They Also Faced The Sea
November 26, 2008 | 10:50 am
A new cache! Frabjous joy! It was a long summer season here in paradise, but the fall has finally brought time out of time, time to reflect, to catch our breath … and to geocache!
Paul and I set out a cache a few days ago (as of this writing, it has not yet been found) to celebrate Provincetown Harbor, which has been an inspiration for me for years upon years … even before we made this our permanent home, I spent winters in an apartment on Commercial Street overlooking this harbor, so in many ways it is, in fact, home.
Like most of my caches, this one enables the visitor to learn something about the area. It brings the cacher to the end of a pier and invites him or her to look out and see the fantastic tremendous photographs of fishermen’s wives affixed to the building at the end of Fisherman’s Wharf. From the cache page (quoting the notice that accompanied this art installation):
The installation of five larger-than-life black-and-white photographs of Provincetown women of Portuguese descent, mounted on a building at the end of Fisherman’s Wharf in Provincetown Harbor, is conceived as a tribute to the Portuguese community and its fishing heritage.
Norma Holt’s photographs of Almeda Segura, Eva Silva, Mary Jason, Bea Cabral, and Frances Raymond are meant to represent all of the women of Provincetown who over the years have been the backbone of this vital fishing village. They came from a long line of hard-working people, immigrating mostly from the Azores and mainland Portugal. Their families fished the waters off Cape Cod for over 200 years, built a major fish packing and distribution industry and made an important contribution to the history and culture of Provincetown.
Portuguese women faced the sea in many ways: as mothers, wives, sisters, friends, and family of fishermen; as cooks, laundresses, nurses, teachers, and telephone operators. They kept the culture alive, sang the songs, danced the dances, buried the dead, gave birth, cooked and kept the church at the center of their lives. Above all, they were resilient through good times and bad, their strength and courage easily matching and supporting that of their male seafaring counterparts.
“They Also Faced The Sea” installation was designed to help keep the spirit and the presence of this culture alive by Ewa Nogiec, artist and publisher of iamprovincetown.com, and Norma Holt, photographer.
I’m looking forward to see people’s reactions to the cache; and, in the meantime, am able to rejoice again in the sheer pleasure of this wonderful hobby!
Jeannette Cézanne
Open Your Heart with Geocaching
Posted by: Geocaching, Opening the heart, Happiness, Joy — jcezanne
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The 180-day pepper
November 25, 2008 | 8:21 pm
11/25/08
Six months ago, I planted two Red Beauty pepper seedlings in pots in my living room.
Today, with snow on the ground, I harvested my first fully ripe, perfectly formed red bell pepper.
What’s interesting about this is that normal ripening time is 60-70 days. These plants, unplagued by bugs, wind, rain, and wide temperature fluctuations, grew three times taller than their outdoor counterparts yet have produced fewer than a dozen peppers between them, taking 2-3 times longer to bear fruit. They had to be pollinated by hand, which might account for it, although my outdoor peppers haven’t done much better.
The living room is a pseudo-greenhouse: south-facing and floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. Temperature range 55 to 90, depending on season and sunlight. But less light than plants would get out in the garden. A set of sister peppers went into the lasagna garden at the same time, fruited at the usual time, and had to be thrown away because all were ruined by some insect predator. The peppers on my living room plants, growing in slow motion, are flawless.
At this point I’m curious to see how long I can keep them going. Is it possible to get fresh peppers in February?
Meanwhile, there’s something small and wonderful to appreciate for Thanksgiving.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
Posted by: Opening the heart, gardens, gardening, yard, plants, cultivation — Carolyn Haley
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Winter Fitness in the 1800s
November 21, 2008 | 7:53 pm
One of the many wonderful things about learning to ski is the fact that you get to explore these wonderful, historic ski towns. For example, in 2009, the Town of Breckenridge will be 150 years old! To celebrate this momentous occasion, the town will over a multitude of exciting events.
While most of these will begin in April, in the mean time, you can read about how miners form the Victorian era embraced winter fitness.
