Week in Seven Words #583

This covers the week of 3/21/21 - 3/27/21.

biota

The season begins with crocuses, progresses to turtles.

fending

Spiky seed balls plinking on car windshields and roofs, as if the trees are defending against an invasion.

observing

Interesting to see who comments on the new glasses and who seems not to notice.

skateboarders

Two skateboards. On one, a young man holding a leash. On the other, a bulldog at the end of the leash. They skim along at a relaxed pace, both of them looking cool and poised.

substitutes

Her brain is largely hijacked by alternate realities, other versions of herself that command her thoughts.

superstore

The superstore is a comforting place because it never seems to run out of anything. It promises abundance.

uniformity

They all look like they go to the same hairdresser. Their hair is in the same ponytail, some threaded through a cap. They all wear yoga pants, short jackets, and big sunglasses, and they clutch a coffee in one hand, a phone in the other.

Week in Seven Words #537

This covers the week of 5/3/20 - 5/9/20.

blocked

On our walk, we head to an art museum in the hopes of seeing into it from the outside. From what I remember, it has some large windows. We find them shuttered.

converging

Multiple sources of stress converge into a tension headache.

permute

Our walks are limited to a relatively small radius, so we're getting inventive about places to visit, new combinations of paths to take.

ripping

A rending wind pushes us down the street. It sends up a swirl of litter. The tulips are half bald, the cherry blossoms cast to the ground.

springtime

Clean air and the colors of tulips and azaleas. One path is pink with fallen cherry blossoms, a lush carpet that will soon get trampled into the mud.

unreadable

The large turtle is very still, as if it's one with the rock formation on which it's sunning. The stillness of the moment breaks with the noise of an airplane. It's writing something across the crisp blue sky, but the letters are too blurry to read.

zeroing

Police hand out citations to people who aren't wearing masks.

Week in Seven Words #532

This covers the week of 3/29/20 - 4/4/20.

attending

The convenience store is a cube of white light on a dark street. A masked cashier listens to 80s rock while staring out the window.

clanging

In every building on the block, people are at their windows cheering on healthcare workers. They shout, clap, whoop, bang on pots, and blow on trumpets and recorders. Overall, it's a cheerful sound, but I can't help thinking of jail inmates banging their metal cups against the bars.

distant

This feels like a lost springtime. There are blossoming trees and other kinds of loveliness, but it all seems out of reach, as if it's in a parallel world.

emergencies

Streets emptier and sirens more prevalent.

prettiness

A magnolia blossom cradled in the split trunk of a tree.

restlessness

I don't know where I want to walk. I just walk.

undermines

He wears gloves every time he needs to open a door. With a gloved hand he also pulls down his mask and scratches his face. 

Week in Seven Words #518

This covers the week of 12/22/19 - 12/28/19.

again
Her dollhouse, I discover, has musical features. So that I won't forget about these features, she replays them repeatedly.

alleviating
In the car, I'm a little nauseous from lack of sleep and a breakfast of a single square of chocolate, which seems to hop around like a checker piece in my stomach. What helps is a walk through the parking lot in the mostly fresh air.

halted
I'm struck most by a sculpture inspired by Abraham and Isaac, the near sacrifice of the son by the father. The father figure looks tense and determined but nonetheless reluctant, holding back at the sight of his adult son kneeling with throat bared. The son is prepared, appears not to resist at all, but his fists are clenched.

potbelly
One museum guard allows me to keep my small backpack on me, as long as I wear it in front, like an artificial potbelly. Another guard tries to get me to return to the coat check with it, but I clutch my potbelly protectively and defend it from removal.

seasonal
Scuffed-up stairs and tired-looking stoops are showered with tinsel and potted shrubs.

spotted
A deer among fallen branches by an empty swimming pool.

wintry
An elegant bridge and brittle ice, bare trees and dark, cold water.

Week in Seven Words #506

This covers the week of 9/29/19 - 10/5/19.

autumnal
The leaves are turning a spangly orange and gold. Coolness is working its way into the warmth of the day.

kindly
I respect how attentive she is to other people. She pauses in the middle of praying to make sure someone has a seat, and to soothe an elderly lady who thinks she's been transported to a date decades earlier.

mailing
The kids find a way to amuse themselves by chucking their shoes through a hole in the net. "Special delivery!" they shout.

multitask
When I return, I find her asleep on the couch with her fingers still suspended in front of her, her freshly painted nails drying. As good a time as any to catch up on some sleep.

pained
She's seized by moments of querulousness, and it's best to let them slide. Her hours are often pinched with pain, and one day washes into another.

purpose
What I touch I must try to make good.

salvaging
It's impossible to start over completely, he says with dimmed eyes, but you do the best you can.

