Last Friday sparked seven restorative days on the road with my husband. Seven days isn’t much time, 1,000 miles out, 1,000 miles back, another 1,000 meandering miles in between. Visiting family in Penticton, B.C. and Lethbridge, Alberta lent direction and purpose, far from burden or obligation we embraced structure, but for predetermined structure we might have driven to Kenora, Ontario.
Road trips are a state of mind, for us unspoken understanding of travel without tidy edges. We don’t care if it takes 6 or 14 hours to get from A to B, the road dictates absolutely no rules (correction – no fast food is a steadfast, unbreakable rule). Hitting the road without urgency is the essence of travel, an expedition of discovery beholden to no one.
For those who know me, a photo of ice cream Notes in Summerland B.C. Taken on road trip day three, when was the last time I looked this relaxed?
Below – road trip gallery starting with a cell phone shot of my pinhole eclipse view in Greenwood B.C., followed by random unstructured glimpses of road trip majesty extracted from my phone, and husband’s camera –
Powerful and wise, the road delivered a better person home. Notes is back, all it took was a road trip to put things right.
Pondering hate has my head in a spin, who decides what is or isn’t hate? The sobering fact being; my views of right and wrong are considered equally hateful by millions of people who see things differently. Last night I wrote about Christian Kerodin, the convicted felon behind plans for “The Citadel” – a fortified city accepting applications from prospective residents who want nothing more than to live with “like minded” people. Like minded in this case meaning an insular society free from “liberals”, city government or taxes, recycling, and criminal or background checks. All “The Citadel” asks in return is that you arrive with your own weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and the attitude needed to use them.
As repugnant as I find this, the reality is – Kerodin has served his time for extortion, isn’t breaking any laws, and under his constitutional rights can say anything he…
Couldn’t nail down when or why it started, all I know is for well over a decade I’ve texted Billie Jean to my daughter every time it plays at a wedding. Sorry Michael, may your tortured soul rest in peace but Billie Jean is a stupid song. Nevertheless and without exception, Billie Jean has played at every wedding since the ritual started.
I know a thing or two about weddings, they’ve paid my bills for 30 years. How many since Billie Jean texts began is tough to say, truth is I can’t even remember how many this summer, a conservative estimate might be 200 Billie Jeans. Each text represents 10-12 hours of sweat and toil sprinkled with shenanigans and drama worthy of screenplays.
The magnitude of Billie Jean was lost until quite recently, muddied by focus and work load it never crossed my mind Billie Jean represented a brief respite. Billie Jean texts mean dinner is over, coffee and dessert served, cake cut, kitchen staff cleaning up, truck being loaded and a push to strip tables. Billie Jean lets me breath. Only 3-4 hours to go, time to crack the whip, think about signing out staff, write a few words of my report.
Every so often I mention to staff Billie Jean plays at every wedding.They don’t believe me. Just wait I say, Billie Jean hasn’t let me down yet. If I were a smarty pants I’d blither it used to be Lady In Red or Red Red Wine, all that would do is age me. For the record, Uptown Funk is poised to become the next Billie Jean.
On August 21, 2017 a 70 mile path of solar eclipse totality crosses 14 states from Oregon to South Carolina. Few of us will be within the filament of total darkness, but hundreds of millions from any location in North America, parts of South America, Europe and Africa can witness a partial solar eclipse. Enter your location in search field on the link below – I will be in Penticton B.C. on August 21. Courtesy the Time and Date link, I can expect a partial eclipse of 87% totality peaking at 10:25 am local time.
The term skyglow evokes poetic images – sunset petticoats of periwinkle clouds caught in flirtatious embrace with plump pomegranate horizons, gossamer tendrils of moonlight skipping playful stones across still water, calming arias of ethereal pre-dawn planetary conjunctions – all glow, not one defines skyglow.
Skyglow is light pollution. Artificial, unshielded, unnatural light directed upward into the atmosphere. We’ve all seen distant glowing domes over towns and cities while driving at night, that is skyglow – the reason I strain to hear childhood stars sing.
In 1928 naturalist and writer Henry Beston published The Outermost House. In it he wrote –
Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, today’s civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd as to know only artificial day.
― Henry Beston, The Outermost House, 1928
Entirely light polluted Shenandoah National Park, Virginia – “In Shenandoah National Park, only the occasional passing clouds block enough light from the surrounding cities to offer visitors a decent view of the heavens. With an estimated light pollution growth at 6 percent a year, National Parks, along with all of the developed world, may lose their dark skies by the end of the 21st Century.” – https://skyglowproject.com/#dark-sky-movement
In 1958 Flagstaff, Arizona became the first city to pass light pollution laws. City ordinances prohibited the use of commercial search lights within city limits, violation of said ordinance was punishable by up to 90 days in jail. In 2001 the International Dark Sky Association named Flagstaff the first international dark sky community in recognition of pioneering efforts to maintain dark skies.A well deserved nod born in 1958, schooled through 1973 when Flagstaff’s county of Coconino passed sweeping lighting code regulations, and educated by 1981 when all illuminated billboards were banned.
Flagstaff is world’s only city of 100,000+ residents to feature readily-available dark skies.
With the estimated light pollution growth of 6% a year, all of developed world may lose its dark skies by the end of the 21st century.
“Skyglow” is also a project by timelapse photographers Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Hefferman to raise awareness of light pollution. Spend a video moment with Gavin and Harum, it will forever change how you gaze at night skies. –
“The age of dark skies, with us from the very beginning of humanity, has come to an abrupt end.” – https://skyglowproject.com/#music
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