Posted by: Opening the heart — lmercer
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Aligned in Your Body: Aligned with the Snow
| 7:32 pm
Sure, you might have a great ski fitness workout. However, you can enhance your ski skills as well as your fitness level by working out in proper alignment. read about it here:
 Posture and Alignment for Skiers
Posted by: Opening the heart — lmercer
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Stay Safe at Ski School
| 7:26 pm
As winter approaches, many of who have been inspired by reading Open Your Heart with Winter Fitness may found that you are suddenly hit with an overwhelming urge to learn to ski. This is an excellent idea! After all, even esteemed authors such as Ernest Hemingway, featured in the article below, found spiritual inspiration in the fine art of alpine skiing. However, there are some safety rules that should be considered in ski school. Intrigued? Then read about Ski School Safety.
Posted by: Opening the heart — lmercer
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Reading Endures, Even When Writers Don’t
November 19, 2008 | 8:32 am
Along with many other fans, this month I noted with sadness the death of novelist Tony Hillerman, who has provided me (and countless other readers) with hours of wonderful entertainment, along with opening up a world that I might otherwise never have known about.
A colleague remarked that it’s not just Hillerman who died, it’s also his characters, people we’ve come to know and love, in particular Joe Leaphorn, the “Legendary Lieutenant” of the Navajo reservation, and Jim Chee, torn always between his career as a Navajo Tribal Police officer and his inclinations toward becoming a shaman. I nodded when I first read my colleague’s words, feeling sadness that there won’t be any new adventures involving these two men; but now I’m not so sure.
I’m not sure, in fact, that any well-written fictional character ever dies. We may have already read a particular book, but if the character has come to life for us once, he or she will do so again: that’s the promise of good writing. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee (along with myriad other names like Antigone and Madame Bovary and Ivanhoe and Philip Marlowe and … well, you get my drift) won’t die until people stop reading the books in which they appear — a very slim chance, given Hillerman’s terrific storytelling ability.
Perhaps that’s part of the magic of books, their ability to touch the eternal, to keep a time and a place and a group of characters in our minds and our hearts long after their creator is gone. And if that’s true, Tony Hillerman was a magician par excellence.
If you haven’t read Hillerman, you have a world of pleasure ahead of you. Get to a bookshop or a library as quickly as possible and do so.
Jeannette Cézanne
Open Your Heart with Reading
Posted by: reading, Opening the heart, Happiness — jcezanne
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Stick season
November 18, 2008 | 6:51 pm
Here in the hilly section of Vermont, there are a lot of jokes (and complaints) about the weather. They’re all true, by the way. It’s the most weather-dominant place I’ve ever lived, which doesn’t help with gardening!
Nevertheless, despite my own complaints, I like the weather here. It’s dramatic and primal — an Event, almost every day. And very rich with color. I’ve taken to determining seasons by color, since the calendar doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Right now, mid-November, we’re square in the middle of Stick Season.
Stick Season is primarily brown and gray. With all the leaves down (except coppery beech and rusty oak), the landscape is a mass of brown and gray vertical lines overlaying brown and gray undulations. The skies are myriad shades of gray, usually roiling, reflected back by gunmetal gray waters. This monotony is punctuated by the aptly named evergreens, and given contrast by beige and mustard grasses, plus the surprising gold of larches and even more surprising shafts of golden sunbeams slanting through holes in the gray clouds.
In all, starkly beautiful. Soon to be blanketed with white. But it’s nice to see the bones of the land for a little while, and to glimpse homes and other features normally masked by dense foliage. We get Stick Season in reverse during April, when the white blanket retreats and reveals the world naked before greens reemerge to clothe it.
So Stick Season is brown and gray. Winter is white, blue, and lavender. Not-Winter is green with fiesta-colored accents. Foliage Season is just the party colors. Some folks add Mud Season to this roster, but I lump that under Stick Season. The spring and fall are always wet and yucky underfoot, and in our immediate area we don’t get the dissolving, rutted roads that suck vehicles in up to their floor pans (for which Mud Season is named), so I’ll stick with my nomenclature.
The only problem is, Winter is 5 months long, Not-Winter is 4, Stick Season is 3, and Foliage Season less than 1. According to the calendar, each season is supposed to be 3 months long. Hah!