Week in Seven Words #454

autumn
I love the green and gold of early autumn, the faint chill, the lingering summer.

benevolence
It's beautiful to give and receive uncomplicated goodwill.

inclined
Sometimes, I'll try to talk myself out of trying something new. Most of the time, setting aside my misgivings works out better than expected.

perambulate
A buoyant nighttime walk, among people out with their dogs.

planners
Browsing through planners and journals is pleasurable. I may not buy any of them, but it's fun to look at the elegant pages ready for notes, meetings, and goals.

supplies
They talk about their love of school supplies - fresh boxes of pens and pencils, pristine index cards, glue that will make its way to colorful posters.

Torah
I dance three times with the Torah. Even when I have it in an awkward hold and my arms ache, I love holding it. I want to keep that memory vivid, the sensation of the scrolls in my arms, the weight taken willingly and happily, and the unselfconscious celebration, surrounded as I was by women old and young, some full of energy, others going through a hard time in life, all of them present, singing, dancing, clapping, or looking on, a part of it all.

Floating Pumpkins, the Battle of Fort Washington, and Autumn Foliage

Two recent NYC parks events worth noting –

One was on 10/28 and involved a flotilla of pumpkins tugged across the Harlem Meer in Central Park by two people in kayaks.



Here is the flotilla getting set up, around sunset.



A little earlier, I had walked around some other parts of Central Park, including the Reservoir:


This brilliant glow was in a clearing a little north of the Reservoir:


Without meaning to, I detoured to the northwest of the park, where The Pool is especially lovely in autumn:


And I crossed east again, to where the Harlem Meer is, through the North Woods:

Week in Seven Words #382

meditative
In the late evening, a man does Tai Chi by the river. His fluid, practiced movements make him a graceful silhouette against the last blaze of sunlight on the water.

meteorology
We're at a long rectangular table. It seems to be under the influence of different weather phenomena. At the far end, three people are rumbling with thunderous anger. In a chair near them, a woman suddenly smiles and speaks in a reassuring voice, like sunlight breaking through clouds. Among the children, there's balmy, breezy weather; they're relaxed, laughing and chatting.

noting
His explorations take him through a room full of alcohol, oysters, and chatter. (What are people eating and wearing? How is the restaurant organized, indoors and outdoors?) We watch volleyball players next. "What do you notice about them?" he asks. I mention that they're all men, roughly 25-40 years old. Maybe they're co-workers or in an amateur league. But there's something else I haven't mentioned. "Look at how they're all smiling," he says. He's noticed their happiness.

portraits
In quiet corners of the elevated park, people are curled up on benches - sometimes in pairs or in small groups of friends, other times reading alone or murmuring into their phones. One woman meditates in lamplight. The park snakes past apartment buildings on the level of their upper floors. The window shades are not entirely effective. There are still glimpses of life at home: a pair of feet in a foot bath, the flicker of a TV, an empty, neatly made bed, an empty bathtub in dim blue light.

serenely
Clouds coast on a baby blue sky. The horizon has softened to a shade of peach. Fishermen set up a boom box that plays soft percussive music.

telescope
It's amazing that this is really Jupiter I'm seeing - the pinprick of light resolving into an image of the distant planet. Almost as if I could touch it.

theme
The dance she comes up with is a sequence of summer images: bees, sprinklers, back strokes, ocean waves, and sunshine.

Week in Seven Words #321

fawner
Finding something I wrote in all earnestness when I was young, when I so earnestly wanted to please.

putrefaction
Cleaning deep under my desk, I find something that makes me wish I'd cleaned sooner.

racket
Connect Four pieces clattering on the table like a slot machine jackpot.

respiratory
One guy grunts at the weights, another groans at the weights, a third vacuums the carpet, and a fourth gasps on a treadmill.

spillage
They'd like me to be a receptacle for their unpleasant emotions. A sponge that will soak up their excesses.

taboo
The standup routine is raunchier than anything they've watched before, giving them new words to mouth in wonder.

tumble
In every season there's something to make you slip: ice, leaves, a slurry of mud and motor oil, blossoms rotting.

Bye, Autumn

These Central Park photos are from a beautiful day at the end of October. It had unexpected warmth. (And, towards the end of the day, I got an unexpected sting from what was probably a bee. This was followed by a massive howling rainstorm. But up to that point, the day was a dream.)

Seven Photos of Spring in Central Park

The Lake:


The Conservatory Garden:


A duck in the Harlem Meer:


The Harlem Meer:


The Pool:


The Reservoir:


A tree that looks like a Dr. Seuss illustration:

Week in Seven Words #269

abeyance
Winter is still on the gardens. The paths are empty, the domes and crenellated walls deserted. Everywhere there's a cold, fuzzy silence.

claimed
Geese have claimed the soccer fields, the gazebo by the river. Branches have fallen across the path that feeds into the deep woods. By a gap in the fence, a hole has opened up in the earth and filled with gray water.

confined
Restless people pace inside the mansion, their fingers tracing walnut furniture. Before each window they stop to study the river. They wish they could leap out of their skin and race to the water. Maybe one day. They turn from each window and take up pacing.

crammed
PowerPoint slides frustrate him. They're too small for what he needs to say. His words and numbers run on, in ever tinier fonts, as he fills the available space.

edible
Homes with cream trimming, cherry-colored shutters.

gutted
Even when she talks about a triumph, her voice wavers with pain. She can't believe in her own success. She's convinced that she succeeded only by chance.

percolating
The coffee pours warmth into chilled wet feet and fingers nipped with cold.

