April Sunny Clouds & The Rose Of The World

April is that in-between month here in the western slope of Washington state. It's a time when the sun starts to appear more and more. The sun is also much higher in the sky, and much brighter.

And the clouds are interesting.

The dandelions start to appear. They can be found in nearly every Western Washington lawn during this time of year, spreading their bright yellow cheer.

Dandelions alongside the Cedar River Trail, Renton.

It's a time when we're looking forward to summer, and winter's rains are less and less.

When it's windy during the Spring, you can always fly a kite.

Photo of a tie-dye colored kite I bought at a drugstore several years ago for $3

But mostly, April is still that in-between time -- the weather is always in-between winter (rain) and summer (mostly sun).

Lately (aside from work), there hasn't been incredible amounts of stuff going on, aside from books I've been reading (Yeats and Knut Hamsun, mainly), so there hasn't been an awful lot for me to write about. The following photo is of one of my favorite Yeats poems, "The Rose Of The World". I rediscovered it last year. I have no idea who it was for, but the last stanza speaks loads.

A page from a 'best of' Yeats book pictured in another post here. 

As I mentioned, I have also been reading the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun. It's an e-book, and one of his most famous books: "Pan". Although Hamsun is a Norwegian author, I'm reading it in English. The book is an interesting description of life in northern Norway in the 1800's. So far, the main character seems to be a bit socially clunky. He has two love interests, but can't seem to get going with either of them. But then, I'm only two thirds of the way through the book.

Hamsun is a very descriptive writer. I'm certain he would have much to say about the clouds in the picture above (which I snapped a day or so ago). He would say a lot more than I can.

I recall when I was a kid, sometimes I'd look up and just watch the clouds go by in the summer. I would imagine I was falling upwards, into the clouds, amazed at the color of the sky. Now I just photograph them.

Muses & Yeats, Pt. 2: The Cloths Of Heaven

After going over my last post about Muses and a poem by William Butler Yeats, I re-read some of Yeats’ poems. Another one stuck out that I believe was definitely inspired by his muse, Maude Gonne.

It’s a beautiful poem called “He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven”.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet;

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

The poem was written in 1899, a couple years before Yeats’ muse (Maude Gonne) married another man.

Having had muses before -- and having written lyrics and music -- I can tell that this poem obviously was for a woman who had Yeats' heart.

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams” – that’s how every man feels when he has found someone special, a woman who inspires him.

Sometimes if you have a muse, you’re not sure exactly who the muse is. That has happened to me once. I would guess it has also happened to other songwriters.

I wrote a 12-string instrumental piece a few years ago I called “She Walks In The Clouds”. I thought maybe it was for a woman I loved at the time -- but to this day, I’m not sure who it was really written for.

But it was for a muse, that much I know, for sure. According to author Robert Graves, some muses are mythological archetypes. I prefer to think they're real people. In this case, I don't really know who it is.

She Walks In The Clouds:

http://tindeck.com/listen/fxjxb

Some day I’ll re-do the recording and add more instruments.

But until then -- it is what it is.

A Road Trip to Lake Chelan, Sept. 2012

 Lake Chelan from Campbell's Hotel in Chelan, Washington.

In the northern part of Eastern Washington there is a lake that is probably the most beautiful lake in the state: Lake Chelan (pronounced ‘she-laen’).

Eastern Washington is different in many ways from Western Washington. It is more desert-like, and it has a much drier climate than the western part of the state. It gets hotter and sunnier in the summer, and colder and snowier in the winter.

The Cascade Mountains are rather high, and the mountains create a rain shadow, making Eastern Washington dry.

There are two main highways that cross the mountains east to west: Interstate 90 and U.S. 2. 

 

 Interstate 90 about 30 miles west of Snoqualmie Pass. On the other side of the mountains the hills turn from green to brown. Photo taken in 2011.

I-90 is used the most. It goes over Snoqualmie Pass, and about 50 km east of Snoqualmie Pass the trees begin to thin out, and the dry grass and sagebrush takes over. Green hills turn into brown hills. The brown hills are crossed by river valleys with trees bordering the rivers. There are cattle ranches and apple orchards.

People from Western Washington -- where it rains a lot – often go east to “dry out”.

