far too much writing, far too many photos

runswithscissors


Sunday, May 28, 2006

And suddenly it's summer. Just like that. After the wettest May on record, featuring long stretches of gray, cold days -- occasionally cold enough to warrant cranking up the stove - warm weather moved in two days ago, in perfect sync with the unofficial beginning of the lower-48 summer season. Warm enough to take local greenery over the threshold into vernal lushness, lilac bushes heavy with clusters of fragrant blossoms, dandelions painting green fields with cheerful yellow (before switching to the ugly white that signals the procreative mechanism running hyper-aggressively rampant). Critters are abruptly everywhere, the air on a day like today alive with insect life, swirling about on warm breezes like golden, sunlit snowflakes. (Except for the blackflies, who have been around since the end of April, but are now, with the sudden leap to summery conditions, seeking blood with a ferociousness that indicates unsated appetite.) This morning when the fog began to clear, spiderwebs that have appeared in trees and bushes in unbelievable profusion these last couple of days shone like jewels, the dew-drops on their strands alight with morning sunlight.

The entire crew of songbirds are on board, the hummingbirds who showed up a couple of days back completing the roster. They sing like their lives depend on it, as crickets have begun to make quiet music and the countryside is awash in a thousand shades of green. All of it coming together on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend with a timing that almost seems Hollywoodesque.

Cars with out-of-state plates cruise local highways, their occupants at times looking like they're not exactly sure where they are. Back roads into Montpelier, usually sparsely driven, were alive with traffic yesterday in a way I'd never seen before. Many of the vehicles stopping in Adamant for the annual Blackfly Festival.


Refreshment stand, the Adamant Blackfly Festival




Adamant: a crossroads, one of Calais' (a town without a town center) five teeny clusters of what passes for population density around here. Home to the Adamant music school and the Adamant Co-op/general store, ground zero for the happening. Perennials for sale covering tables along a driveway, an open house in progress in the art studio over the general store, cookies and cakes selling at what passes for a brisk pace in this part of the world (meaning low-key, relaxed -- relaxed enough to border on narcoleptic), two or three musicians cranking out friendly, discrete classical music within the screens of the co-op's new side deck. Almost absurdly good-natured and enjoyable, all of it.

And then today, morning fog gradually giving way to, well, Vermont summertime. Ideal. Spectacular. The kind of display that written descriptions can't even begin to put across. The kind of conditions that soothe jangled nerves, make inner peace difficult to avoid.

Outside, birds now sing evening songs. Late-day shadows extend across the grass, the sun eases slowly down behind the trees. Time to smear on bug goo, mow a bit of lawn, stick some tomato plants in the ground.





Espaņa, te echo de menos.

rws 6:17 PM [+]

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BLATHERINGS

August 2001
September 2001
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November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
June 2009
July 2009

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


MORE FOCUSED BLATHERINGS


Travels:
London '01
Pamplona
Italy '03
U.K. '03
Sevilla
Casablanca
Stoke-on-Trent
Barcelona
Québec/Ottawa
Boston/Lisbon/Madrid
Italy '04
Montréal
La Sierra

Events:
Madrid -- arrival
9/11
Emergency Room I
Holidays 2001
Holidays 2002
Holidays 2003
Holidays 2004
Holidays 2005
A neighbor's passing
Madrid -- March 11 bombings
  and aftermath
Emergency Room II
Israeli friend/Madrid Marathon
Madrid -- Royal Wedding
The DELE exam

GONE, a novel:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10

THE BASTARD CHILDREN OF
JOE ROCCO, a novella:
-- Part 1
-- Part 2
-- Part 3

BURBANK SHRUGGED,
a screenplay:
-- Part 1
-- Part 2
-- Part 3
-- Part 4

Short stories:
Murphy's Wife
Another Autumn
La Queja de Una
  Hermanastra Muy Conocida

Autobiography
-- Personal History
-- Hormones On Parade
-- Accidents, Random Mishaps,
    Personal Problems

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


OTHER SOURCES OF WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT

People/Weblogs:
dooce
foxvox
fudge it
fear not
rebekka
bookslut
802online
idle words
madhaiku
wockerjabby
grow-a-brain
rebel market
letting me be
out and about
kung fu grippe
fanatical apathy
baghdad burning
wfuv's music blog
kexp's music blog
mimi smartypants
between the miles
just a hippie gypsy
the impossible cool
tomato can brushes
vermont homestead
sugar mountain farm

Good Clean Fun:
gizmodo
futurismic
postsecret
dave barry
human clock
mcsweeney's
spaceweather
book-a-minute
internet archive
self-portrait day
my cat hates you
out of context quotes
surrealist compliment
  generator
strindberg and helium

Makin' Musical Whoopee:
last fm
stereo8
pandora
soma fm

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ABOUT RWS/CONTACT





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