No events scheduled except the moon

Lovely moon last night. According to NASA, it was the Flower Moon and marked the fourth and final supermoon of 2020. It hit its peak this morning at 06:45 EDT but, like all full moons, also appears full the night before and after.

Image credit: NASA/Bill Dunford

Lovely day today. Lots going on here at the hermitage, aka apartment. I'm working on an illustration, based on Blue Period, a poem I wrote some years ago. It's written as four scenarios. I am currently doing the first one. It's tempura on cardboard and, at this point, it's become a conversation the paint and I are having. Yesterday was especially interesting. At one point, I realized I was just standing there watching the brush move across the page, leaving a new sky in its wake.

No events scheduled today

Bird Park East in general has been the happening place this spring. There are a couple of noisy nests nearby, one right above our balcony, one across the alley. It's great fun listening and watching the comings and goings. Also interesting, if not a bit shocking, I also saw about 10 roosters chase and jump one of the young hens the other day. Holy cow! Those guys are brutal as ducks. Poor girl. She was terrified. Not so, the seagulls I saw later that day. They were quite tender towards one another mating on the flat chimney top. Afterwards, they hung out together for about a half hour, nestling each other, nuzzling with their beaks, yawning, and looking around obviously relishing the quiet end of the day.

Higher Ground | Playing For Change

Change or die

Strange as this public service announcement is, people are cooperating and Portugal is crushing the curve.

Today's dystopian public announcement
during the COVID-19 pandemic

Chris Hadfield's
 astronaut's guide to self isolation

Thanks for saving my life

We began isolating on March 14. Before that, we half-assed it for a couple of weeks but on the 18th it got real. That's when the Portuguese President declared a countrywide state of emergency and asked everyone to stay at home except for necessary trips to places like the grocery, bank, doctor, and pharmacy. The whole country cooperated. I so appreciate that. As a result, Portugal has been very successful in blocking the spread of the virus and tomorrow we begin the first stage of loosening restrictions. Some, like social distancing, will still apply but certain types of small businesses will reopen. 

I've really appreciated this time. I'm a hermit by nature but have never been terribly good at disciplining myself. During these last seven weeks, I've been able to recalibrate, begin painting again albeit slowly, write and organize my work, see a little deeper, a little more clearly, focus, renew, identify. It's been enough time for new ways to present themselves, hidden things to surface, resolve, finish unfinished business, heal. Today, for example, an event in the distant past suddenly came into sharp focus and I realized I had an amend to make.

My ex-husband is dying of cancer. We haven't been on good terms for years but it wasn't until today I saw, no matter how he might take it, I had a long overdue amends to make. It wasn't the length of time that clarified my thinking. It is this extraordinary suspension of ordinary life that gave the waters time to clear. Today I asked my daughter to pass along a long overdue recognition. "Thanks for saving my life". The details don't matter. The fact that I never thanked him does.

In defense of pigeons

Picasso and a pigeon friend.

Dogs became part of our extended human family over 15,000 years ago and, in geological time, pigeons are a close second becoming part of our tribe a mere 5,000 years later. They are, in fact, the world's old domesticated bird. I think of them as the dogs of birds.

Research suggests the domestication of pigeons began during the Pleistocene era, some 10,000 years ago. They are memorialized in Egyptian hieroglyphs and mentioned in Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets 5000 years ago. They are very helpful folks. They were  humanity's first airmail service during times of war and peace. They are pets as well as mid-air aerialist able to fly upside-down and backwards. Some played ping-pong with behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner, others are doctor's assistants helping to point out cancer in medical imaging. Besides their other contributions to a better quality of human life, pigeons are sometimes muses for artists, poets, and musicians. Picasso did a delightful series of pigeon paintings near the end of his life which are on display at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. An interesting side note about pigeons and art is that, with a little education, they've proven able to between the work of Picasso and Monet though I'm not sure anyone had a preference. 

Henri Matisse and pigeon pal

Pigeons didn't live in my neighborhood when I was a kid. I only came to appreciate them when I began traveling. They are everywhere I've been, whether Africa, Europe, Asia, S.E. Asia, the Americas. Now I consider it a good start to any day when the first thing I hear is their gentle cooing. What other bird does that? I'll tell you. No other.

From the beginning of the third millennium BCE, these "flying rats" as Woody Allen stupidly called them, have been humanity's symbol of love, peace, the soul, numerous religions as well the chosen representatives of various military, sports, and pacifist groups. The fact that pigeons are common in grungy human habitats like our polluted cities is not because they are dirty. It's because we are dirty. They clean up after us now just as they've been doing for the last 10,000 years.

In praise of the remarkable pigeon

Did I mention

2015
when we first visited this place.

I am now an official resident of Portugal and actually for about a month already. I forgot to mention it but it is something of a milestone. It took over a year, a lot of paperwork, getting health insurance, renting a place, etc but it's official. And it actually does, or did, feel a little different at first. The idea has since settled into its mundane context but I'm glad it's done. The next step is that I must now start learning Portuguese. It will have to be, as a friend in Florida used to say, "little by slowly".