Doyle

November 3, 2020January 8, 2022

November dusk

It’s November and even the mid-day shadows grow long–the sun slips over the horizon before 5 PM now.

It’s near dark when I walk home, crossing our town green, as I do several hundred times a year.

There’s mystery in the shadows. Our ancestors saw spirits, and so will you if you lurk outside during dusk. The animals are aware of you, and so, I suspect, are the trees.

Sweet potatoes from the garden, November 2017.

As winter looms, I watch the light change under my feet. (I look down a bit more now that I am getting older–the roots of the sycamore are determined to get me.)

But here is where words fail–when you walk at dusk over the fallen leaves, when it’s not quite light enough to see colors yet not so dark you cannot sense the colors, the edges of each leaf appear to glow as long as you keep moving.

No doubt there is some neuro-evolutionary advantage to this, some physiological explanation, some modern means of dispelling any reference to magic.

But there it is.

(Science ruins magic again….)

November 2, 2020January 8, 2022

“Nothing is enough”

Clams raked from local waters, given freely to anyone with a rake and some time.

We had stumbled on a locals pub in Galway, away from the center of town, and we were still clumsily feeling our way in Ireland.

A waiter sensed our confusion, and took phenomenal care of us as we bumbled through the pub. A local pub has local people with local habits.

We wanted to tip, but did not know how much–people who work in pubs are not servants, and tipping in pubs is generally not done. So we asked, and she told us:

Nothing is enough.

And, of course, nothing is enough, and nothing is enough.

We need some things, true–decent food, clean water, safe shelter, and people we love. But most things we think we need are more than enough.

What we think we need defines who we are.
What we think we need separates humans from the other mammals.

It’s OK to want more than you need; most of us do, and our culture’s economy depends on you doing just that.

Beyond our basic needs, knowing nothing is enough will, depending on how you read it, make life wonderful or make you miserable.

Sometimes knowing nothing is enough is enough to give you the world.

November 1, 2020January 8, 2022

Ra and EST

A yearly reminder….

Yesterday the sun hung in the sky for 10 hours and 25 minutes in these parts.
Today the sun cheats us out of two minutes, only hanging around for 10 hours and 23 minutes.

Way I figure it, I lost two minutes of Ra time as he travels on his night-barque.
The squash vines, now barren, cast long November shadows as the world dims.

What possible hour do we think we wrought last night?

Last night’s sunset on the Delaware Bay–the sun continues to slide south.

If I must chose between the sun and hubris, I choose the sun.