In mid-September, 2012, I was asked by my boss to drive to Lake Chelan to do a job helping his law partner. The law partner had a small office in Chelan, a town of maybe 5000 people located on the southern tip of the lake. At the time, I only had a $20 digital snapshot camera, but I took it with me anyway.

My bosses paid for my stay at a large hotel located right on the lake – it's a hotel with its own beach. My job was to interview a client, so I was there for two days. At that time, I hadn’t been in Eastern Washington for a few years, so it was a great road trip for me. Seeing the sun and sagebrush was a refreshing change.

To get to Chelan from my home in Renton I had to cross two mountain passes, Snoqualmie Pass and Blewett Pass.

Going up the western slope of Snoqualmie Pass. Photo taken in 2011.

 

Snoqualmie Pass is one of the least scenic mountain passes in Washington state. But it is still a nice drive. Going up the western slope of the Pass you can see Guye Peak, one of the prettiest mountains in the state.

Guye Peak from the Snoqualmie Pass Summit area. Pic taken in 2011.

 

During my road trip, the Blewett Pass highway (about 80 km east of Snoqualmie Pass) had just been re-opened. It had been closed for a few days, because of forest fires.

 Going north on the Blewett Pass Highway. The smoke and haze are from forest fires.

As I drove up Blewett Pass, the air was grey from smoke. The smoke became thicker as I drove deeper and deeper into the mountains.

Heading in to Wenatchee on U.S. 2 Eastbound. The haze was from several large forest fires and wildfires.

 Coming into Wenatchee, one of the largest cities in Eastern Washington, I could see smoke and haze over the freeway. It reminded me of photos of Los Angeles when the smog was bad.

Northbound from Wenatchee on U.S. 97 -- the road goes alongside the Columbia River, the largest river in the NW U.S. The haze in the picture is from wildfires.

 

On the way north from Wenatchee to Lake Chelan, I drove alongside the Columbia River.

Another view of Lake Chelan from the hotel. The beach was maybe 200 ft. (80 meters?) from my hotel room door. Looking west.

The view from the hotel at Chelan was awesome. Unfortunately, my only digital camera at that time was a cheap $25 snapshot camera. But even these pictures show the natural beauty of Lake Chelan.

Lake Chelan from the hotel patio. Looking west.

As you can tell from the pictures, the hills around Lake Chelan are mostly barren and brown. On the opposite side of the lake (hard to see in my grainy photographs) are houses and apple orchards.

Houses and apple orchards across the lake. Taken on a real cheap snapshot camera.

Lake Chelan from a park on the south shore of the lake. Sometimes the lake looks like an inland fjord. Lake Chelan is over 1000 feet (300 meters) deep.

On the way back home I crossed the Columbia River, and drove through Wenatchee. In Wenatchee I stopped by their main radio station (KPQ) to take a picture.

KPQ radio, located on Wenatchee's main street, Wenatchee Avenue.

On the way back over the mountains towards Seattle it was night time out -- and I saw a green fireball. 

The whole time I was Eastern Washington, even though it was mid-September, the outside temperature was 70-80F (25-28C), and the nights were warm enough to wear a T-shirt.

When I got back home, it was 55-60F (10C) – cool and crisp. Immediately, I missed the summery weather I had experienced East of the mountains.

I hope to go back over there some time soon – with a much better camera – so I can take more photographs of the Chelan area. Lake Chelan, and the northern Columbia River area, are definitely one of my state’s highlights.

A Muse -- and William Butler Yeats

Some songwriters have what is called a “muse”. Their muse is usually someone they love – she is someone who inspires them to do great things musically. I have read that poets have muses also – William Butler Yeats had Maude Gonne. If Maude Gonne had not been in his life, perhaps many of Yeats’ finest poems wouldn’t have appeared.

In fact, if you look at some of Yeats' great poems – “When You’re Old And Full Of Sleep” is a good example – you can tell it was for his muse:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled,

  And paced upon the mountains overhead,

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

In this poem, Yeats was telling his muse that some day she was going to look back, and wish she had chosen him, instead of someone else (Gonne apparently rejected Yeats' marriage proposals more than once).

Some day she would remember her choice, and feel regret -- but by then it would be too late. And Yeats’ love would still be near her – like embers in the fire. His love for her would still exist, but would be somewhere distant -- off in the crowd of stars.

Yeats was telling her to ‘wake up’. “One man loved the pilgrim soul in you.”

