Art from the past

This is a drawing I did when I was in my late teens.  My brother found it lately and transformed it into this nifty presentation.  Thanks, Pete.

My crumbling lady's head planter

I took this photograph earlier this spring.  My plaster planter in the form of a woman's head has seen better days - after just one winter, it is cracked and chipping, but perhaps that makes it look more venerable.

Arrayed around the planter are some of the stones I have picked up from the banks of local brooks.  Many of them have holes and fissures which I find fascinating.  Some of them have tiny crystals; others are unusual colors.  There are stones with inclusions, patterns, markings that resemble faces, letters, or animals; and then there are a few I look at and think - "Just why did I pick this stone up and take it with me?"

I also love smoothed-out bottle glass.  I have a chunk of what seems to be a very old soda bottle, because it is extremely thick glass; the letters on the fragment are "kist," which I just love, because it reminds me of "kissed."  I keep on thinking about incorporating it in a piece of jewelry made from found elements, but that is one of many projects I haven't gotten around to as yet.

I did find a real fossil a couple of years ago, and at a different brook, I found a petrified oyster shell.  I also discovered a small geode, which is nothing compared to the geodes one purchases, but is special because I found it!

The hellebore flowers crowning my planter's head have faded, and I must now consider what to plant in their place.  Perhaps a small-leaved creeper; or perhaps I should mound up the soil and grow some moss, giving her a velvety cap.  Decisions, decisions.  A lot of gardening awaits me this week.

Brooks, streams, creeks, and treasure

The tree and twisted roots in the foreground are usually well above 

the level of the water of Stony Brook, and the current is usually far 

tamer.  The wildly rushing current was mesmerizing.

I had some extra time several days ago, and took the opportunity to walk down to Stony Brook, which is - surprise! - a stony brook near where I live.

There had been a great deal of rain in the previous days, and the brook was more swollen than I had ever seen it, with the water rushing furiously along.  Rocks that were usually visible above the water were hidden beneath the currents.  It was beautiful, and the sound's effect was instantly anesthetic.

Often I wish I had a house with a brook on the property.  Being able to sit by the brook and relax to the sound of the water flowing by would be so life-enhancing.  But I recognize that I am fickle, and crave variety.  I worry that just one brook wouldn't do - I would soon be back exploring different brooks, streams, and creeks, searching for natural treasures: water-smoothed glass, shells, weird stones and pebbles, distorted branches . . .

I have a list of brooks and streams still to explore.  I need to get cracking - time's a-wasting, and magic awaits just out of sight, past the bordering trees, in the woods, on the banks of the brooks . . .  It's waiting for me, and for all of us.

Prayerful thoughts

I was thinking about God tonight, which isn't too surprising because I think about God a lot every single day.  I was born that way.  One of my earliest memories, from when I was three or four, is asking my atheist mother plaintively, "Do we believe in God?" and being very disappointed when she said that we didn't.  (My mother was a very authoritative woman.  If she said we didn't believe in God, then God help anyone in the family who professed any faith whatsoever.  Besides, at three or four, I thought my mother knew everything.  I still sometimes think she knew almost everything . . . )

Back a few centuries, they knew how to pray -
no hour and a half and then schnaps and a nosh!

Anyhow, I was at a midweek evening service, sparsely attended, which was lovely.  On my way home, I started to wonder what one could do to improve the attendance.  I thought to myself that in a way, I understand people who don't come - it's the middle of the week, once a week is enough (or more than enough!), there are so many other things to do . . .

But really, if you think about it (and if you believe both in God and in worshiping God), if we were to pray all day, every day, it still wouldn't be enough, unlike the Passover song, "Dayenu" which means "It would be enough." "Dayenu" celebrates all the wonderful things God did for us when we were slaves in Egypt, and after each miracle or blessing bestowed upon us, the refrain is, even if he hadn't done more than that, it would have been enough.  Well, a  version of that about our gratefulness to God might be "Lo Dayenu"  ("It is not enough").  I can imagine some wag objecting that if one did nothing but pray, all day, everyday, there wouldn't be much to be thankful for.  Point taken.  Obviously no-one can pray all day, every day, and I don't think God expects or wants that that of us.  We are supposed to live our lives and engage with others.  But going to services two times a week doesn't seem excessive.  Even if one doesn't feel motivated on the way to prayer, the inspiration will come during prayer, and the feeling of lightness and just plain satisfaction is quite bracing.

