AtHomePilgrim's Open Salon Blog

Further Strolls Along the Delaware Canal

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:04:53 -0400

Over the last few weekends, Mrs. P and I have continued our excursions along the Delaware Canal and have now covered nearly a quarter of its length (twice, since each trip is up and back to wherever we’ve parked). (My first post on the Canal, from mid-March, is here.)

We’ve been noting how the canal changes character as we move along it, the steep drop from the towpath to the river north of the second, more northern, Washington Crossing State Park; the towpath significantly narrowing as we came into and walked through the river town of New Hope; the disappearance of water in that town; the short sections where, surprisingly, cars are allowed on the towpath; the water’s reappearance farther north,; the answer to the mystery of what happened to the canal ride barges; different sights along the river; and the different ways homeowners on the berm bank have planted their gardens—and portions of the canal.

South of Washington Crossing, we came across one of the old locks, which suggests how narrow the canalboats were.

Between Washington Crossing and New Hope, the towpath seems to tower over the steep bank leading to the river below.

While the canal is full of water south of New Hope,

that water disappears in the town and for a couple of miles to the north. We were surprised, as we remembered a couple of times taking one of the mule-barge canal excursions that used to run out of New Hope along to the canal to the north. But no barge could get through this dry canal bed choked with the remains of last year’s bullrushes.

Even more surprising, though, was seeing a car on the canal. There is a cluster of homes between the canal and the river that rely on the towpath to move between them and the roads.

Well north of New Hope, thicker woods west of the canal allow moisture to collect and pool, and the canal has water again—though not as deep as farther south. (The current storm passing through the area is likely to change that.)

In Center Bridge, we found those excursion barges we’d ridden years ago. Like photos of ships abandoned on the former shores of the drying, shrinking Aral Sea, they are immobile, useless with naught but land beneath them.

From time to time we looked east to the river. This first view is what appears to be an old mill over in New Jersey. The second is what looks like a wooden version of the Headless Horseman. The third is not suddenly nearer New Jersey but Hendrick’s Island, which fills much of the river in this section.

Some parts of the canal have homes on the western, berm, bank. There are quaint little country houses, Italianate palazzo, traditional Delaware Valley stone farmhouses, and modern adaptations of the traditional look. There are even cleverly built treehouses—and birdhouses.

Homeowners have given themselves gardens both park-like and formal. North of New Hope, ferns become a popular planting.

Several homeowners plant flowers along the towpath or the river so that, when they look out their back windows or sit on their patios, they can see bright, cheery faces and the river beyond. In one section, the towpath was flanked by two carpets of blue.

We have also seen subtle changes in foliage as the Delaware Valley has settled more fully and comfortably into spring, early daffodils giving way to bluebells and lilacs and wisteria; early violet gems now being joined by May apples and other, unknown, wildflowers.

Even the humble dandelion becomes beautiful in its spheroid perfection, if you give it a chance.

We’ve seen a few creatures, or seen their footprints—and heard but not photographed hundreds of tuneful songbirds.

And always, always, our eyes are drawn to the trees. But, you know, that will have to be another post.

Friday List: Obit Headlines That Should Have Been

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:04:44 -0400

With apologies to those who feel otherwise, Dick Clark’s death doesn’t mean diddly to me. But delivering the news, as tiny tidbit, not Momentous Event, to my dear one provoked an irrepressible surge of devilish shorthand ways to describe the Eternal Teen’s death.

Here, then, with no reverence at all, the headlines that should have been written about Dick Clark’s passing:

Dick Clark Trades Rock ‘N’ Roll for Rock of Ages

Dick Clark No Longer to Rock New Year’s Eve

Dick Clark Takes Stairway to Heaven

Dick Clark Dies: Apostle of Eternal Youth Now Eternal

Dick Clark Begins Ultimate “Bandstand” Reunion

Of course, my mind soon turned to other (shameless) possibilities . . .

Elvis Leaves All Buildings

Sinatra Goes His Way

Garland Goes Over Rainbow

Pearl Bailey to Play Pearly Gates

Berlitz Translated

Hilton Checks Out

Edsel Ford Recalled

Price Goes to Final Accounting

Edison’s Light Out

Herman Hollerith Punches Out

Globetrotter Bly Takes Last Trip

Child’s Goose Is Cooked (sorry, Julia!)

Lindbergh’s Flight Cancelled

General Robert Scott’s Co-Pilot Takes Over

Houdini Escape Fails for First—and Last—Time

Bobby Fischer Checkmated

Harpo Seeks Better Instrument

Hardy Leaves Duo Forever; Laurel in Tears

Marceau Silenced

News Flash: Legosi Was Acting

Errol Flynn to Be Questioned About Wicked Ways

Garbo Gets Wish

Hitchcock’s Director Yells “Cut!”

Duncan Now Dancing with Stars

Lady Di Dies

Rehnquist Appeals to Higher Court

Madalyn Murray O’Hair Says Time to Test Theory

For history lovers:

Columbus Sails On

Magellan to Discover New Country

Luther Becomes Diet of Worms

Wellington Meets His Waterloo

Napoleon Exiled for Good

Pope Promoted

Look Out, Lord: Emma Goldman to Organize Angels

And for those with a literary bent:

Thomas Wolfe Looks Homeward, Can’t Go There

Donne’s Bell Rung

Poe to Write Nevermore

Melville Really Has Writer’s Block Now

Death Stops for Dickinson

J.D. Salinger Guarantees Privacy

Hemingway a Great Shot

Cat Lover Eliot Had Only One Life

God Has Last Laugh on Twain

Milton Regains Paradise—He Hopes

Woolf’s Stream of Consciousness Runs Dry

Contributions are welcome!

