Hi again from the ramparts of the Bastion on the Puget Sound. Well, this Sunday, we celebrate Valentine’s Day and during times that could admittedly be some better. Rather than editorialize about it, though, I’d like to share with you a story about love during hard times. It’s based not just on one actual event but several. It speaks of love on levels which really resonate for me and I hope it do for you as well. It’s entitled “Rain.”
Married once and younger then, their lives had been a collage of rain dimpling a duck pond, wishing games in the high branches of the evergreens, intimate meals in the kitchen and nights that grew richer with familiarity.
A strange, almost inarticulate love, theirs, and perhaps best captured in the mornings she'd fall asleep at her easel, exhausted over a night's work, or the cold-coffee dawns he'd come home with raw fingertips and nothing to show for a week on the road with his band.
"I like it."
"You don't think the trees are too green?"
"They're beautiful."
"I'm glad you're home."
"Me too."
"How much do we owe the landlord?"
"I'm glad you're home. The landlord will keep."
There were, as well, those funny/sad times when the edge cut so deep it blunted itself on midnight cornflake conversations.
"What are you doing still up?"
"Couldn’t sleep. What's your excuse?"
"I missed you. Go for a walk?"
"Like this?"
"You look fine."
"Okay."
And then they'd stroll the quiet streets, reaping a clear night star harvest, or stand alone on the levee, watching the moon play on the rolling glass river. Sometimes it was back to the all-night coffee shop, where they would sit across from each other without talking, or needing to. Theirs was the rule of no apology, and that gentle dictate blessed their lives for two years and a season.
Then time and an era caught up with them.
His best friend was killed in Iraq over Thanksgiving, and she sold two of her canvases, only to learn they'd been purchased for their frames. She began her rage at one end of town, he his at the other, and they met in the heat of it all at the coffee shop. She cursed him for something he said, and he slapped her. In a moment of absolute terror, they told each other they were sorry.
He came back 18 months later with a limp and a double row of campaign ribbons. They talked over coffee, and he whistled at the prices her paintings were bringing. She reached out to touch the gaunt planes of his cheeks. They dined together, then went walking.
Along dusty country lanes, they played in rainbow leaves, chased squirrels and waded in the Indian summer silt of bullfrog ponds. They renamed the trees and called the southbound geese by the colors of the palette.
He memorized her eyes again, and traced her long mane from bangs to shoulder blades. She felt the gentle strength of his hands and heard the quiet joy of words a cordite-parched throat could barely speak. Love was theirs once more -- and for an emerald instant -- time and an era left them in peace.
When he returned to stay, she met him at the airport and saw him through the final mile home. He never smiled or told her how glad he was to see her. She never mentioned how much she had missed him. When the final strains of epitaph faded into the eternal chill, she walked home and sat down on the living room couch.
Rain fell softly beyond her.
And moving right along here and stuff.
Our hearts and prayers certainly go out to those of us east of the Mississippi as you prepare for yet a second onslaught of polar weather. These storms hit us first, from San Diego to Seattle, so we have some idea of what you’re going through. We’ve also studied some on your history and you’re a tough and resilient people. You’ll adjust, survive and grow. Like New Yorkers have done since 9/11. Good luck, Godspeed and let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.
And to our neighbors, friends and family in California, reeling still from the aftermath of these same two storms, certainly at least in equal measure and with some personal identity. How you’re handling it makes me proud to have been raised among you.
It strikes me, and this is weird but you guys know how my mind works, is that the West Coast and the East Coast, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest and even, Lord love ‘em, Texas might have in common is that despite all your political, religious, etc. differences, when it comes to dealing with bad weather, y’all seem to have this remarkable knack of acting like Americans.
So yeah, albeit not by birth and always with some reservations, I guess how you’re pulling together from my equivalent of Victoria to Halifax, makes me proud to also be an American.
