05 Adventure?

… been asked to crew on a racing sail boat… they mostly need a body on the boat… i said yes… foolish?… i expect one of the captain’s jobs is safety of the crew… as long as i keep my head down and follow orders, i should be ok?…

04 Basho to Buson

… i have finished reading the poetry and prose of Basho in the present volume… it concluded with The Saga Diary… an account of his time at the home of a friend… in it, i think i perceive that Basho might have been gay… this reminds me of my own mentor, M, who died long ago during the AIDS epidemic…

… yesterday, i thought of the work i did with him… M was a true master… he thought highly of me… i have not lived up to the expectations i have of myself because of this… still, i keep trying…

… i read the introduction to Buson, who seems to have been a more down-to-earth artist… he enjoyed earthly things, drinking with friends, Geisha girls…

… he loved the poetry of Basho…

… in this introduction to Buson, i learn that the struggles i have about whether to feed the art market (make some money from my work) or not are not new (did i really think they were?)… it seems that as long as there has been art and a market for it, this has been the struggle… i am fortunate to not require an income from the art i make… though the occasional sale is welcome…

… the sun is well up… the birds continue to twitter outside… the dogs sleep in the living room… a cool breeze brushes over my back… in the distance the waves break on the shore… i feel good in this moment…

03 How Slow is the Internet Here?

… so slow, that Ulysses can’t finish autosaving a document before it needs to start again, leading to multiple iterations of the same document… at least that is what i think the multiple iterations are all about…

… they are installing new broad band on the island… can’t be done with that soon enough…

02 Heather Cox Richardson

… HCR’s post this morning is mostly about voting rights and the strident efforts of conservatives to restrict them across the country at the state level…

… this week the Senate will vote on the For The People Act which enforces from the federal level increased access to voting and ends partisan gerrymandering…

… Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has propose compromises, republicans are trying to hold the line… if they do, back over to Manchin and the filibuster question…

… a significant week for the course of democracy in this country…

01 First Thoughts

… struggling a bit to wake up… had some alcohol just before going to bed, thus the struggle…

… is today father’s day?… toying with not making the family zoom meeting… thinking that probably isn’t a good idea…

… today is summer solstice, the longest daylight of the year… wondering what to do to mark it, celebrate it… then the long slide into shorter days…

… two days ago, a horrific moped accident that apparently involved someone loosing part of their leg… i was in the hardware store when a local who had witnessed the aftermath reported it to the clerk in the store… they said they wished they could unsee it… i have been thinking about it since… i wish i could un-hear it…

… Chas starting to moan upstairs, i will have to go get him and Fiona… don’t like it when they don’t get up with me… interrupts the flow of the morning…

… it’s race week on BI… an acquaintance is out here crewing on one of the boats… his wife lets me know this through FB messenger… last night, i found the boat… she sent me his number… i will text him today…

… O and S have been visiting since Friday… we all went out to diner last night at the Oar, boater central… then we walked the docks, looking at the boats… then over to Champlain’s where we also looked at the boats… quieter scene over there… still some partying going on… attractive middle aged woman floating around the docks in a long, flowing, black linen dress… it’s interesting when one dresses to stand out and seems so at ease doing so…

05 Scenes From a Walk

04 Kiss the Police?

Vinca Peterson: Raves and Riots

… this photograph is striking… it seems that young women confronting the uniformed presence of the state with love is an image to be found happening again and again… it reminds me of this photograph from the Vietnam War era…

Marc Ribaud, Jan Rose Kasmir confronting the military at the Pentagon.

… i wonder if the striking contradiction of the feminine confronting the masculine in this way can happen with the same impact now that women increasingly join the ranks of the police and military?…

03 Love is Love

… Loving: A Photographic History of Men In Love, 1850-1950…

… one remarkable thing about this collection is the courage of the men being photographed… the world was far less enlightened than it is now, though there is still a long way to go… it reminds me of one of Simone de Beauvoir’s achievements in The Second Sex, which was to establish that gender and sex are not the same thing, the former being a social construct, the latter being a condition of the body… gender is fluid, sex, less so…

02 Spiritual Observance

The Hut of the Phantom Dwelling, Basho…

There was a time when I envied those who had government offices or impressive domains, and on another occasion I considered entering the precincts of the Buddha and the teaching room of the patriarchs. Instead, I’ve worn out my body in journeys that are as aimless as the winds and clouds and expended my feelings on flowers and birds.¹

… i do my best to content myself with daily walks, writing in my journal, making photographs… even so the desire to be seen, followed and liked is persistent…