I have a good friend who is very religious and talks about God all the time, practically, but shows up at prayer only sporadically.  That I don't understand.  God wants his people to come together in prayer regularly.  Communal prayer isn't because we have to, or because it's the law:  it is good for our souls!  It refreshes our spirit, and strengthens our faith, to be with others together singing God's praises.  It is like a marvelous medicine which tastes wonderful and cures us of what ails us, fortifying us against the infections which surround us during the week.  Saying "thank you" and admitting our faults is so freeing; being reminded of what we believe and hope is so fortifying.  I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Creative Challenges - I get crazy but have fun

Since I am, after all, Miranda Sparkle, I get a lot of kidding about my first name.  "Will you give me my Miranda Rights?" I'm asked.  Or, "Where is your fruit hat?"

Well, several weeks ago an amiable acquaintance and I were joking about Carmen Miranda of the fruity hats, and I rashly said the next time we got together, I would wear a Carmen Miranda hat.

I thought, how difficult can it be to throw one together?  Answer to this question is ALWAYS:  very.

There are lots of instructions on the web, most of them saying:

Take an old cap, cut off the bill, and use this as the base.  Cover it, and glue plastic fruit on top.  Yeah, sure.  Just like that.  Most caps don't cover remotely enough of my rather capacious cranium.  And to glue fruit on, you need a more stable substrate, to use an annoying pretentious word that has spread like wildfire in the craft and mixed media world.

I ended up putting my fruit (from the dollar store, including a "pineapple" made out of a fake gourd with green paper fronds taped on, and a summer squash striped to look a little like a banana) into a small straw basket with crumpled paper mounded in the botton, glued everything up the wazoo with E-4000 (or is it 6000?), used sparkle pipecleaners to attach the basket to a knitted ski cap, and then wrapped the cap (while I was wearing it) with inexpensive shiny bright orange fabric.  I had some sparkled plastic berries which looked a little like green grapes, and some cheesy gold fabric poinsettias, as well as a pseudo Hawaiian lei whose origins are shrouded in the mists of time, I got it so long ago.  I used them as camouflage at strategic spots, and presto!  I was ready to samba.

The next time I saw this friend was yesterday, at - gulp! - a group gathering.  Many of the people were meeting me for the first time, and there I was in this bizarro getup.  I wore the hat the absolute minimum amount of time, but I have a feeling quite a few people were under the impression - perhaps correctly - that I was a bit wacko.

Next challenge from my friend, by the way, is to come up with some way to mark Ground Hog Day.

Be afraid; be very afraid . . . 

Colonial Princeton, NJ - take that, Colonial Williamsburg, Va!

A couple dressed in the style popular around the

American revolution.

Having recently returned from my first visit to Colonial Williamsburg, I decided to try to come up with colonial sites to visit in my home state of New Jersey, to assuage the let-down of leaving that truly charming town.  Once I started to tote up the sites, I realized that New Jersey has an amazing colonial heritage still standing and open to the public.  Of course there is Burlington, and Trenton, and Princeton, and Mount Holly, and, and, and!  

I realize how remiss I have been in taking my home state for granted.  There are so many wonderful historic houses and sites around, I am going to make a list (and check it twice) as well as mark up some maps to try to come up with some itineraries for myself and Chir.

Tomorrow, we finally go to Olden House and its grander older sibling, Drumthwacket, on Route 206 in Princeton.  Olden House, a four-room farmhouse which was built between 1759 and 1765 by John Hill, is named after Thomas Olden, a tailor and farmer who purchased the house from Hill in 1772. His father was John Olden, one of the six early settlers who established the Quaker community of Stony Brook. Charles Smith Olden, one of Thomas Olden‘s grandsons, who was born here in 1799 was responsible for beginning the construction of the mansion Drumthwacket in 1835.

I have spent more than 35 years in this area over the course of my life, but not once have I visited Olden House or Drumthwacket.  I hang my head rhetorically in shame.

Next week will be Morven, also in Princeton, built in 1758, which has an amazing history peopled with fascinating characters, including a woman George Washington himself called "The Muse of Morven" in honor of her poetry!

Ice and Roses

Our second snow this fall greeted me this morning . . . big, fat, sploshy flakes tumbling down and laying a temporary white cover over everything, including the last buds and blooms of my roses, including a juicy red Eden bud that will probably never get to open, and this lovely pink Eden bloom, capped with ice and snow, but still breathtaking.

Our first snow was in October, just after the much-vaunted and quite terrible Hurricane Sandy storm blew through, toppling trees and branches right and left.  I wonder if this winter will be like last year's - heralded by Autumn snow, but snowless itself.  I hope not.  It's not that I want to be inconvenienced, but Winter without one substantial snow storm seems somewhat pointless.  I want to be able to build one snowman, and fulfill my typical winter resolution.  I would prefer it snow heavily on Friday evening, so Saturday morning would find everything under a blanket of sparkling white snow, and that it melt away Sunday late afternoon and evening, leaving Monday morning traffic unimpeded.  Not that I'm picky or anything.