The poem doesn't name names, it doesn't tell the whole story -- it just describes the emotion Yeats felt, inspired by his muse.

I'm no Yeats, of course. But I have had maybe two muses who have brought out the best in my writing.

One of my songs – which I have performed in karaoke, and also have performed at an open mike – was a song I wrote for a woman I was in love with. At the time, she was my muse.

This is a link to the song, called “Together Is Without You”:

http://tindeck.com/listen/ctxd

That song spilled out in maybe 10 minutes, with three word changes. I wrote it on my 12-string guitar.

The song wrote itself. I believe it was because it was inspired by my muse at the time.

I can’t describe how a muse motivates you to write. It just happens. It’s just something you feel. Having a muse makes you want to create great things. You want to show the world how great she is -- and you want to show her how great she is, too.

Not everything you create is great when you have a muse – but most artists’ greater stuff probably has been inspired by one (see the Yeats poem above).

Several of my songs were inspired by the same muse. I think the resulting songs (like the one linked above) were examples of a muse – a woman -- inspiring something that turned out well.

The Little White Bunny and Hope

My previous post (about the duck family) reminded me of a series of old photographs I took long ago -- photos I took for my mother -- of various animals we had at the time.

One of the pictures was of a white bunny. Of course, now that it’s Easter season, one sees bunnies in every form, in every store -- including hopping wind-up bunnies.

But this bunny in the photo I am talking about (the bunny in the photo below) was a real one -- a real bunny.

He was a little white rabbit that my mother had gotten from a man at work (at Boeing). The man raised rabbits. One of his rabbits had a litter of bunnies, and one of those bunnies had a broken arm. The man knew that my mother loved animals, and that she had a way with them. She had already healed a chicken which had a bad eye.

At that time, we had several chickens, a couple ducks, and for a while we even had a goose and a turkey. If I remember correctly, my father was given a pair of pheasants, which sometimes squawked in the far side of our back yard.

Anyway, the rabbit man told my mom about the bunny with the broken arm. He was going to kill it, because a bunny with a broken arm was no good to him.

“Do you want it?” he said. “I’ll give it to you. I’ll just kill it otherwise.”

Of course, my mom wanted the bunny.

The next afternoon my mom came home with the little white bunny. He was small enough to just barely fill both palms of her hands. We had a tall box set up in the middle of our kitchen, with a safe light over it, to keep the bunny warm. We got some rabbit food and a small dish of water. The poor little guy looked so sad with his broken front arm – there was a tear in his skin, and you could see the flesh from the wound just underneath his white fur. His arm looked as if it were hanging loose – but with the wound looking the way it did, it was hard to tell how much his little arm was connected to the rest of his body.

Mom got some aloe vera, a plant that apparently has healing properties. Several times every day my mom would clean the bunny’s wound, and then she would treat the wound with aloe vera.

Over time, the wound got better and better, until it healed completely -- and the bone healed, too!

 

The little white bunny grew into a big, white rabbit. I don’t remember the name we gave him. He lived to old age, in a rabbit hutch in our back yard.

One thing I always remember from this incident is how it was so easy for someone to just want to get rid of an animal that was wounded and seemed beyond hope. Although maybe the rabbit man had his ‘reasons’, it just seemed cruel to want to kill a rabbit if there was a possibility that the rabbit could be saved. But the man’s attitude – “why bother?” -- was not atypical.

In modern day society, people sometimes cast off their pets if the pets become too “difficult” – if the cat scratches the couch, the owners get rid of the cat, instead of figuring out a way to work with the cat to get it to stop (or getting the cat to scratch something else). If the cat misses the litter box – they’ll sometimes get rid of it. If the dog poops in the house, they get rid of it.

We see this tendency in human relationships, also. People sometimes give up on their partner because their partner (or the relationship) becomes difficult, or sometimes they'll do it if their partner has gotten an illness of some sort. Their partner may become alcoholic or addicted, and instead of learning to cope and be of some support to the other person -- and still show love towards the other person -- they'll just dump them outright.

I’ve noticed this “if things get difficult, dump it”, throwaway attitude in American society and I find it a bit disturbing, especially when it applies to living beings, like pets and people.

People will split with a partner or spouse for no other reason than “things just aren’t working out.” It is true that some relationships get so dysfunctional they can become beyond repair, but I’ve seen people split over stuff that just seems fairly petty – stuff that could easily have been “fixed” if they just had the love, and the will, to find a way. Love is supposed to cover a lot of things. But too often, love doesn’t seem to cover enough.

