25 minutes
neighborhood
37 degrees
morning
Sun and no wind and barely any snow + chirping birds + barely iced puddles + mud and grit = the feeling of spring. I’m excited for warmer weather, although I’m also disappointed we didn’t get more snow. I suppose we still have March and April for that.
Walked with Scott and Delia. Scott and I talked a little about the U.S. and politics and how getting outside makes it a little (just enough) easier to endure all of this terribleness.
10 Things
- a black standard poodle stopped in the road, its human patiently waiting for it to move
- boulevards that are more mud than grass
- a thin, almost invisible sheen of ice on the shaded side of the sidewalk
- noticed for the first time, even though we’ve walked past them dozens of times: a kid’s footprints embedded in a stretch of old sidewalk
- chirp chirp
- the warm sun on my face
- near the end of the block: someone repairing or adding to a front porch
- heading south: a cool breeze
- blue sky
- the alley: mud, grit, puddles, ice
70 minutes
to the library and back
45 degrees
afternoon
Another chance to be outside! A wonderful afternoon for a walk. Sun, no wind, clear paths. Books to pick up at the library: Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color and Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries. Noticed a dark bluish purple fence that clashed with a dark blue house and a house painted plum.
the purple hour
I did wake up a few times last night, but I didn’t take any notes about it. This morning, I’m finishing the violet chapter in On Color.
What color are the haystacks really? What color is the cathedral at Rouen? Monet’s answer is that the haystacks and cathedral are the color (or colors) they seem to be at the moment of looking (147).
“ocular realism” = a commitment to the illusionistic rendering, not of the world, but of visual experience (147).
1:30 pm / neighborhood walk
As I walked to the library and then back from it, I tried to think about violet and purple and images the evoke my feelings of restlessness and uncertainty and not-quite-formed. A hummingbird, mid-air — moving too fast to see the motion, or a spinning top, constantly whirring but looking solid and still. Carbonated water, something fizzy and bubbling — small little bouncing balls or shimmering bubbles. An insistent, soft whisper. Soft, unstable.