More Things In Heaven and Earth...

I hardly know where to begin. It's true what they say, that old saw about Truth being stranger than fiction. There's absolutely no way we could've seen this one coming.

Last night, I was annoyed with my friend Nicky for issues of plagiarism, but even that was out-weighed by my concern for what was troubling him so that he'd stoop to such a thing. Today was a lot about worry for him, as many of you came by and read the news and shared your own feelings. Aside from the initial anger, there's been so much kindness, so much love and concern. Nicky really brought together an amazing group of people.

For those of you who may've missed this evening's stunning revelations, I direct you over to the blog of Father Tony, where you may learn - as Paul Harvey used to say - the rest of the story...or at least a great deal more of it.

Tonight, I'm at a bit of a loss about what to think. On some level, it feels as though Nicky has died and I should mourn him, though that's not really true. He only ever really lived in the journals and the blogs of a 52 year old woman who had long felt she was truly a gay man in a woman's body.

I have only the briefest familiarity with transgender issues, so I'm not really prepared to discuss that much at all. I'm open to it and accept it and have recently been trying to educate myself a little better on the subject, but I don't fully understand what it must feel like. I'm not really sure that's even the issue here.

The thing is, he also lived in my imagination, and in yours. We wanted to believe that there was a guy like Nicky. A wonderful, sweet, compassionate guy who loved trees and nature and gardens and wrote like a poet (though we know now that wasn't always his writing...or hers, as the complicated case may be) and was doing his best to raise his two adopted children.

In hindsight(an annoying thing, isn't it?), I can remember flipping back and forth between different photos of him, trying to reconcile in my mind that they just didn't look exactly like the same person. A trick of the light, my willing-to-believe mind told me, different camera angles, the way our appearance changes as we age.

And there was that surreal business of how much like "him" those two adopted children looked, not to mention little niggling concerns at the back of my mind that someone so young and on his own would be allowed to adopt two children. But like I said, I wanted to believe. The audience's willful suspension of disbelief is what the success of the Theatre requires...and apparently, it's no different with blogging.

The children, we have learned, are real. He was the fiction(and even that statement doesn't feel entirely true: he was decidedly real to his creator). And to think just this morning, I was afraid it was the other way 'round. Oh, what a difference a day makes, indeed.

This evening I received a short email from "Nicky," directing me to Father Tony and apologizing for the deception. Surprisingly, perhaps, I don't find I'm at all angry about it, though I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, to say in response. I remain concerned for Nicky's creator and what she must now face.

It's my wish for her that she may learn to accept the fact that she/he is not alone, not the only one of her/his kind in the world. Many of us remember what that dreadful feeling is like from our own early experiences as gay people. I hope she/he will seek out some sort of assistance, counseling, something. And that she/he will, through that, be able to find peace in her/himself and in the world, with her feelings and what she has done and how it's effected other people.

But I do feel like I've lost my friend Nicky and he will be terribly missed. I remain grateful, though, for the connections I've made through his two blogs, with a terrific variety of people whom I've discovered - independent of Nicky's world - are supporting, loving and wonderful folks who I'm proud to call friends. Part of him may always live on in each of us and our friendships.

Sometimes the hand of Fate, or God, or Whomever, works in truly strange ways indeed.


Now, before I fall over dead from lack of sleep(but I still don't want a cigarette!!!), I'd like to show you a few photos. As distracted as I was today, I found at day's end that much of my photographic efforts for day were a little uninspired or distracted, so there isn't much.

But here, look at these purple plants. I'm not sure of its identity, but I believe this is some variety of blazing star, a cousin, perhaps, of the gay feather I showed you just yesterday.

I've shown you a close up of another one earlier in the season, with it's delightful star-shaped flowers climbing up the stem.

It was a discovery/rehabilitated plant at the last garden and I was too fond of it to leave it behind. I'm just amazed with what it's doing in a fresh garden bed with room to grow.

To further make my point, I'll offer another photo of that first plant I photographed.

It was only as tall as the two above back when I took those photos, but as you can see, it too now towers toward the life-bringing sun (which seems to be making only cameo appearances this week) and stands taller than than fence and is now flowering on side branches, as well.

I'm just amazed...as I find I so often am in the garden.

And I just love the way the Queen Anne's lace flowers are pink just before they fully open up. It's delicate, and certainly not something you notice in plants you only see along the roadside. But when it's in the garden, it's easier to see the subtle details...and they just tickle me.

Pink, even.



"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V.

The Starlings Come For Breakfast

It was just before nine this morning. I'll admit, I've been sleeping in just a little lately. I suppose moderation of the late nights with the internet might re-balance all of that...but anyway...