Please don’t take this wrong, but I’m beginning to suspect some of you colonials might make good Canadians after all. Finest kind, folks. Finest, flipping, kind.
We join our readers in Pennsylvania in mourning the passing of Congressman of John P. Murtha who died earlier this week in Arlington, at the Virginia Hospital Center, of complications of gall bladder surgery. According to the New York Times’ David Stout:
“Mr. Murtha’s death came two days after he became the longest-serving congressman in Pennsylvania history, his office said, surpassing the record of Joseph M. McDade, a Scranton Republican who served from 1963 to 1999.
Elected in 1974 and the first Vietnam combat veteran to serve in Congress, Mr. Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize use of military force in Iraq. But he evolved into a leading foe of the war as it was conducted under the administration of President George W. Bush.”
To learn more about this remarkable individual, please go here.
We cross the Pond and a good portion of Europe to the Swiss Alps and this one about a local skier surviving an avalanche trapped and unable to move for 17 hours but blessed with an air pocket big enough to keep him breathing. I’ll tell you what, if I wasn’t already a little claustrophobic, I’d be opening doors and windows now. I can think of no more horrific way to die than being buried alive. According to one source, the average length of survival time after an avalanche is 45 minutes. It’s one reason I still believe in miracles, regardless their source or inspiration. Yep, for more on this one, please go here.
MORE GOOD NEWS
This next one’s another blog written by a columnist for a new online publication started by some staffers from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, after it stopped its presses on March 16 of last year. I’ve worked for several newspapers and regret that this was not one of them. Whether you agree with the reality of global warming or not, if you like entertaining and insightful writing, you love this one. It’s by Robert McClure and it’s headlined Consumers really can affect global warming — particularly if they live in the United States. Our thanks to Investigative West.
We’re going to keep following what’s going on in Haiti and here’s another of the reasons why. We want to wish former American President Bill Clinton good luck in his role as United Nations special envoy to Haiti. He’s been given the additional responsibility of overseeing the United Nations’ aid effort and reconstruction. This is also a good overview of the efforts in progress and those planned. For more on this one, please go here.
SURVIVING HARD TIMES
We found this one really validating personally. It seems that you folks really do forward things to one another that you find on the Net. According to New York Times reporter John Tierney:
“Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have intensively studied the New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months, analyzing the content of thousands of articles and controlling for factors like the placement in the paper or on the Web home page.
The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”
But it turns out that readers have more exalted tastes, according to the Penn researchers, Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman. People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics.”
For more on this one, please go here.
We reported earlier about a new “cult” of people who are taking things they enjoy doing and are good at and making a living. This is a series and the link to this one carries them all. We’re going to be running this reminder until that series is finished. Yep, go here.
With the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver slated to begin on Friday, we thought you might like some facts and figures on the host country herself. Please go here.
CRITTER STUFF
Since I’m a music lover and also a profound fan of dolphins, porpoises, seal, seal lions and other marine mammals up to and including great white whales, I was delighted to learn blue whales have now lowered their voices in what appears to be an expression of greater happiness and contentment
Jill Leovy, of the Los Angeles Times reports:
“It's the same old tune, but the pitch of the blues is mysteriously lower -- especially off the coast of California where, local researchers say, the whales' voices have dropped by more than half an octave since the 1960s.
“No one knows why. But one conjecture is that more baritone whales indicate healthier populations: The whales may be less shrill because they're less scarce and don't have to pipe up to be heard by neighbors.”
For more on this one, please go here and for some fantastic facts on these, not only the largest and loudest creatures on earth but among the most mysterious, check this out.
YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP.
What if I told you guys that there was this lady with a real sick son, who went to her family doctor, who cursorily checked his patient out and said that it was nothing more than this child acting up for more attention? What if I told you that the mother of this child went home and her very young son didn’t get better so not having the money to go anywhere else, she plugged his symptoms into an Internet search engine and came back with something that pointed to a brain tumor. (Yep, you’re way ahead of me but indulge me and let me finish this) So yep, she goes to another general practitioner who runs some tests and the child’s brain tumor is caught in time. Yep, oh ye of little faith, please go here.