My mom never gave up on the little white rabbit. She also never gave up on people.

She never gave up on my step dad when he became ill with cancer in 2002. My mother sought out treatment for him, when he just accepted that he was going to die. She became his daily nurse-maid for over a year, while he was getting chemo. It was very physically demanding. She would walk him to the bathroom, supporting his weight the entire way because he was too weak to walk by himself. She would walk him to the kitchen, or to the living room so he could watch some TV – once again, supporting much of his weight the entire way. She did it willingly, because she loved him. 

She finally took him to a university clinic in New York City to get him treatment. In the end my step dad passed away – but my mom never gave up.

A lot of partners would have been more passive about it. “Go get your chemo honey, I’ll call the visiting nurse.” 

But my mother is anything but passive.

I don’t know all the answers to life, but I know that in modern day American society we tend to throw things away a little too easily. We immediately dump the old car for a brand new one, even though the old one still works well; we dump the old phone for the newest model, even if the old one still works perfectly; we dump houses, we dump furniture, we dump TV’s, we dump computers, we dump pets – and we even sometimes do the same thing to people.

I myself have tried to follow my mom’s example, but I don't know if I’ve done it well enough. In the back of my mind, I always think that if there is a chance to make something work, I’ll at least try – whether it’s a job or a project; whether it's dealing with a difficult person, dealing with a difficult pet, dealing with a difficult family situation (and there have been those), or even in a relationship. With any thing that fell apart, at least I can look in the mirror and tell myself that I tried. 

It's hard to know exactly when to cut your losses, but I think it's harder when you can't say you did all you could.
I do have this tendency to stick with things: I'm loyal to a fault.
I don't just dump out of something when things get tough. It's just not my nature. I'm not sure if it's my weakness, or if it's a strength. I know this, though: I never want to end up kicking my own ass some day, telling myself I should have done better or tried harder.

 

I like to think that this concept is something I learned from seeing that little white bunny respond to the love my mother gave it, and seeing a hopeless case turn out to be a strong, healthy rabbit. 

And I suppose that is something I shall reflect on this Easter day.

DUCK FAMILY ROBINSON

The last few mornings I’ve hit the Cedar River bike Trail I’ve noticed two things: a) the trees are greening out more and more each day, and may be fully green by April 5^th, as they were last year, and b) there is a pair of ducks that have been hanging out right next to the Trail.

I first saw the pair of ducks two days ago. They were waddling about, running their beaks through the grasses, probably eating bugs and slugs. As anyone who has had ducks knows, ducks love to eat slugs! If you have a vegetable or flower garden, and you want a natural way to get rid of slugs, a duck or two will do the job!

Picture of female duck resting by the side of the Cedar River Trail

Plus, ducks are fun! They have a lot of personality. I know, because when I was a kid, we had some ducks. Seeing the female Mallard this morning reminded me of one of the ducks we used to have back then -- a duck we raised from a wild duckling.

When I was a kid, my dad used to go over by the local golf course and collect the golf balls that would be knocked into the creek -- the golf balls would flow down the creek, to be trapped by the small weir, which is where my father would collect them. The small weir was a trap, located right in front of a culvert that took the creek under the highway.

One afternoon my dad told me to go over and get a baby duck that was caught in the weir. He said it looked scared and was chirping and struggling and was trying to get out of the water, but couldn't. My dad couldn’t catch the duckling himself, because his hands were full of golf balls.

I went over and there the little guy was – chirping and chirping (ducks chirp when they’re little ducklings) and flapping his wings, scared – trying to get out from the mini-waterfall created by the weir.

I reached down and scooped up the little guy, and took him home. We put him in a pen inside the house with a light, and gave him chicken mash (a type of chicken food that is all mashed up and easy for ducks to eat). The duckling grew and grew, and in time he turned out to be a she! A female mallard we named Quackers.

We had a small pond we had made from concrete. Naturally, my mom made me do all the digging, and we both did the concrete work. It turned out to be a decent pond, and Quackers would get in the pond and quack and quack and quack and swim around contentedly.

Every afternoon when I got home from school, and when my parents got home from work, there was Quackers, moving back and forth on the back patio, quacking and quacking and muttering and moving her head up and down – making a general racket, wanting to be fed.

