R Egret

 I went to the most beautiful park in Orange County yesterday, walked around and took bunches of photos. Oliver rode his bike on the trails, disappearing into the grasses. The rain we had last month has turned everything green, and even the weeds and grasses were chest high. I watched that egret above stalk a lizard for a few minutes, its neck swaying in anticipation. I'm not sure it ever got it. R egret is what I felt. For all the moments gone, unaware.

Hawks were screaming in some kind of mating ritual, and a bunch of men on the other side of middle age were flying remote-controlled airplanes in an empty field. Men and their toys, is what I thought.  I prefer the hawk.

I was texting with a couple of friends today and all agreed that our general Sunday blues were even bluer. One friend suggested that it was the change in the weather, the weird onset of spring. Maybe it's the death of Chuck Berry, another friend suggested. Maybe it's just life in general these days, I think we all agreed.  I remembered the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem that I trundle out every April because it speaks so directly to the feeling, particularly that last line. I think I'll post it a little earlier in honor of climate change.

I do love my dark blue friends.

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again? 

Beauty is not enough. 

You can no longer quiet me with the redness 

Of little leaves opening stickily. 

I know what I know. 

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe 

The spikes of the crocus. 

The smell of the earth is good. 

It is apparent that there is no death. 

But what does that signify? 

Not only under ground are the brains of men 

Eaten by maggots. 

Life in itself 

Is nothing, 

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, 

April 

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sunday Balls

I'm not in the mood to write, again. So I'll just post some pictures I took today at MacArthur Park, near downtown. They're of an art installation -- thousands of giant painted beach balls floating in the pond. You can read about the project here, since I don't feel like typing out what it's all about.

The park looks pretty dismal -- it's in a downtrodden part of town, everything is dead because of the drought, and everywhere I walked smelled like piss and pot, to tell you the truth. But the spheres were crazy and wonderful, lifting the whole place up. I had a brief fantasy about wading out into the middle of them like a despairing, dark-haired Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita, but instead rolled Sophie's wheelchair to the edge of the water, shoved the brake on and stood for a while to just watch the spheres bobbing. Sophie seemed to enjoy it as well, so that's good. My guilt in not providing enough stimulation for her was allayed at least for the hour or so that we walked around.

Reader, what did you do today?