Week in Seven Words #548

This covers the week of 7/19/20 - 7/25/20.

barricaded

The side doors to a vacant hotel are barred with luggage carts.

dreading

I wish I were used to these feelings of foreboding by now, the way they stalk through my psyche and claw at my attention.

flag

We notice a duck with blue, black, and white coloring on its wings. It reminds me of a flag. Estonia's flag, maybe? To check, we don't need to consult an atlas or a search engine. All he does is type Estonia into a text message on his phone. He receives a suggested flag emoji for Estonia, and yes, those are the same colors on the duck.

hooray

The documentary about the park is less about information and more about celebration. I'm fine with that, especially because the park has been a refuge when so many other places remain closed. Let's be happy that it exists.

perspiring

Joggers glistening and puffing in the morning. Drops of sweat shivering on shirtless basketball players.

protection

A visit to the dentist is much as it ever was, except for the air filters in every room, the mandatory masks, and the empty chairs between patients in the waiting room. This time, along with the x-rays and cleaning, I get fitted for a night guard, an attempt to protect my teeth from the unconscious grinding I subject them to when I sleep.

training

Three rows of stout old people working out with wooden swords. Their instructor, a senior himself, walks among them and corrects their form. I pretend that what I'm looking at isn't an exercise group but a training session for elderly assassins. (They're effective because most people don't consider them a threat... until it's too late.)

Week in Seven Words #545

This covers the week of 6/28/20 - 7/4/20.

competitiveness

These days, I'm playing more Scrabble than I have in years. In one game, my opponent creates four seven-letter words. In another game, a different opponent creates two. I'm playing against people who treat Scrabble as a serious pursuit. More than a mere game, it is, at times, a primal conflict.

misdirected

I'm trying to find my way through a beautifully wooded part of the park. There aren't many paths, and I'm sure I know where I'm going, but each time I try to end the walk at a pond, I end up on the edges of a baseball field. The woods keep delivering me to baseball, and I don't even like the sport.

overheated
Dead-eyed people in dusty, faintly pretty parks. A small fountain protests the heat.

patriotism

Throughout the day, there's little evidence of celebration. No flags in windows, and people aren't dressed in red, white, and blue. The one exception is a jogger in shorts that stretch the American flag across his posterior. The first time the day feels celebratory is at night, during a TV broadcast of fireworks – shimmering bursts of liquid color.

pondside

Our walk has earned us front-row seats to massive algae growth. 

rediscovering

For the first time in months, I set foot in a bookstore. The store is mostly empty, and I don't buy anything, but I like being able to walk around and touch the covers, read the jackets and blurbs. 

somewhat

"You always think you're going to do something wrong," she tells me, and my reaction is torn between "Not always" and "Yeah, you have a point."

Week in Seven Words #329

apiary
I don't know about the beekeeping on the premises until suddenly there are clouds of them around box hives on each side of the path. The part of my brain that isn't screaming reminds me that conserving bees is important, so isn't this wonderful? So wonderful.

cames
Petals lit up like stained glass in the low-slanting afternoon light.

ossicones
A man and child dressed as giraffes are reading by a pond. They could be characters from the picture book spread out between them.

parried
The ambulance circles through the cemetery's front drive, to where an old woman sits with her head in her hands on a bench. The EMTs kneel beside her for awhile. Eventually, she waves them off and leaves under her own power.

picking
On a search for a subway platform that isn't blocked by construction, I walk through a part of the city new to me. The buildings are indistinct in afternoon haze. A man on a stoop toys with a guitar.

rooted
Leaves and blossoms draped over weathered stone. Small American flags on a bright yellow lawn.

vexation
He's at my elbow, telling me I'm taking photos of the wrong things. "What's so interesting about that? Take a picture of this! See?"

Week in Seven Words #23

deliquesce
Ice cream, half-scooped and half-puddled, seeps through the mouth and dissolves on the tongue. Heat, sweat and sweetness on a summer afternoon.

dipping
The flowers dip their long green fronds in the water, the way people might sit at the edge of a swimming pool and paddle their feet.

flux
Watching them play it's difficult to predict when they'll get along peaceably and when they'll slip into mischievous pestering or earnest scuffles. Another possibility is that they'll drift to different parts of the room and focus on individual pursuits involving characters, shoes, blocks, blankets, keyboards and cars.

jarred
Whole days, derailed. A sick gnawing anxiousness and pain.

molten
The fountain is full of cool fire. Plashing white plumes surge out of its basin, and the sun is shattered on its waters.

sorry
Sometimes he invests the word with just a little too much power; he thinks that any bit of mischief or inflicted hurt will be instantaneously undone with the utterance of an earnest 'sorry'.

stripes
Flags ripple against a light blue sky.

From the mind of Lemuel Moody

The Portland Observatory is the last of its kind in the US - an old maritime signal tower, now preserved as a museum and as a great viewing spot overlooking Portland, Maine and the adjacent water and land.



Before new technology came along and made it obsolete, you stood at the top with a telescope, sighted approaching ships, and used flags to signal how many and which kinds of ships were coming, so people on the docks could get ready for the arrival and the unloading of cargo.



It was constructed and initially manned by a retired sea captain, Lemuel Moody. An enterprising and meticulous individual, he lived nearby with his wife and brood, who spent significant chunks of their childhood running up and down the stairs:



These days, along with footsteps, other sounds you hear regularly from the stairs are the words "watch your head", followed by a loud hollow thud.

The lovely views make up for the minor headaches.





You can also spot patterns that at ground-level would go unnoticed.



And once you're back on the ground, don't forget to look up.

Smokers a century ago...

... could find flag girls among their cigarettes.

America, golden and brisk:



Buxom Belgium:



Greece, as graceful as one of the three graces (or nine muses):



Saucy Italy:



Japan, cautious and coy:



Proud Portugal:



Abyssinia, in her lovely unfurling colors:



Lots more at the NYPL digital archives (from Poland to India to Montenegro), as part of their collection of Cigarette Cards.