On Dappled Things In The Cardiac Recovery 'Hood

Captain Snark is at it again, complaining about a contrast he found this morning during the daily dog walk.

CAN'T HANG LIKE I USED TO

I stayed out too late last night with friends, stayed up too late, slept in too late today (7am). I still am in need of a de-stiffening, sweaty morning workout. I'm going to work on prepping my 5 acre ranchito for sale today around noonish before puppy class at 6pm. Lots to do, only 10 weeks out from heart surgery last June 1st. More rubble to clear away. But despite the Saturday chore list facing me I felt compelled to journal something that came to me today about treasures seen being treasures taken.

TREASURE ISLAND UNDER OUR FEET, BEFORE OUR EYES

A treasure hunt journey began by deciding to go forward with heart surgery and led back from a passive follow through on the decision. A letting it happen kind of thing can flow from a decision. But along the drifting way I get reminded what my cousing Larry taught me long ago - me that for the living, a free show is around us every day. The price of admission is easy to pay. You just pay attention.

Treasures were seen during the usual morning walk with Hiccup thru my 'hood around TWU, an old 'hood that goes decades WAY back, and still clearly shows clear signs of the 1920s, and 1930s in it surrounds of tree canopied streets populated with the quirkiest mix of old and new housing.

DAPPLED THINGS

All around within sight during this morning's walk was what Jesuit poet Gerard Manly Hopkins would call "dappled things". Dappled things made me go back to get my little digital camera. I so wanted to try and capture the morning's textures. Try that while walking a six month old puppy who wants again to repeat his 'shroom eating ecstacy escapade; quite the juggling act.

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

So what dappled thing textures caught the eye?
So many things darlin, so many.

Textures In The Hood

Old saggy gargages built before WWII or before still standing with peeling paint.

Round rusty red water main manhole covers inserted into little strips of lawn between street and sidewalk.

Old pier and beam mounted houses in remodel mode, their clapboards scraped and stripped, waiting to be painted with their next attention wooing facelift of color.

Quirky college student cars painted with Veggie Tale characters or Flying Tiger teeth, parked pell mell on the street or snuggled into their 3-flat driveways.

Red cedar telephone poles the color of Irish Setter dogs, pierced like martyr St Sebastian was with arrows for promoting the Gospel, but here with thumbtacks and staple piercings for promoting bands on concert notices torn down long ago.

A McDonald's drink cup beside a knot hole at the base of a tree - where perhaps some squirrel dropped his munchies trash before coming home to pass out after a night of partying too hard?

Chamfered green fiberglass covers over Verizon fiber optic boxes set into the ground, with strict WARNINGS about digging; dogs and squirrels, obey the law!.

Names of contractors stamped into the concrete of sidewalks.

An anonymous cat that (for a while) was curious about Hiccup the Recovery Wonder Dog.

Tall horizontally laid stacks of dead bamboo, dried to a creamy dead beige and drained of greening chlorphyl.

Tangerine tinted sky mixed with lavender as sunrise faded into full morning sky, washed above the green tree canopy lining the horizon.

A driveway sized mini universe created by a "Big Bang" explosion - the first mini minutes of pre garage sale preparations spilled out towards the sidewalk with a rush of placements: bargain priced lamps-toys-DVDs-puzzles, instead of your usual universe matter stuffings of nebula-nova-galaxy-dwarfstar.

A chair left by the sidewalk from last night's impromtu drink-driven conversation.

Piles of leaves raked into mounds, waiting for garbage bags or a shredder - who knows?

Rough bark of old oak trees, many with lost limbs and scars healed over as best can be done by thickened lips trying to seal some exposed gash

Fist in the air/fist in your face bumper stickers on very used cars, ranging in sentiment from the Reasonable Right ("God Bless America") to the Extreme Left ("Sorry I Missed Church; I've Been Busy Practicing Witchcraft and Becoming A Lesbian"), and an in between more Centrist "There's No Excuse For Domestic Violence"

Running shoes left to dry out on the porch leaning on a galvanized pail of red sandstone rocks

A rubiks cube like multicolored birdhouse.

