Isabella Bird Miscellany

Thanksgiving is a verb.  Mind you, most dictionaries list it as a noun – you know the standard person, place or thing concept, and it is.  But, while Thanksgiving is a noun, it is also an active expression of something that should be happening in our ordinary routines. Heaps of words are busy little multi-taskers, describing a thing and explaining actions.  In reality, just looking around I spot quite a few.  There’s a roll of tape sitting on the kitchen counter.  Tape is a noun – it is sitting there ready to tape a package, which is a verb.  I have a bottle of olive oil from a place called the Olive Pit.  An olive pit is the seed – a thing, but to pit an olive is something to do.  You get the general idea. So, back to the holiday that is trending this week – Thanksgiving, is a time to come together.  We stuff ourselves just like the turkey arranged on the table and we take a few moments to share what we are grateful for. ...

captured in ice Collecting leaves is an obsession of mine.  In a park, the yard or out in the woods, I feel the need to pick them up or nudge them off a tree to have a look.  In fact, today, I was sorting through some stuff and found a bunch of leaves I pressed a number of years ago.  They were incredibly intact.  I was supposed to be cleaning things out, but kept my leaves. Autumn is full-on right now, except for last week’s shower of ice.  While unexpected for this early in the season – some talk about a polar vortex taking over – it left grasses and still dangling leaves with a sharp frosted layer.  Instead of gathering foliage to plunk in a jar, I simply gazed at how they looked like exquisite crystalized ornaments.  The intricate veining on the leaves was illuminated by the frozen shellac.  When I touched them – I couldn’t help myself – they felt fragile and glass-like.  As the sun rose, they glistened and the not-so-gentl...

broken gray skies Gray:  a nondescript color living somewhere between black and white; a mood or disposition that’s not quite foul, just rather dull and monotonous.   Skies are scrubbed in shades of gray.   Ashes in a smoldering fire are shadows of gray and my hair has subtle streaks of silver, a kind way of saying gray.  Heck, my furniture is a browned touch of gray, we’ll call it bark.  Doesn’t that sound better?  I wear the color - literally and figuratively.  It’s comfortable. gray skies are just clouds passing over Duke Ellington Hold on!  All is not lost in a biosphere of vague doom and gloom, Will Robinson (1960’s Lost in Space).  Danger, schmanger!   Gray drapes itself as an obscure background to play up whatever is dropped against it.  This Switzerland of the color wheel exposes design, shape and form; making junk dazzling and perky.  Much like that morning person who needs to be a tad les...