miller's crossing

I wish I could write I've been on Cold Mountain this whole time. But I can't.

Since I last wrote, I've traveled by foot, ferry boat, car, bicycle, bus, airplane and limo --covering over 6000 miles sans camera. Life has been busy, enjoyable and social. Good stuff. No pictures, until today. Here are more photos.

I spent the weekend on the Oregon coast with some very kind and lovely folks. Here are some photos from the weekend.

 

How quaint ... ducks and Monona Terrace. I'll be there bright and early tomorrow morning to staff a table at a job fair. I'd rather be outside, of course, marvelling at the duck, geese and swans. "It's like Club Med for ducks," my friend Liz says about this spot.

I moved here nearly 12 years ago. The lakes were frozen. And there was a lot of snow. After living 6 years in the drizzly Pacific Northwest, I was happy to be in weather that produced such clear, bright days. Walking on the lakes was a mind expanding experience. How often do you get to have a completely different perspective on where you live? Maybe taking off from Dane County Regional. Or if you have a boat. Or Google Maps....

 

Another picture from the shore of Lake Monona.

photo by me miller

We don't usually get the scenic overview in life. The high vantage point can seem downright impossible to access on some days. Getting someplace or making decisions without the advantage of vantage is one of the necessities of life. It's just the way it is. May we all do our best today.

 

... for today, at least, I'm back.

I posted photos from my last trip on my Flickr page. It's been so long since my last post, I'm lucky to remember how to do this.

It's still summer, so I'll continue to stay off my computer as much as possible. Go outside and enjoy.

tulip shoots next to house

Let's seem how well I can do this.... I had a dream this morning in which I was reading a long magazine article written by a woman who is older than me. It was very good and I was enjoying it a lot, although I can't now remember much what it was about. But I remember this: I came to a part in the article where she returns to where she went to college, which happens to also be where I went to college, to learn something about herself.

I thought, "How can she learn anything about who she was from students now so much younger than her and so different. The school is different -- new teachers and buildings. What kind of insight could that offer her?"

Sticking with my New Year's resolution to read more poetry and fiction, I picked up Gary Snyder's Earth House Hold. The first part is called "Lookout's Journal." It's a collection of journal entries from 1952 when he was apparently a lookout in Mt. Baker National Forest. He's in the back country and it's mostly simple observations of nature and of other humans -- voices over the 2-way radio, in diners, etc.

I can't help but wonder whether someone could even experience the same kind of remoteness and the world falling away like Snyder writes about in today's America. How much of the wilderness has been wired and photographed. What's left for a poet to discover?