You can click on the butterfly to view an up close look at it's tongue.

 

A Praying Mantis Moment...

A few days ago the kids found him in the park and brought him into the house. He flew in clumsy spirals, eventually settling atop a bamboo houseplant near a green lamp shade. It groomed its antennae. Then I came in closer and stared at close range. Twelve centimeters of exo-skeletal bravado stood its ground challenging me with its serrated forelegs, tilting its head side to side. It could have easily flown away, but it glared back at me. I stood there, twelve times its size...puzzled, wondering about its neural network.

I imagined ancient Chinese monks humbled by its bravery and prowess, studying its fighting style to create their own. I was impressed by this "bad boy" from the insect world. The way he tilted his head, he seemed to analyze my size and shape. The way he tilted his head made me tilt my own and wonder how so much gallantry resided in such a trivial torso of light green and yellow.

I could have stared at him for hours. But. I stopped starring at him for fear that we'd trade places. (I blinked, as I remembered Julio Cortazar's short story about the Axolotl.) After a brief set of photographs, I carried him back outside...wondering how much he'd remember about this brief encounter.

refugee cycles...

Saturday morning, Ari and I decided to get far away from the asphalt. We made a trip upstream to Fletcher's Boathouse on the Potomac and glided around the river for a while. We enjoyed the sensation of coasting along the surface and the syncopated rhythms of alternating paddle strokes...the calm and the quiet.

We saw a few ducks. They ignored us.

We saw a snake. It hid from us.

We marveled at this huge tree trunk in the river.

I don't know why the experience is so soothing, but gliding over the river and brushing up against nature restored a much needed sense of tranquility. Having spent much of my childhood near the water, I find it a comforting refuge. (I even prefer real snakes to human ones. I smile when I see ducks preening, but frown at human variations of such displays.) In the end, I do realize that I'm intruding for a moment, creating ripples along the river. The irony that I was driven here by other intrusions such as asphalt, traffic congestions, crowded subway stations, and over-scheduled weekdays escapes me. Or so I pretend. I wonder where the snakes and the ducks go when they've had enough of the kayakers?

BBC News|In Pictures|Your World|Orange

Orange is a moody hue, a tincture I greatly admire. I have scores of photographs within this range, and submitted a few. This morning I checked in and found that my photograph of a cigarette butt at the beach had washed up at the BBC today. Click HERE to see the full gallery of photographs selected this week, mine is number 8.

vacation residue and other leaves of abscence...

The Outer Banks experience is now a memory, and we are back home. The kids relished their adventure with our friends. They dread the start of the school year on Tuesday. I'm nursing sore muscles and aching knees. (Who knew boogie boarding for hours in eight foot swells could feel like a day spent tumbling inside a dryer?) If I close my eyes I can still smell the ocean, feel the waves and hear the seagulls.  Those would be the trite poetic memories. I can also close my eyes and opt to run my fingers through my scalp...a braille lament, a short story of my failure to apply sufficient sun block.  In the end, I prefer to wash away the present and scroll through the shards of our recent vagaries.  You can join me if you wish, just click on the elegant surfer lady below to see the web album.

OBX

yesterday's wavelengths...

We headed back into the water.

Ari went for the big swells.

Sometimes they got the better of him.

Daniela watched and worried.

Then, she decided to try her hand at riding the waves.

walks on the beach...

A long stretch of sand, wind, rough waves and time to walk without worries, even under gray skies...simple and very peaceful. Others seemingly enjoyed dissolving themselves in the conjuncture of sea and sand.

 

My father-in-law, in an elegant poetic phrasing, gave a remarkable coherence to these seraphic strolls. In an email to Daniela, he reminded us..."Even a walk at the beach gives a lot of energy, since the wind blows fresh air from far away and long ago."

...I drew inspiration from his wording, and will now head to the beach again...to draw, literally, inspirations from the past.

columns and spirals, continuity and endpoints...

The Currituck Lighthouse was built in 1875...an imposing column that conceals a sleek spiral staircase. Both geometries survived the past and have a new role as cultural attraction, separate forms thriving in a tourist afterlife.

...

 

An hour before visiting the lighthouse, I had spotted this dragonfly at rest and marveled at its slender linear design. After taking this photograph, I spotted another dragonfly frantically struggling, contorted into a spiral...ensnared by a spider's web, similar forms...different geometries.  Here the column and spiral were separate only in time.  After taking this other photograph, I wondered how long the trapped geometry would last...

 

hovering near the shore...

The weather is improving, but the currents are too strong.  Signs around the beach set limits, and the lifeguards patrol along with the police to enforce the prohibition.

 

So we watched the seagulls...walking along the waves.

 

Then the kids coaxed them a bit closer...

...with some goldfish crackers.

 

And for a few minutes, we forgot about the beach as we stared at the skies.