STALKING THE WILD MAD STONE: SLOW WALKING IS NOT FOR SISSIES

Tags

Henry David Thoreau, journal, Literature, Maple Hollow, marsh, Midden, Mother Nature, New England, postaweek2011, Snow, winter, writing

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Mother Nature is a madcap prankster, more likely to guffaw than tiptoe her way across New England. Wind whistles around the northwest corner of the house, snow again overnight, the moon is obscured. Icicles are everywhere.

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I’m at the marsh, down in Maple Hollow. Fine straw-colored grasses rise above the snow. The marsh is sober, quiet browns and grays, the sturdy primeval look of Nature in winter. There’s a rotten, hollow hemlock stump with most likely a squirrel or two inside. Tracks draw triangles in the snow, from midden to tree to rivulet.

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Crows caw over and amid the pines around the marsh. There’s the scream of a hawk, probably one they were pestering. A few crows flit overhead, to spy on me. It’s fun to poke around the swamp on these bitter cold days when ice conceals life. The marsh’s snowy surface is finely waved and grained. The snow is so high that I can look into nests I never could in summer.  What’s there? Ice eggs.

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As writers, we are often more interested in the process than the product, the path that gets a writer from one place to another. Henry David Thoreau gathered details and facts throughout the ebb and flow of the year ~ drafting, revising, constructing, sometimes repeating what pleased him. Every journal entry feels like a two-person encounter ~ just between us, writer and reader, the place where he hands his moment over to me. Like when he charms the wild squirrel to nestle inside his coat.  Or lifts a fish out of the stream with his hands.

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Thoreau models his process with every entry. It feels like I’m with him as he watches, questions and writes down what he sees.  I plan to do that, too. Concentrate, slow down, be aware –  Live The Good Life. (BTW, some are born to slowness. Proust stayed in bed for almost a decade. He was a genius at slowing down. I’m not advocating this, I’m just saying.)

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Slow walking is not for sissies. Take one step after another. Arrive at the center of your writing.

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Toni 1/30/2011

RETRO VOGUE ~ SUGAR HIGH IN A CUP

Cupcakes are back!

And here’s the book…Let’s get this cupcake party started!

There are easy to follow techniques, common ingredients from the grocery store,  and plenty of playful creations to try on that next snowy day nella cucina.

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THE CUPCAKE…..ya’ gotta break some eggs!

CRACKED EGGS CUPCAKES

 

 

THE CUPCAKE ~ It’s Life Changing.

MINI CUPCAKE COCKTAILS

 

 

THE CUPCAKE ~ It’s double gulp-worthy.

TOUCHDOWN CUPCAKES

 

 

 

 

 

THE CUPCAKE ~It puts your atoms in orbit.

BIG-EYED MARSHMALLOW MONSTER

 

 

 

THE CUPCAKE

In a nutshell  ~  Perfect.

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WANT MORE????  Hello, Cupcake has a new book.

 

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Winter. Is. Not. Over. There are fifty days until the first day of spring. Consider this: Sugar High Fridays.  It’s the perfect excuse to make something sweet, something different.  And share it with us!

So, go ahead, just make Some Sweet Thang.  It can be a your own creation, a recipe you have always wanted to try but never have… or an old standby that everyone loves and raves about whenever you make it.

Then, enjoy the dessert you’ve just made with the people you love.

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Toni 1/28/11

On the FOOD WE WOMEN COOK page, there’s a great “tool” for decorating and directions for How To Eat A Cupcake, courtesy of Jorge Garcia.

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A Bird Note, Mr. Audubon: We Spy a Eurasian Widgeon and Sense a Kindred Spirit!

Tags

100 in January Competition, Bird Note, Fiddler in the Subway, Gene Weingarten, Omar Runolfsson, One blog a day, Ray Belding, we're all derivative, writing mentors, www.flickr.com

Monday we birded the Connecticut shore.  We ranged up and down the beaches hunting for the 100th bird for Ray, the chief birder of our little group. He needed one more bird to complete his “One Hundred in January” list.

And suddenly, like a peregrine falcon targeting prey, we “swoop” maybe not at 200 miles per hour, but We. Are. Moving. Right to the edge of what to me was a cliff (tor? bluff? hillock?) We peer down on the angry ocean. Well, Ronnie and Ray peer. I’m ashamed to say, I hang back, fearful of what the snow cover hides, or worse still, doesn’t hide. When they don’t plummet down the rocks I step up next to them and peer too.

And there, floating amidst a mixed flock of American Wigeons, a few Redheads, quite a few Gadwall,  and several Red-breasted Mergansers, there is a–hang onto your hats here–a Eurasian Wigeon! He doesn’t seem to care that he’s the 100th bird. Quite nonchalant.

A little background: Gadwalls are dabblers and eat vegetation on or just under the water surface.  The Merganzers are fish eaters. They dive. Wigeons also eat aquatic vegetation. To my admittedly untrained eye, as I peer, holding onto a woeful stick of a bush just in case, this Eurasian Wigeon seems unorthodox in its feeding habits. If birds can be said to be crafty, he almost seems crafty as he paddles around. Like a robber who’s casing the joint and biding his time. What’s he casing? The Mergs as they divedivedive and the Gadwalls as they  dabbledabbledabble. Keep in mind that for a winter water bird getting food is hard work. The ocean water is frigid. The water surface very choppy.

But our guy, our 100th bird, he loiters. Loiters and then snatches.  He snatches food from the other birds when they bob back to the surface.

It’s the  snatchessnatchessnatches that resonates with me. The reason? I’m a bit like a Eurasian Wigeon. I snatch too.

And I do it on purpose, if not craftily.

Years ago I listened to a panel of book review editors talking about the latest children’s novels. “Well, my dears,” says one of the Grande Dames, “we’re all derivative you know. Three plots in all of literature, that sort of thing.”

Meaning that it’s okay to be influenced by the work of others. We’re all derivative. Paul McCartney WAS Buddy Holly for a while as he used Buddy’s style to develop his own. Until I’m sure of a new recipe I’m concocting, I rely on the measurements and ingredients from Cooking Light or some such expert source.

Now, the analogy isn’t perfect. If I copied the words of others then I would be a robber.  But just as the book review editors weren’t condoning plagiarism, nor do I propose that I let others do my work for me. What I say is that I want the works of others to influence me, as in teach me. I’m on the lookout for what I can snatch. (See I Remember Willa Cather, My Dad, and What It Means to Me Now as a Writer on Patty’s Page or go to http://wordswewomenwrite.wordpress.com/pattys-page)

I go about this deliberately. If I’m working on a feature article, I reread some of my favorite feature writers–right now it’s Gene Weingarten.(See A Fiddler in the Subway for some feature articles that sing and soar.) I imbibe passages, marinating myself  in the words and the structure. And then I set the experts aside and let them mix in with the rest of what I’ve got in me.

I suppose it’s possible that Mr. Eurasian Wigeon is floating with the other guys and using them as mentors, much as I do with Mr. Weingarten.  It’s possible. He’s new to these waters. Perhaps our coast is so different from his own that he needs to watch closely for tactics, and in the meanwhile might as well grab what he can.

No matter. I’m all for it. Whether ye be a birder, writer, or a wielder of any craft: Dabble! Dive!  But by all means: Snatch!

Patty 1/27/11