Of Turkey and Humans

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 09:04:13 -0400

A tom turkey came prancing through our backyard the other morning. He appeared to be feeling his spring oats: his wattle was bright red and his head a shining blue in the morning sunlight. He twice stopped in the midst of his promenade through our and our neighbor’s yard to stand on his toes, stretch up his back and neck, huff and puff his chest to double normal size, and fan his tail.

He actually looked impressive, rather than like the gawky, laughable object that turkeys usually present. You could almost forgive Benjamin Franklin his endorsement.

Yet there was something forlorn about him as he strutted and fretted his moments upon our green stage, the sadness that clings to a lonely soul like the frayed collar of a shirt worn too many years.

For all his bright colors and cocky stride, he was alone.

If a tom turkey struts in a field with no hen to see him, does he exist?

I am enough of a materialist to believe that he does: my (or Henny’s) seeing Tom did not conjure him into existence; it merely imprinted him on my consciousness.

While Tom exists in objective reality, he is a singularity—in the mathematical (a unique point) sense rather than the astrophysical (he is not a black hole). As we all are: discrete chunks of matter, uniquely assembled, with our own special coloring and gait, our own favorite features (hey, baby, want to see my tail?) and self-perceived weaknesses (why couldn’t my wattle be as big as Tomás’s?).

And, like poor Tom, we all yearn to connect to others, to maintain our own integral personhood and at the same time bridge it to feel oneness with a group, a clan, a family (hope he doesn’t run afowl of a bad crowd), or—most gratifyingly—with one special person, the one who ignores those weaknesses (not doesn’t see them, but loves us in spite of them) and who treasures the few features about which we are so (mistakenly) vain.

Perhaps Tom is not so forlorn after all. Perhaps he is simply striding through the yards of life with faith in the Henny or flock of his future.

You could say that such faith is misplaced: he is as likely to find Henny as the Burgess Meredith–portrayed bank teller is to read his treasure of books, once the glasses break. But there are plenty of Henny’s out there (and more Toms, should that be his inclination). The only way to find them is to start walking.

There’s something noble about the search, however ungainly the gait of the searcher.

Maybe old Ben was right after all.

Spring Morning

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:03:13 -0400

Diamonds strewn on sable
by generous hand,
most flickering fusion flames,
a few reflecting unseen life factory.
Near platinum crescent,
bowled to gather all the gems,
attracting Venus brightly
seduces soul to awe.

Sapphire next, replacing ebon
field with purplish blue sheen,
sky as ground for emergent trees
that sway with Zephyr’s breath.
To south, yellow radiance grows,
concentration of all the world’s
forsythias and daffodils
into sweetest gold .

Then Scandinavian sky prevails—
brightening yellow, lightening blue,
no clouds for Ostara to rouge.
Below, pears sprout popcorn,
cherries blush in want,
willows bow in envious green,
bushes relish stretching limbs
after long dormancy.

Reveling in light show,
robins sing and cardinals chortle,
doves coo with contentment,
chickadees greet rising disk
of burnished gold fashioned
not by heavy mallet blows
but forged by master smith of
purest ore to perfect orb.

Finding The Way (movie review)

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 08:03:18 -0400

In The Way (2010), Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen), a successful Southern California ophthalmologist, satisfied with the ordered life he has chosen, finds himself on an unexpected trek. Avery is a decent man—a doctor who will come to the office at eight in the morning to accommodate a patient’s schedule—but one who, a friend joshes, has no soul.

Soon after that telling jibe, Avery’s world explodes when he receives a phone call informing him that his son has died in an accident near St. Jean Pied de Port, France, at the beginning of the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), the centuries-old pilgrimage route to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Flying to France to bring home his son’s body, Avery impulsively decides to have his son’s remains cremated and to carry the ashes on the Pilgrimage.

Intent on being alone so he can sort through his thoughts, his grief, and his regrets over his troubled relationship with his deceased son, Avery nevertheless gains one, then two, then three traveling companions. Joost (Yorick van Wageningen)—a smiling, hungry-for-life Dutchman who doubles as a mobile drug repository—is intent on losing weight. Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), an edgy, bitterly sarcastic Canadian, insists that she walks the Camino so she can finally quit smoking. Jack (James Nesbitt), an Irish travel writer who burns to be a novelist, has undertaken the trip to crash through writer’s block. Avery tries to shake the trio, especially when Joost reveals to the others his own painful reason for walking the Way, but they persist.

The four actors wear their characters as easily as a comfortable pair of walking shoes and play off each other effectively. The doctor’s determined strides and equally determined gaze keep the others at a distance—for a time. Eventually, he warms to them. Eventually, Avery warms to life.

Written, directed, and produced by Emilio Estevez, who appears in cameos as Avery’s deceased son Daniel, The Way is a moving exploration of the restlessness of the spirit; the deep desire to expiate long-harbored tormenting guilt; and the ability to forge bonds when opening your soul to the pain that others, like you, carry inside.

The film was inspired in part by Jack Hitt’s travel book Off the Road, which recounts his own adventures as a modern walker of the Camino, but Estevez does much more than study the odd characters that make the trek and the myriad motivations that compel people to do so—or that convince them to serve, or exploit, those who make the journey.

Aided by the cinematography of Juan Miguel Azpiroz, which captures the rugged beauty of northern Spain and its ancient but still vibrant human geography, The Way is an eloquent tale of an odyssey both ancient and very contemporary, reminding that inside each of us is (dare I say it?) a pilgrim seeking greater meaning than that provided by our pedestrian lives.

One of Daniel’s few lines, spoken in a flashback, resonates long after the closing credits. “You don’t choose a life, dad. You live one.”

The Way is available as a DVD or instantly from Amazon.com, Netflix, and on-demand cable systems.

Originally published in slightly different form at The AtHome Pilgrim's author page, at www.fictionique.com.