Weekends are just NOT long enough. Since I spent all day yesterday out shooting, I had a whole bunch of chores to do today. Not to mention the time needed to review and process the shots I like from yesterday’s photo shoot. So I didn’t get a chance to do any shooting today. I had to content myself with feeding my face with (and stashing away a whole bunch of servings of) my favorite squash casserole…
Squash casserole
Had a great day out in two separate wildlife refuges and got a lot of stuff I felt good about — not to mention being outdoors on a spectacularly beautiful day. First I went up to Allendale to a refuge called The Celery Farm. I assume they once grew celery there, or it was owned by a family named Celery, or some such… In any event, it’s now this wonderful tiny jewel of a park, about 100 acres or so, with this great pond in the center.
Pond at Celery Farm
I loved the reflections of the trees in the stream to the side of the pond.
The stream
And the old tractor on the side of the trail was too good to pass up…
Old tractor
There weren’t a lot of birds out, except for a bunch of cormorants that were fun to watch.
Cormorant
The only thing that was a bit of a downer was that there were clear signs that summer is over…
The leaf
On the way home, I realized that I would be passing very close to DeKorte Park again, so I stopped off to see if anything interesting was around. I had great fun with a gorgeous little yellow warbler who was kind enough to stay still for a couple of seconds…
Finishing a tasty bug
The mudlfats attracted all kinds of birds, including this gull…
Gull landing on mudflats
But I think my favorite shot of the day may be this one that I call “Mirror Image”:
Mirror image
I understand all the reasons why grafitti is a bad thing. But I like street art. I always have. Even when the only thing cool about it is the colors the street artist (or vandal, if you will) has chosen.
Grafitti
 |
 |
The news hit pretty hard this morning when I popped online to see what had happened overnight and saw the announcement on the New York Times website of the death of Mary Travers of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. She and the group of which she was a founding member had been part of my life for so very long. They were the very first music group I discovered for myself, without influence of family or friends. I took my younger sister to her very first public concert, to see Peter Paul and Mary at the Garden State Arts Center. Many years later, she and I took her children to their first major concerts, to see Peter Paul and Mary again at the Arts Center or at Wolf Trap in Virginia. One of the last concerts I went to was to see Peter Paul and Mary at the NJ Performing Arts Center.
In essence, I grew up with Mary Travers. She enriched my life by her words — spoken and sung — and by her deeds. She was part and parcel of the folk movement. She was part and parcel of the movement for peace and justice and equality throughout the 60s, and 70s, and 80s, and 90s, and on into the 21st century. She was part and parcel of my world, and my world is not as rich and full tonight as it has been til now.
I could not begin to list the songs she and her colleagues have sung that have touched my heart. From the earliest lessons asking Where Have All the Flowers Gone, to the poignant and powerful Jesus on the Wire and Don’t Laugh at Me, to the challenging Have You Gone to Jail for Justice, to the simply hilarious Going to the Zoo or I’m Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor, their music — her music — has comforted me, taught me, nudged me along, for all of these years since I was a preteen. When I lost my mother, Mary Travers’ Motherless Child was my song. In the depths of depressions in my life, her Indian Sunset (“Now there seems no reason why I should carry on. In this land that once was my land I can’t find a home”) spoke for me. When I was battling my own cancers, her — their — Sweet Survivor kept me going. Her Delivery Delayed expressed my own view of discovering the depths of love of my family. My Christmas song has long been her I Wonder as I Wander. Her Conscientious Objector helped me understand one of my brothers more than I ever had before, and she helped me understand my family members and friends who are gay better than I could have otherwise with her Home is Where the Heart Is.
So much of what I have experienced and learned and been has been reflected in the music of this group and this woman… I can hardly believe that she will not be there to take me the rest of the way… and I will miss her.
But one particular set of her lyrics sticks in my mind more than any other tonight, and I think she would have wanted it that way…
Memory moves us past each other.
Time is a ribbon without an end.
Love is the lesson we keep learning.
Death but a moment we must spend…
Every day, on my way home from work, I pass a particular shop and think to myself: “I have GOT to get a photo of that place.” And just about every day, when I pass that shop, something prevents me from getting that photo. There will be a vehicle in the turn lane to the left of my car or, more commonly, the light is green and there’s nowhere to stop to be able to shoot, or it’s still too light out (rare) or it’s way too dark (much more frequent). But tonight it seemed that all the stars were lined up:
The sign shop
I am a proud graduate of the Rutgers School of Law in Newark. I got a great education there from some great teachers, and I have done my best to give back to Rutgers for what I received. I teach there now, part-time; I’m the faculty advisor to the Moot Court Board; I coach the mock trial team. But I am never more conscious of my status as an alum as I am at this time of year… when the beg-a-thons get underway…
Proud alum
It’s the sign of the times that I like best, at the end of a long workday…
Day's end
The lights from the Blue Cross Blue Shield building shine down at night on the roof of this building, part of the Newark Museum complex on Washington Street. The effect is just plain neat…
Blue-roofed building
I’m drinking a lot more water and a lot fewer sweet drinks these days… but water by itself is just so bland. So I’ve taken to floating a piece of lime in my water. I don’t squeeze it, just float it, so it gives it just a little zing — just enough to give it a hint of flavor. Good stuff. What a wonderful thing is a lime…
The lime
Ciara always seems so… so… so annoyed when I point the camera in her direction…
"Get that thing outta my face!"