Anyone can dazzle with enough glitter and feathers – it takes a truly talented artist to dazzle with words. Chuck Miller does just that, and where his words leave off, his photography takes over. Together, they compile a body of work that is layered with complexity, beauty and wisdom, all working in tandem to earn him this Dazzler of the Day feature. Miller has been a fixture on the Albany scene for years, and he was an integral part of the Times Union blogger scene back when it mattered. Luckily for us, he continues writing on his ‘Chuck the Writer’ blog (while also having written several books) and his award-winning photography is enchanting whenever and wherever it appears. For me, he’ll be a hero for posting these choice words for a certain Florida governor, but he’s been a champion for all people, especially those who don’t always have a voice. That he lends such eloquence and artistry to such expression is why he’s the Dazzler of the Day. (Glimpse a bit of his Pi Day writing below, then check out his site for the rest.)
Coming off a winter weekend with good friends and family, in which we found ourselves homebound and cozy, but still managed to lose an hour, is a conundrum entirely unfit for a wintry Monday morning. Instead, we shall take our usual look back at the week that came before, and eventually I’ll do a little write-up of all the fun we just had.
Say what we will about the annoyance and agitation that any and all snowstorms may conjure at this point in the season, this recent snowfall was nothing short of spectacular, especially in the way the snow clung to all the branches and the wind left everything alone to be seen the following morning. On that day, my commute became a thing of wonder, and I was reminded of how beautifully haunting winter can be. That beauty was spellbinding, and it stilled the morning in the best way. Many times nature will lead one into mindfulness, forcing us to pause and take in the moment.
Here, in the hushed air of winter, when wind has decided to join the silence and put down its , we find the makings of mindfulness, I think of the Buddhist monks who can meditate in the snowy mountains of Tibet, seemingly unaffected and unbothered by the cold or precipitation, calmly finding their focus, generating all the heat they need in their breath and serenity.
My current guilty pleasure/obsession is ‘The Gilded Age’. I want to be Bertha Russell, faults and foibles and failings and all. While I sadly won’t be squeezing into a corset or bustle anytime soon (never say never) it’s interesting to see how people behaved and communicated over a century ago. The means and mechanisms may have changed, but the same social cues and codes to indicate one’s location in society remain intact. And humans have a need to know where we are in relation to one another, even if that’s a fault that can only lead to unhappiness.
Today we make judgments and appraisals based on follows and unfollows, friending and unfriending, inviting or blocking: subtle social media motions that carry either a forbidding chill or a warming embrace. The game is the same, even if the apparatus is different.
I don’t place much stock in it, as labeling and putting people into categories has never been my jam. I trust my good friends know that too – and understand that a ‘like’ I’ve clicked on something they’ve posted should carry no more meaning than the lack of one elsewhere. My social media mode of operating is too whimsical and changeable to be bound to the rules of modern online etiquette. Still, it’s fun to watch and study the actions of those who do place importance on these subtle and insignificant maneuverings. Keeping a sense of amusement is the best way to navigate the social media world.
It came without much warning, only whispers on the wind and a few casual notifications, most of which went ignored at this point in the year. A few inches in March feel much different than a few inches in October. And so yesterday’s snowstorm, throwing more white stuff than wanted or anticipated, dumped its contents on a landscape that was just starting to show the very first signs of spring. Luckily, I wasn’t surprised or duped. Such late-season attacks are expected, and likely to continue throughout April. It’s not quite time to let down your guard. This isn’t over yet.
Take solace in the beauty that winter provides, in the cotton-like decorations clinging to the Chinese dogwood branches, the way the fluffy snow collects around the interior of a sea-urchin-mimicking puff of pine needles.
Yes, there is beauty in this snowfall. It almost makes it worth the annoying aggravation, the slowed commute, the delay of spring bulbs. Almost. And while it comes as no shock, this is still a post I didn’t want to write. We are done with winter. We want to move on.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the artsy-fartsy stuff that decorates some candles? I’m talking about the dried flowers and grasses that sometimes come embedded within the wax. I always did, especially in this lavender candle I got from Pottery Barn a couple of decades ago (yes, decades, because it cost a fortune and I kept it as a decorative piece until this winter when I started to burn it).
Well wonder no more, because here’s how this one went, in pictorial fashion.
Everyone is in such a mad rush these days, even with COVID slowing things down. It feels like we go extra hard and fast when in the office or running errands because there is simply more to get done in shorter timeframes. Trips have to be consolidated and made in one fell swoop to better deal with rising gas prices, multi-tasking is no longer an optional challenge, it’s absolutely necessary to simply get through an average day, and the idea of slowing down often feels like an unobtainable luxury.
I was hoping the universe was using COVID to collectively teach us that we need to slow down, not just for the health of ourselves, but for the health of the planet as a whole. I watch it crumbling around us and realize with a tinge of sadness that many of us did not learn that lesson, or any lesson for that matter, and it’s incredibly disheartening. There is just so much any one of us can do to change that, however, and getting bogged down or upset over that doesn’t help matters in the least. And so I do what I can in my own little world, slowing things down in little ways during the day, learning when to say no, learning when to push myself a little harder, understanding what I can tolerate, and understanding what I absolutely will not tolerate. Most of all, I’m finding that the way to deal with many things that feel stressful or agitating is to simply slow down, examine what’s going on, and if needed step away from the problem or dilemma until it can be understood without anger or unreasonable passion. Enter this cup of tea and some soothing Tibetan flute music.
