Snowing in the bedroom

It’s Autumn, not winter. Let me explain. But first-butterflies.

This plant attracts butterflies, like these pictures I took at the beach: (They let me get very close).

A funny thing happened last night. I’m collecting these milkweed pods for a craft project I’ll eventually share here… so I’m keeping the pods on my bedroom shelf until some of them dry out (so I can remove the wispy seeds easier).

So… the fan was turned on (can you guess where this is going) and I settled in under several blankets to read until I felt sleepy. Out of the corner of my eye, I start seeing snow in my room. Do I need a new eye appointment? Well I didn’t really see snow, it was more like numerous wispy, floaty, cotton-like white puffs that were just like the kind that milkweed pods have. JUST like them.

I giggled aloud. Al never noticed the flying wisps, nor did he ask why I giggled. He was involved in his own book and probably assumed my book struck me funny. Which reminds me of a quote by Pete Hamill:

“We grew up poor,

but not impoverished,” He said.

“What’s the difference?” Asked a journalist.

“The library,” Pete Hamill replied.

Autumn brings quite a bit to New England this time of year. This year it brought Keri Bowers to Connecticut. She was able to come last year at this time too although last year she came during peak color and this year, not. We took this picture together. In my bedroom. My milkweed pods are there by the candle stand. Can you believe we had the same shirt? Synchronicity.

Perhaps this close-up shows the pods, still green. It wasn’t until last night that they released cotton wisps. They are just now drying after a few weeks on the shelf. 🙂 snow in my bedroom.

Anyway… Here are a few more pictures from Keri’s visit. Filming is wrapped for our part in Desire, the film. Keri filming a scene on the beach where Ratnik (Sloan), Silas and I ended up being filmed while walking towards seagulls:

Keri filming my rising son Silas’s interview with Ratnik in foreground.

I’m writing this with a view of my backyard glimpsed through the window, because I’ve moved my desk closer to a window. My back “yard” used to be bigger. It went all the way down to a ditch that separates the backyards on this street with the backyards from the adjacent street. Now my backyard is half the size, due to sumac that has encroached the space. It’s just big enough now for Al’s bucket vegetable garden and his compost pile. Wiki says this about sumac:

Sumac is a woody, very invasive plant, that has the potential for forming large clones.

Over the years, the sumac has taken sneaky giant steps closer and closer to the house. It invades the way bamboo takes off in the South. Time lapse would reveal the sumac’s sly steps forward gobbling valuable real estate marching toward my window. This year my son and Al took down five sumac trees and still they spread.

This is the biodiversity of the world. And I’m not a fan of sumac but I so admire its resilience. There is so much to learn from that! I’m reading two books presently about bugs (actually four, switching back and forth, but the other 2 are not about insects) and one book mentions that the cockroach and also mosquitos do despicable things like spread illness but are also fascinating and much is to be learned from them. The etymologist says, in effect, that although these two types of bugs are not cute, or beautiful, or otherwise falling into an acceptable category of warm sweet fuzziness, who are we to decide which bugs should be eradicated from the earth? Her larger point is, neither can we decide which people are better or more worthwhile than other people.

Divisiveness, whether it is over race, religion, politics, or imagined slights, is rampant and stems from a refusal to accept other differences. Differences in thought, appearance, taste, etc. Doesn’t it all stem from cold blind hate? Who are we to decide who is right, or who is best. Has listening and respect fallen into a river and drowned holding each other? I am looking forward (kind of) to Steven Spielberg’s documentary on the “Origin of Hate.” It will have big feels and be difficult for me to see, but I hope a lot of people watch it. He said he sees it not as a legacy film, but rather something that is necessary to make.

There are a lot of necessary things to say, to do, to hear. Greta as an example. It took a fellow autistic to speak truth and yet she is ridiculed and smeared. Hmmm. Attacking the messenger doesn’t change the message.

I think autistic savant artist Michael Tolleson said it best when he called Greta Thunberg an “oracle.” I just hope people LISTEN to the CONTENT of what she is saying. More than that. I hope the people in a position to effect change are listening. I wish I had new art to share, (been focused on writing) but here’s an old one. It doesn’t have a feel of being hopeful with it’s sad figure and angry figure… but I still do cling to that opening here in the painting- the one that leads to a brave new healthy world.