The Senior Citizen as Driver

I passed my Driver's test yesterday!

The group to which I belong requires its members to undergo a driving assessment when one becomes 75.

So I am happy and relieved to report that I passed, and can drive for at least another five years.

The assessment lasted almost three hours, and was given by a trained occupational therapist at a company office.  It was both cognitive and operational.  I thought it was interesting .  The only areas I flubbed were the ones concerning short term memory. That didn't surprise me.

ahhh, the rotary!

Violets at sunset.  Photo by Julia Carter

Almost the first day of Spring!

 Here's a wonderful poem by   Amy Shutzer:

WHAT TO DO ON SPRING EQUINOX

Compost this poem.

Take out all the words that remind you of winter,

words that slip frozen into the heart,

bare limbs of words that stick into the sky and shake.

Prune out dead wood;

rough ragged never gonna fruit,

done is done!

Pay attention to what is here,

not what isn't.

Send your roots into another row or field or bed.

Mow. Rake up all the grass.

Layer, as if you're expecting hail or a deep frost;

the end of winter is always unpredictable.

Add manure, plenty of manure

and call in the flies, the dung beetles, the worms.

Soon, there will be heat. Steam.

The pile will soften, break down, give in, let go.

Compost winter into spring,

take off those old clothes you've been wearing,

the despair like a hat on your head,

dig into the pile,

into the heat and the heart of what matters.

Plant your garden and remember, each year,

everything will be different;

compost what you can.

Luci Grossmith

"I heard a wood thrush in the dusk

Twirl three notes and make a star —

My heart that walked with bitterness

Came back from very far.

Three shining notes were all he had,

And yet they made a starry call —

I caught life back against my breast

And kissed it, scars and all."

Sara Teasdale - Wood Song, 1884-1923.

Heinrich Vogeler - Frühling - Porträt von Martha Vogeler, 1897

Major Facebook trouble all over the place

 I can log on to mine on the phone,but not on the laptop.  Very weird and frustrating. But at least I know I'm not alone in this craziness.  Facebook users all over the country and probably the world are struggling.

However, some weren't affected at all.

I mind because I can't post the beautiful artwork or photos or reallly anything.

Sigh. A first world problem.   It will get fixed eventually.

full moon over the Inn of Cape May

 

"March is the month of expectation,

The things we do not know,

The Persons of Prognostication

Are coming now.

We try to sham becoming firmness,

But pompous joy

Betrays us, as his first betrothal

Betrays a boy."

-  Emily Dickinson, XLVIII

 

 

Sparrow... art by Elena Selena

"This hill

crossed with broken pines and maples

lumpy with the burial mounds of

uprooted hemlocks (hurricane

of ’38) out of their

rotting hearts generations rise

trying once more to become

the forest

 

just beyond them

tall enough to be called trees

in their youth like aspen a bouquet

of young beech is gathered

 

they still wear last summer’s leaves 

the lightest brown almost translucent

how their stubbornness has decorated 

the winter woods"

-  Grace Paley, A Walk in March

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak won't arrive for another month or more.  I wait for him.

Harshness vanishing

Early Spring

•  

  by Rainer Maria Rilke

   

  Harshness vanished. A sudden softness

  has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.

  Little rivulets of water changed

  their singing accents.

  Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth

  from space, and country lanes are showing

  these unexpected subtle risings

  that find expression in the empty trees.

   

   

 

Michael Cheek    Robin