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Last weekend, I went on a woodland hike at Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford, and took lots of photos of burgeoning buds, spring blooms, and ubiquitous skunk cabbage. I had planned to share a few here of all the signs of warm days ahead. On reviewing my shots, though, most of the ones that had something to say were of those muted and sculptural elements of the landscape, moss-covered rocks, the lichen and fungi, the the patterns of the still-bare tree branches in the late afternoon sun. Soon the bursting spring will be everywhere, virulent with growth and color, but the woods were quiet and peaceful with their late vestiges of the winter landscape, and that's what I'll share today. I hope you enjoy them.
Ok, here I am. I can hardly believe I'm starting a blog, but it's technically my second one. Much to my own astonishment, I started one on a dating site just over a week ago, despite being fearful that it would simply become a self-absorbed rant. A friend of mine who's also on the site had been encouraging me to do so, because, she tells me, that she thinks I have some interesting things to say. I then discovered that I was enjoying this self-expression, and I'd like to be able to share it with my other friends. And it hasn't become a self-absorbed rant. Yet. So, before I descend into the existential navel-staring that I suspect blogging may encourage, let me tell you a little selkie story... Selkies are from Scottish and Irish myth, and in the tradition of all seafaring peoples, part of the lore shared with mermaids, of magical creatures that are part human and part sea creature. Selkies are seals in the sea, and when they come ashore, they shed their skins and take on human form. Should this skin be captured, however, they are then landbound and lead a melancholy existence, yearning for their return to the ocean. Most of the selkie tales I've found relate to this, where a selkie-woman will have her skin captured by a man and then become his wife and have children who are also selkies, of course. Some of them, though, are about selkies saving humans from drowning, and then there are the ones of male selkies who come ashore and ravish beautiful young maidens! (Hmmm.... makes a convenient explanation for an unwed pregnancy, wouldn't you say!) One story was made into a very charming movie, "The Secret of Roan Innish," which I do recommend. And what, you may ask, is my selkie connection? No, I do not have webbed toes! Scotland is the land of my paternal ancestors, and so I've been interested in learning more about that culture than simply exploring single malts, (although I do enjoy those as well). While I'm not one much inclined to "fairy stories," when I first heard of selkies, there was something about them I simply found fascinating, for no discernible reason. A short time later, while reading of the history of our family's clan, I found many references to their "dark and mysterious origins," with a history going back before records were kept, and there are references to selkie origins in some accounts! Soon after, I found myself remembering a dream I used to have as a child... Many people have dreams of flying, but I had dreams of swimming. I'd be in the water, like a fish (but not a fish, I knew), and knew I was a creature of the sea, and I was totally at home there. There's a bit of an irony in this, because although I grew up near the shore, and love the beach and the ocean, I am a terrible swimmer, and not at home there at all unless well equipped with mask, snorkel, and flippers. Perhaps, I have mused, I am having an ancestral dream, and I really just need my skin back to be at home in the sea... So, do you believe in genetic memory at all, or at least have a fanciful imagination, or do you think this is total silliness?
Welcome to my blog.