I could hear, as I swam up into consciousness, the television in the next room, Emily watching Regis and Kelly. And there was something else, some noise outside.

At the kitchen window I poured coffee and discovered out the window the source of the noise: birds! Lots of birds, swarming everywhere!


They were...not birds I was familiar with, none I had identified previously. Well, there was one sort of confused looking robin perched on a branch amongst them.

About that time I was suddenly awake enough to dash for the camera, and they all flew from their perches in the apple tree and elsewhere on the hillside. (The robin I didn't spot again, so perhaps he was just a sleepy misidentification of one of the masses.)

I found them swarming over the front yard, digging, pecking, teasing worms and grubs out of the frozen ground. (The temperature this morning, BTW, was 13 degrees.)



Generally, it was a pretty exciting scene, as the cat and I bounded from one window to the next to capture their antics, which were part gremlin, and part locust, and overall, pretty Hitchcock-ian.






Eventually, as the day progressed, I identified them as starlings and guessed the number of this merry band as about fifty.

I tip my hat to Wikipedia, for bringing me up to speed on the European Starling(Sturnus vulgaris). Some other interesting information (including approved methods of killing them!) may be found here. These birds are not native to North America, but were apparently introduced in the early 1890s (about 100 of them) into Central Park. Their numbers today are estimated to be close to 200 million.

Their benefactor was a wealthy drug manufacturer named Eugene Schieffelin, who is storied to have released them in an attempt to introduce New Yorkers to every bird mentioned in Shakespeare's works. This story is widely reputed.

History, by way of his Wikipedia entry, is not kind to Schieffelin for his introduction of one of North America's first and most-successful invasive species. Starlings, as it happens, are known for crowding native species out of their nests, roosts, boxes and food supplies, as was quite evident this morning.



Still, they must have something going for them to have caught Will Shakespeare's attention. It turns out the starling's speech patterns incorporate other sounds from their environments, such as car alarms or sirens or human speech.

And that's where they proved useful to Will, in Henry IV, part one, when Hotspur declares,

"The king forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer. But I will find him when he is asleep, and in his ear I'll holler 'Mortimer!' Nay I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion."



All the while chattering (Shakespeare, for all I could hear from inside...), they scoured every bit of seed off the ground, did fierce battle over the suet feeders, reducing their contents to crumbs...and then, at some unheard signal, they all took wing.

A black swirling spiraling cloud, they made their way off toward some other unsuspecting yard, like a living tornado. And they didn't even say "thanks".

The starlings: bad guests. We won't be inviting them back.

Sunday

Sunday found us splitting our time between sunshine and clouds. The sun would shine bright and golden, if not as warm as yesterday. And then the clouds would roll in and it would get real dark. And it would rain.

And then the sun would come out as it rained, and the rain would stop. And the cycle continued, with rain being replaced with snow flurries. That photo above was taken as snow flurries flew, though none translated to the image.

However, a little while later, there was a slamming gust of wind as it got real dark...and then it began to snow.

It felt like the start of something, but it wasn't the start of a big snowstorm.

As evening deepened, we've seen a few more rounds of snow flurries, full of sound and fury and amounting to very little.

The wind's howling, though. It's churning the wooden chimes in the side yard and jangling the storm bells in the birch tree out front and bringing in some very cold temperatures.

Twelfth Day

“'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.”

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616.

And happy birthday to me. ; )

I packed up another load of stuff today to take to Harwich before work today.

It was a beautiful day, overcast, but with temps in the low 50s. Something about the sky caught my eye, as it so often does, and I made a detour up to Fort Hill, one of my favorite scenic spots in Eastham.


These gulls definitely gave the impression it was colder than it was. But in their defense, they are usually just sitting out in the wind all the time, so I imagine their standards are different.



And then it was off to Harwich. We've recently found the shortest route there, so that's been kind of fun.

I didn't have much time to spare, but managed to unload everything and set out a little bit of festiveness, like the tablecloth in the kitchen (still the practical plastic one, with the Move still in progress!).

And I stuck my African violet into this snowman head planter. Cute, isn't he?



We're targeting Friday as our date to finish with the move, with services coming on and all. As you can, though, we'll have a fun job of unpacking still ahead of us.

While it's often a little over whelming on the face of it, once you get started, the unpacking usually happens fairly quickly and I always think its kind of fun to figure out where everything's going to end up, as the layout of your household unfolds.

Here's the sunset over Cape Cod Bay (across Bees Creek and First Encounter Marsh)as I finally made my way to work this afternoon.

There's talk of snow for us tomorrow. These clouds seem to offer a similar suggestion. I always hope for a bit of snow as holiday set dressing for Christmas, but I wouldn't have minded if it had waited just another week this year.