Awesome Autumn Hike: Sleepy Hollow and Rockfeller State Park Preserve

I went on a fantastic 13-mile hike this past Sunday with Shorewalkers through Sleepy Hollow and Rockefeller State Park Preserve.

The foliage looked like it was at its peak; the weather was mild, with the day starting off a little drizzly, then gray and finally sunny in the afternoon. It was brilliant.

The hike started at the Philipse Manor train station on the Hudson Line of the Metro North Railroad; it's about an hour north of New York City's Grand Central Station by train. First we walked a few blocks through Sleepy Hollow, a quiet suburb with lovely homes half-buried in autumn colors.

Week in Seven Words #248

conniption
The wind, fierce and fretful, throws a tantrum among the trees.

expose
The trail overlooks people's backyards. What do they think about the strange hikers who can peer into their windows at any time of day?

glinting
There is sweat on her upper lip, and her smile is blinding. She would prefer if you look at her smile and not at her eyes.

gold-leaf
Leaves and loose rock underfoot. Gold spreading gloriously overhead.

osseous
All that's left of a home: two stone walls, roof tiles littering the ground, a chimney decaying like a tooth.

splashed
The river throws the sunlight off its back and into our eyes.

thoroughfare
Learning the contours of a river from a train, a forest ridge, and two bridges.

Cambridge, MA: Short Walk on an Autumn Morning

Autumn Hike: Franny Reese State Park and Walkway Over the Hudson

Here's a blueprint for a brilliant hike in the autumn.

Take the Metro North from Grand Central Station in NYC. The view from the train window, the Hudson River:


Get off at the train station in Poughkeepsie (last stop on the Hudson line):


Walk south, paying attention to what some of the buildings are called. (Washington Irving is a major literary figure in these parts.)


Cross the Mid-Hudson Bridge on foot (this isn't the famous pedestrian bridge in the area, but it has a footpath, so you can share the bridge with motor vehicle traffic).


Look at different signs on the bridge.

Then look north along the Hudson.

Because that other bridge you see? That's the Walkway Over the Hudson. It's the longest elevated pedestrian bridge in the world, and it's where you'll be ending your hike.



Fall foliage is stunning.

Salem, Massachusetts in October: 25 Photos

(From a half-day visit on Columbus Day.)

The Witch House

(It's the home of Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s.)

The Custom House

(At the Salem Maritime National Historic Park.)

Ropes Mansion Garden

(This garden is in back of a home dating to the early 1700s.)

One beautiful autumn afternoon in Central Park

I took these photos in Central Park a week and a day before Hurricane Sandy hit (here are some reputable charities to donate to, if you want to help the recovery efforts).

It was a beautiful autumn day the likes of which we won't see again this season, I think.

Week in Seven Words #142

effusive
She talks without pause about books, school, computers, e-readers, clothes, and soccer, and apologizes (unnecessarily) for talking too much, even as she tells her younger sister not to interrupt her.

faded
The trees are dusted with yellow and pale orange, and the shadows are long as we stand together beside the remains of a picnic. Most people have left, except for a businessman who tells us about his mystical healing powers.

germinal
I don't think it's best for me to stay in my current home for more than a year or two. We'll see.

soured
In the car, an atmosphere of rancor and brokenness.

strands
His speech is made up of several beautiful threads that don't get tied together.

synergistic
Seared tuna with avocado and mango. The ingredients separately don't move me one way or another, but together they're bliss.

tapped
He looks away at one point, tears in his eyes, as he asks for advice. My voice sounds stronger and wiser than I am; the words emerge from a place that's deeper than the surface pettiness and worries in my life. But I don't know if any long-term good will come of this conversation.

Week in Seven Words #133

floating
I love summer nights, after it's rained earlier and the air is soft and balmy. I could walk for miles on nights like these.

floristic
Blotchy red roses and delicate purple flowers on display along Amsterdam Avenue.

marver
A spell of cathartic writing, where I pour out all the simmering anger and shape it into something useful.

savored
Lunch hour: Shakshouka with haloumi cheese, a corner table, and a good book.

unfathomable
Struck by the number of strangers around me - people I'll never know, who brush up against my life as I brush against theirs when we dodge past each other on a crowded sidewalk.

unresolved
An unspoken "let's pretend it never happened" instead of a spoken "I'm sorry."

zwischenzug
I haven't played chess since childhood but all it takes is a few games and I start to see the connections again between the pieces. Instead of sending them out in disjointed short-sighted moves, I start to get how one can protect another, how they can operate in tandem to pose a threat to and capture opponent pieces. I have fun rediscovering all of this.