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
Posted by: Opening the heart, gardens, gardening, yard, plants, cultivation — Carolyn Haley
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2008 World Fantasy Awards
November 12, 2008 | 1:50 pm
The winners of the 2008 World Fantasy Awards were announced at the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, Alberta, and include:
- Novel:Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay (Viking Canada/Penguin Roc)
- Novella: Illyria by Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing)
- Short Story: “Singing of Mount Abora” by Theodora Goss (Logorrhea, Bantam Spectra)
- Anthology: Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
- Collection: Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman (Comma Press)
- Artist: Edward Miller
- Special Award, Professional: Peter Crowther for PS Publishing
- Special Award, Non-professional: Midori Snyder and Terri Windling for Endicott Studios Website
- Life Achievement: Leo and Diane Dillon and Patricia McKillip
Warm congratulations to them all — and, perhaps, hints for the SF and fantasy readers on your holiday list!
Jeannette Cézanne
Open Your Heart with Reading
Posted by: reading, art books, reading books, Publishing, Words, Opening the heart — jcezanne
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Indian Summer
November 10, 2008 | 5:13 pm
11/10/08
We got lucky this year and enjoyed two Indian Summers — that time after first frost when the weather rebounds into sunshine and warmth, and being outdoors is the greatest joy.
The first of our two Indian Summers came during peak foliage, filling the woods and waters and backyards with enthusiasts enjoying a last hurrah. The second came almost a month later, after the first measurable snow, which promptly vanished as if it had never been. This gave an unexpected — and hurriedly exploited — final chance to wrap up the garden for its long winter nap.
I had managed, before the snow, to get the annual beds cleared and most of the perennials cut back, then ran out of time. When the second Indian Summer began, I had a chance to finish raking, trimming, mulching, and hauling pots and tools under cover. Just for jollies, I’m experimenting with a little cold frame this year, seeing how long I can keep lettuce alive, so I opened it up and let the pale plants have some real air and sunshine. We didn’t open any windows, though, needing to let the house soak up heat from outside to more easily reheat it from the inside when this lucky break ends.
Which it did today. Temps plunged back into the 30s, showers turned into snow flurries, and coats came back off the rack. Gloves and hats were rooted out of their hiding places, boots dusted off, T-shirts stowed away. But as I reconnoiter the yard (in the biting north wind), I see it tidy and ready for whatever winter flings at us. All the bird feeders are back in place — and getting emptied within 48 hours as the birds prepare for the inevitable, too.
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
Posted by: Opening the heart — Carolyn Haley
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Taking My Antibiotics Proudly
November 5, 2008 | 10:14 am
It finally happened. I feel that I have Arrived. After several years of geocaching, hiking through woods, along streams, and beside fields, I finally got my first-ever tick bite.
In late October. Decreased vigilance does it every time.
I watched for the telltale signs of beginning Lyme disease and when they appeared (along with more pain than I’d anticipated!) I got myself to a doctor right away. As should anyone who has had a tick bite. My doctor confirmed the probable presence of Lyme and put me on a course of antibiotics, which I’m now taking faithfully.
When I told my doctor that it was my first-ever such bite, she laughed. “I’m out in the woods all the time,” she said. “I’ve had five tick bites in the past few years alone!”
Made me feel a little like a wuss, don’t you know. And the feeling was compounded by the fact that this past weekend’s geocaching was the first time I’d been out doing this, my favorite hobby, in many months (due to trifling interruptions that included moving house, having a 16-year-old stepson move in with me, some campaigning for the presidential election, and a lot of work around domestic violence awareness, but who’s counting?); so I was well and truly put in my place.
But as I walked out of the pharmacy with my pills, my guilt was replaced with elation. I’m real now! A real outdoors person! I’ve had a tick bite! I’m fighting Lyme disease! Woo-hoo!
And the geocaches I found (including one earth cache) were cool, on top of it all. It’s a grand autumn here chez Cézanne!
Jeannette Cézanne
Open Your Heart with Geocaching
Posted by: Geocaching, Opening the heart — jcezanne
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