This video runs about three hours, and though nobody has that kind of time to stare at a stone Buddha and listen to some slow-ass flute music, everyone has time for a cup of tea at some point in their day. That’s what I try to do when things threaten to overwhelm. Pausing for the act of making a cup of tea is often just enough to keep one from tottering over the proverbial edge. So many big mistakes and irrevocable actions can be prevented by waiting a moment instead of rushing ahead.
And so I stand up and walk away from the desk. Selecting a mug that is comforting to the hand, I feel its sturdy composition and stalwart substance. It’s one of Andy’s mugs, from a set that goes back before we even met. I think of our history, all the years and all that we’ve been through – not specifically, merely the overarching reach of our time together – and already any negativity has been knocked off-balance.
Finding a sachet of tea – lemon and ginger – I drop it into the mug and fill it with water, allowing it to steep, and waiting for the air around us to still itself so I can watch the water vapor elegantly rise in ungraspable wisps of gray. I sit in the moment, in the stillness, while the tea cools. And at the end of the five minutes this exercise has taken, I feel a sense of calm and peace, and carry on with the day.
The ‘friend’ referenced in the featured screenshot above is apparently me, which came as a complete surprise. It seems that a certain writer at the Times Union thinks I ended our ‘friendship’ because of Chick-fil-A, and she sent out a newsletter to her readers describing as much. What the point might have been for this flashy headline hyping the ‘dead friendship’ and the baseless description in the newsletter of how I supposedly ended it is anyone’s guess. I reached out to her privately with a couple of simple questions on how it came to be, but after confirming I was the one she had written about, she never answered anything else.
Right now, I’m confused and wondering why she did it. Was it for an uptick in subscriptions to her newsletter? Was she genuinely interested in having a dialogue about such a divisive subject? It raised more questions than it answered, and they were about deeper things like the true meaning of friendship, the effect that posting some things on social media has on our lives, and, quite frankly, basic journalistic integrity.
By sending out a newsletter and then refusing to answer my questions about it, she was able to voice her take on it, without allowing me, even privately, to challenge her characterization of events. It went entirely against her purported stance of always being open to discussion, and leads me to the current dilemma of whether or not I should write my own blog post on what really happened.
Andy thinks I should do just that: post a blog detailing how it went down, showing all the receipts, and getting my side out there, and he usually has sound and reasonable advice. Part of me agrees, if only to clear up the very questionable perceptions that the newsletter contains, as well as the resulting comments on FaceBook that question my values as a friend. Another part of me thinks it’s so silly I can’t even be bothered, as simple as it would be to put it all on public blast. For now, however, I’m simply going to put my thoughts down in a draft and file them away for a bit, confident that at least one person will be checking this blog regularly to see if it’s about them. Stay tuned…
A week of March is done – and the first one was as lion-like as promised. I can hear the roar of the wind as I write this, but it’s 60 degrees and sunny out so I’m not complaining. There are other lions still to come, though I’m not quite ready to unleash them. All in good time. Until then, let’s do our usual Monday morning recap of the week that started the month of spring.
Today is supposed to soar into the 60’s, with the accompanying wind show to be expected with such drastic temperature fluctuations. The wilderness of March on blustery display. It’s tempting to get a little excited when that first scent of spring is in the air, when the snow hastens its melt, and the trickle of water somewhere sounds like a little stream that might couple as the tiniest tinkling of bells from some swirling wind chimes far away. Apologies for running away with that sentence. The mind is somewhat scrambled these days.
There is a small park in downtown Albany that is closed from November to March 15. On Instagram I posted a photo of the sign indicating that the other day, when a thick carpet of snow and ice still covered the messy expanse, and I wondered whether March 15 would indeed free the sidewalk section of this park. So many of our messiest snowstorms happen now and into April, so I’m not sold. But I’m open, hopeful even, to being wrong. I simply hesitate to hype up spring too much too early. The world seems intent on proving humans wrong, especially in these last few years; we’ve all been beaten down to hope for that much.
On this morning, when the weather is unsure and uncertain, when it might be stormy or windy or sunny, 30 or 60, happy or sad, I turn within to find the quiet and the still. Whatever may churn outside, it’s what happens inside that will direct the journey of the day.
What a wild winter week it’s been, with whispers of war carrying on the wind and the wicked tumult of a world that is inconceivably giving space and possibility to thoughts of encroaching autocracy. While I wonder and shake my head at such notions, let’s get on with this recap, and close our February chapter of 2022 with a dismal thud.
These dried hydrangea blooms were captured before the fall of snow and the heavy blanket currently encasing the land. They are proof of winter’s enduring beauty. At first glance, they look too dainty and delicate to survive a single night of winter weather, but do not let their papery looks deceive you: they are strong and durable, standing up to rain, wind, ice, snow and all the rest that Mother Nature has piled on them this season. Such strength and determination to remain, in the face of a world so seemingly determined to destroy, is the sort of resistance that the very best of us can find inspiring.
The outside world may be covered in a heavy blanket of snow, but inside the houseplants are showing signs of new growth, indicating that we are closer to spring than it appears or feels. This ficus was a birthday gift from ‘Aunt’ Elaine a few years ago. Every winter it drops a few of its leaves, as if making way for the new crop of fresh ones that start pushing through now.
With all the news of late – such atrocities here and abroad that I can’t even begin to formulate a way to express my sadness and concern – I find it calming to return the focus to these simple leaves, daring to come through when winter still holds us in its wicked grip.
