Homer's Rosy-Fingered Dawn

6:39

Our Home, In Spring, From Long Point

Up at 6:15, just as a crack of rose appeared above the coast line.  Evie was up soon after and together, we watched the sky turn more and more brilliant, then slowly change to a light blue before the sun began to rise.  Not sure why, as the sun got closer and closer to rising, the colors disappeared, the sky became blue/gray.  It's a mild morning, 39º, temperatures rising to 59º before falling later in the day as the rains come.

Hiking Black Locust Trail

Spring Time At Long Point State Park

We had a great Sunday, nothing like some sunshine and temperate weather to get us outside, enjoying the day.  After a leisurely morning reading the Post Journal (it takes about five minutes), more accurately, reading the NYTimes on the web, blogging, playing Words With Friends, and skimming Facebook, Evie and I decided to walk Long Point State Park, hoping it would not be too soggy, nor icy. Well, it was both in some sections but we were able to walk the edges of the ice, avoid most of the boggy areas, and enjoyed being in the woods for the first time since cross country skiing and snow shoeing them four weeks ago.  The woods, at any time of the year, are invigorating and almost spiritual (I know, it sounds yoga like), but there is a unique beauty at any time of the year.  Yesterday, it was a naked woods, no leaves, little color, except for  a few ferns, some vinca, and mostly browns and blacks, mostly verticals, few horizontal lines.  The paths were leaf strewn, the sky marred by the tree limbs. We walked for about an hour and forty five minutes, just over three and a half miles.   As we walked, we both thought about our walks on Sanibel  beach a week ago, same continent, different venues, both amazing, the wonder of the natural world.

The Delicacy of Ice 

The Lake's Still Frozen!

We were home around 12:30, to our first Sunday Spring breakfast of eggs, bacon, and homemade English muffin bread.  We watched Sunday Morning to the end, a great show.  We then relaxed until we decided to go work in the yard.  Again, it was a sunny, cool afternoon, still fleece weather and between us, we filled five large garbage cans with twigs and leaves.  Around 5:00, Evie put together our dinner, chicken picata, pounded chicken breasts, sauteed in a lemon, wine and caper sauce.  Yum. With a salad and rice, we had another great Sunday dinner, enough in fact for another dinner if we like.

A Caged, Camouflaged Sparrow

We then watched the Academy Award winning TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE, and neither one of us were taken with it.  It's a hard movie to like, mostly because slavery is so despicable , mankind at its very worst.  Watching the movie, the treatment of the slaves, was sickening and Evie could hardly watch some of the scenes.  The movie was well made, the acting strong, so I could see why it was admired.  But I cannot say I enjoyed the movie...I forced myself to watch it, the way in which I forced myself to watch SCHINDLER'S LIST, Steven Spielberg's movie of the Holocaust.  It was, for me, much more emotionally draining, a larger, great film, perhaps because of it's scope as well as length.  I remember not being able to move, to leave the theater after watching it, the power of film.  I am a different person now then I was when I watched SCHINDLER'S LIST twenty one years ago, more jaded, cynical, curmudgeonly, expecting the worst, not shocked by it.

Off to yoga in and hour and a half, quite a segue.