Quackers was the life of the back yard. We had a small dog which never bothered her. The dog never bothered the other birds we had in our back yard at the time (2-3 hens), either.

One day Quackers disappeared. We looked all over for her. About a week later my father told me he had found her. A new family had moved in to the house behind our fence, and their big dogs had gotten loose and killed Quackers. My father told me not to tell my mom, because she would have been heartbroken. I was angry about it. The neighbors left within a couple months.

Every time I hear a female Mallard duck laughing or quacking, I think of Quackers.

I don’t have any photos of Quackers, but I do have an old photo of a mother duck we had a couple years later that had a bunch of ducklings. My mother demanded I take the photo at the time. Now I’m glad I did. Back then, the back yard was full of life. When I first saw Quackers struggling and chirping in the little waterfall, she looked just like the baby ducks in the picture above.

To return to the original point of this post: the ducks by the Trail. 

I call them the Duck Family Robinson. They seem to have a nest somewhere just off the Trail. This morning I only saw the female, so I photographed her. She was sitting on the gravel, only two or three feet from the pavement. As it was very early in the morning, there were no other animals or people to bother her (dogs sometimes will run after the ducks if the owners do not have them leashed, or if the ducks are too close to the Trail).

I got two photos of her. She looks a lot like Quackers.  One photo is posted near the top of this post. This photo above is more of a close up. She let me get within 15 ft. or so on my bike, without flinching.

I suppose that during this morning the male Mallard was near the eggs. I think that the duck nest is possibly in the blackberries somewhere off the edge of the Trail, or maybe in the tall grasses by the grove of alder trees on the opposite side (the trees in the right side of the very top photo in this post).

I know that as I continue to ride the Trail this Spring, I will continue to keep an eye out for the Duck Family Robinson.

EASTER WEATHER

As most Americans know, Seattle has a reputation for grey, drizzly weather. And that reputation is well merited. There are areas of the U.S. that are worse, though. I know of a woman who’s family – when she was young -- had stayed in Juneau, Alaska for almost a year and a half.

The mother of the family told the father that they needed to move back to the lower 48 or there was going to be a divorce. This was because the mother had marked the days on the calendar when she had actually seen the sun, and it amounted to maybe three or four days total – out of the entire year.

Now maybe that was just a bad year in SE Alaska. And Seattle is nowhere near that bad. But Spring time generally (like Fall) is rainy time here in the western half of the Pacific Northwest. In fact, until recently, Spring was my least favorite season because of the weather. Other people would say that Spring was their favorite season and I would think they were nuts, because of all of the rain.

Over the past few years, I have grown to appreciate Spring more. I live near a biking trail that goes through several areas that are nothing but nature – nothing but trees, ponds, ferns, bushes, ravines with creeks, etc. When you see nature change from day to day, you learn to enjoy it despite the dreary weather. And you can appreciate the changes that come with every season -- Spring included.

This morning I took a bike ride, and noticed that the trees are closer and closer to being fully leafed. The Oregon big-leaf maple trees have some of their leaves out, and because the leaves are fresh, they are a bright shade of light green. By the time summer comes, the leaves will be dark green, and very large – some of them much larger than your hand.

There also was a sun break as I was riding back home on the Trail. Apparently the phrase “sun break” is peculiar to Seattleites, because it is used in our local weather reports, but the phrase is not commonly used in other parts of the U.S. It means the sky is grey – as per usual – but there has been a break in the grey and the sun actually shines through the break in the clouds for a few moments.

At times it can look spectacular. At other times it just feels nice to see the sun – to know that it really is, after all, up there somewhere.

Easter time is a peculiar time for Seattle weather. Most times it is wet, around 50-65F (10-15C), and the sky is grey -- with sun breaks. But every once in a while we will get an Easter where the sun breaks through the clouds for an entire afternoon. Later in the year, of course, it can be beautiful here -- with perfect weather: 80F (25C) or so every day, with bright sun, lower humidity than other parts of the U.S., and often gentle breezes. And August and September can give us spectacular weather.

I have no idea what sort of weather is in store for us this Easter. I don’t follow the weather reports much. Usually, we're going to get mostly grey skies with a chance of sun during this time of year, anyway. This Easter I'll probably be out on my bike, looking at the changes. I expect the leaves will all be out on the hillsides by then -- re-newed life, in nature.