01 First Thoughts

… the wind howls, i contemplate where i might like to walk in the wind…

… we watched Outlander last night, some very steamy scenes… i woke with erotic thoughts…

… dogs did not come down with me, 15 minutes later i go get them to keep them from waking H… i take them out… while outside they pick up a scent and go bonkers… they are noses with legs in these moments… hard to manage…

… Heather Cox Richardson took the night off… apparently she resumed normal life in Boston which exhausted her…

… J was accepted into hospice care… we are on the final downhill run… C is in denial… my feelings are complicated…

… the birds sing, the sun comes up, the dogs hunt, life unfolds…

07 Reflections

From earlier today…

06 Scenes From a Walk

Mohegan Bluffs…

… one always has to consider the return trip when descending these stairs…

… the bluffs are well worth the effort…

05 Osprey Sighting!

… the neighbors have an Osprey nesting pole in their back yard… apparently, the Osprey in question had been building a nest on top of a utility pole which the power company had to put an end to… the neighbor, a retired scientist and academic, prevailed upon them to erect an Osprey nesting box… a photo full frame, another zoomed in… best i could do with the iPhone… 🪶

04 Arias for a New World

… this article on dancer/choreographer M. J. Harper’s new dance production caught my attention…

… when i first moved to New York City, decades ago, i studied dance at the Alvin Ailey school… i also took beginning ballet lessons at a small studio around the corner… i was never more than a beginner and starting too late to even think about a dance career… at the time i was a young pup architect and i felt the dance training would inform me about movement through space… there were also a lot of attractive young women that i enjoyed being in the midst of as a single young man, though i don’t believe i ever dated one of them while i was there… in retrospect, i was as interested in being amidst the feminine as i was in finding a partner…

… the article doesn’t reference anywhere to see the production that i could find…

03 For The People

… this morning’s Heather Cox Richardson post suggests there is movement on the voting rights front… Senator Joe Manchin has made some proposals on voting rights, which were backed by Stacey Abrams… he has also indicated a willingness to modify the rules of the filibuster, only 55 senators would be needed to pass legislation and 60 senators would be required to keep a filibuster going… meanwhile, a Republican running for office in Florida appears to have threatened to hire a Russian hit squad to eliminate his opponent in the primary… hmmm…

02 Morning Spiritual Moment

The Haiku of Basho

… i don’t know if it is my mood, but the Haikus i read this morning seem all about alienation, loneliness… they leave me adrift, there isn’t one to latch on to… i read on… i land on this one, Basho’s death poem:

Sick on a journey,

my dreams wander

the withered fields.

… yes, this one seems appropriate for the morning after the news about J…

How is it possible?

… to be staying on an island in the middle of the Atlantic and have no reliable source of fresh fish?

I am realizing that when I post to my notesonattentionpaid blog at micro.blog that only the title and a link post to the timeline. Unless there are pictures. All of those seem to post. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a setting somewhere I am missing?

… that J’s doctor has told them they are likely in the last year of their life… their problem with living is a heart that has beat 100,000 times a day, 365 days a year for 93 years… it’s tired… they’re tired… the eyes of the leader of the band are growing dim…

Footprints in the sand,

sea fingers reach in

to erase.

… scored some garlic scapes in the farmers market and decided to make a pesto… turns out a stick blender makes a good grinder to get everything pulverized… i prefer a mortar and pestle as flavor is better, but hard to haul on vacation… a stick blender is compact and versatile…

… this article on Gottmik caught my attention this AM… femininity in all it’s forms is an interest of mine, trans femininity included…

… one of my favorite places on Block Island is at the narrow tip at the north end of the island… It’s a somewhat wild place, home to seaguls and a colony of seals… seals are the preferred food of great white sharks, and where there are seal colonies, there are likely to be great whites, or there eventually will be… the seal colony is a more recent thing… this morning i read this article about an attack last summer in Maine… from what i gleaned it can be assumed that these sharks have generally always been around… fortunately, attacks on humans are rare…

… i have a thick book of haikus composed by Basho, Buson and Isa… i have been reading two to four pages worth daily as a kind of spiritual observance… i think about them, summarize them, sometimes quote particular ones that land more firmly than others in my mind…

… the one that lands most firmly this morning is about being in a winter garden, the moon thinned to thread width, the insects singing… if it’s winter, the insects wouldn’t be singing, at least not where i live, and not in Japan?… the poem is about the garden of old age, the light diminishing, insects singing the poet off into approaching blackness…