Redbud blossoms in riot bloom.

A plastic blow-up love doll dressed in a man's white dress shirt and red sweat pants, posed as if passed out drunk against the porch corner railing while doing container gardening.

MOST OF ALL - The last item begs me to add: Porches, porches, porches personalized by a myriad of gadgets and art objects put on display, along with benches and chairs for sitting and chatting and watching.

THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

And so little sound about so early in the morning; just some grackles and a stiff, fast food plastic cup curtly whipped along the street by gusts of wind, making for some distraction.

LITTLE BOXES MADE NOT OF TICK TACKY

The textures seen all around were so many, and so quirky, and so individual - so unlike what I usually see in newer suburban master planned neighborhoods punched out in "ka-chooka ka-chooka ka-chooka SPLAT!" machine fashion.

Thrift stores with unmatchable tops and bottoms have more fascinating character than 'hoods where your pre move-in personalization choices for you history making home were a slim book of trim styles and wallpaper choices.

Oh, don't forget your choices of appliances and kitchen counter tops.
Those counted for a real difference, really they did, uh huh.

HISTORY YOU CAN AFFORD, BY THE SQUARE FOOT

"History Maker" neighborhoods is what some of the billboards on Interstate Highway 35 declare are available, around the corner at an exit off ramp a few miles up. Come by our development sales office and see, come and buy some "History Maker" real estate.

Right - so you can buy more than just the come-on of a promise, you can buy what time and design and accident and generations come and gone have laid down layer upon layer to be the foundation for the present moment.

HOW DO WE STAND ON THIS?

Right. We don't stand of the shoulders of all them that's gone before us, nor do we stand on the firm foundation of Scripture or Tradition or Faith In The Promises of God or Dedication To Beauty. No sirree bob a roonie, instead we stand and build hearth and family life upon a firm foundation called The Promises Of Marketing.

STANDING ON THE PROMISES OF GOD MY SAVIOUR

As a kid I enjoyed singing gospel hymns most Sunday mornings. After seeing the "History Maker" billboard, I think a contemporary mashup of a Fundamentalist Favorite is in order. I want to sample and remix the old 'little brown church in the vale' oft sung hymn "Standing On The Promises of God".

But I want to make the hymn into a something proper, an homage to the gory Glory of Marketing - recast song title "Standing On The Promises of God" into "Stranded By The Promises Of Blah", with lyrics sick twisted to wear on you like a cheap suit, all well marketed and marked down for quick sale, no warranty no refunds no nothing.

If overproduced with a wall of cow bell sound (never enough cow bell), it just might be a hit and sell.

I COULD BE, PROBABLY AM WRONG ON THIS SNARK

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe out in the ka-chooka ka-chooka BURRRRP 'burbs out there, there really is a vital life beyond discussions about the latest thing to buy from the Home Shopping Network to put some verve into the streetscape or joy of living into the tepid scene behind the closed front door. If so (it's likely) then I'm not your guy to see for insight into that treasure, for I do not see such yet.

Mea culpa, the problemo must be mine.

Likely, why I get an asthmatic reaction to the idea of living in a freshly extruded development is because I am not paying attention to what is there. That usually is the case, where ever we find ourselves. We lack what we ignore, and I must be ignoring something.

FOR THOSE WHO DON'T READ BUT LIKE THE COLORS

A photographer, I am not, but I will try to master this blog format to post texture pictures from the morning's walk as a slideshow below.

There really is craft and art to making the camera see what the eye sees. I didn't capture the sights to any one's satisfaction, but a start had to be made. As soon as I figure out the mechanics, they will come.



HATS OFF TO HOPKINS

I will let this piece from Hopkins sing for its own supper. It deserves a six course white tablecloth night out, for the joy and wisdom it feeds.


            Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
                Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
        For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
        And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
        With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
                    Práise hím.