That’s it for this week. We’ve got some cool stuff down below you might want to check out. Stay the course, gang. We’re getting there and we’re going to make it. And thanks once again for the ear. And stuff.
Rusty
NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS
FUN STUFF
This image of snow-capped Llaima Volcano in springtime is available at the Earth Observatory, along with an incredible array of other outer space images. This is one of NASA’s more engaging websites and it’s here, as well, that you can subscribe to their online newsletter. Whether you’re an aerospace/astronomy buff or simply enjoy stargazing, this is an excellent site.
Ever been told you look like someone famous? Ever not been told that but would like to have been? Find a photo of yourself, go to this site, MyHeritage.com, upload it and get a gallery of celebrities you resemble, to one degree or another. Yep, it’s a total waste of time and an unabashed indulgence of ego. Probably two reasons why I totally loved it, even though a couple of my own pix didn’t turn up any results. It’s fun to play with so enjoy.
How about a trip to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo to watch a couple of grizzly bears in their Northwest setting? Yep, click here and thanks to our friends at Seattle NBC affiliate KING 5.
If you’re into a real interesting and visual escape, we certainly recommend The Art In LA website. It’s a virtual art gallery created by a real gentle, occasionally obnoxious but totally good-hearted soul with standards as fine as those of any engineer I’ve ever met. It’s also a good place for healthy meditation. If you’re lucky, you might just run into the artist herself. Her name is Colleen and she’s a trip, trust me. Yep, she was born under the fourth flag on our masthead.
HEALTH
Ten foods that really do help prevent cancer.
Grub you libido will love.
If you’d like to know whether your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.
Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.
Take this test to see how your memory compares with the average. Click here for fun games to improve your memory.
ONLINE TOOLS FOR THE KIT
PC World – This is the best source we’ve found yet for totally free, useful, reliable and secure (no viruses) downloads ranging from games through utilities and with a nice selection of screen savers, etc. What I particularly appreciate about it is how easy the site is to navigate. They also have a daily letter featuring two “daily downloads.”
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
REVIEWS
If you like your news proactive and edgy, we strongly recommend this daily ezine out of Western Canada. It might also go a bit toward the re-education of those who consider their neighbor to the north long on good manners but short on guts and good sense. Canadians pick their battles and this is one good window into how they do it. For more on this one, please go here.
FOR YOUR ONLINE SHOPPING CONVENIENCE
We invite you to do all your amazon.com through by tapping the photo of Susan or the ad. The Northstar Journal receives a 15% commission on whatever you purchase through this link.
MEDIA
Overview
For those interested in what’s going on in the world of magazines and newspapers in general, we highly recommend Woodenhorsepub.com. They publish a weekly online newsletter for media professionals and for readers simply interested in the future of the publications they enjoy and an advance on new ones they might. Their website is located here.
Good “Reads”
Entertainment
BBC Knowledge Magazine – designed to give the American magazine National Geographic the proverbial run for its money,
TomatoMan Times -- For those who love good writing, there are fewer finer contemporary craftsman out there now than professionally known as Tomatoman Mike. He’s as Northern Californian as John Steinbeck, albeit with a dash of Sam Clemmons, Bret Harte and Robert W. Service in him. He’s a romp to read, trust me.
U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.
News
BBC – Best source of international news.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (multi-media), the Toronto Globe & Mail and the Vancouver Sun -- outstanding sources for Canadian national, provincial, and world news.
KING 5 News – Best source of video news of Seattle and the Greater Puget Sound.
New York Times – Best source of American news.
Reuters – Best source of an international perspective on American headlines.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – Best source of Pacific Northwest regional news. Delivered daily by email, it covers Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale
See you next week, eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment