aspen, blinding light

I took a day off today, just to avoid leaves expiring by month end. It was a relaxing day and had two instances of curious connections.

I did the New York Times Mini Crossword in the morning. There was a clue “Tree with white bark” and the other letters started to form a word, but I doubted whether it was actually a tree. I knew of “Aspen, Colorado” as a city in the US, but it is just the familiarity of having read or heard about it. Like a friend said one time that their young daughter was familiar with US city names by having read about them in the books. Soft power of the US that kids, even in small towns in Kerala, know their cities even though they never saw it. I looked up Aspen, to see some images of this tree. 

Later in the morning, I caught up with the “Poem of the day” feed. It had 28 unread poems. I came across this poem, “I sit by the window”, by Joseph Brodsky and these lines

I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn’t often. 

There it is, “An Aspen”.

Next up, I started picking up twitter bookmarks and picked up a few long reads. One of them was Gurwinder Bhogal’s Stoicism: The Ancient Remedy to the Modern Age. I had read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius a few years ago and also a few of Gurwinder’s superb articles, hence this was a good reminder of the age of distraction and attention, wasting time and how to get control over ourselves. It started with the line “One can just as easily be blinded by light as by darkness.”. I wondered for a minute about it, about bright light blinding us. It was about an overload of information causing dissonance.

Later in the evening, took up a Tamil web series, Suzhal: The Vortex - Wikipedia. I had watched season 1 of this, during Covid days, when I was isolating myself alone for a week, while both my inlaws were recovering from Covid in the house. This was season 2. In one of the episodes, it had a line “Romba iruttaayirinthaalum paakka mudiyaathu, romba velichamaayirinthaalum paakka mudiyathu” (“you can’t see if it is too dark, you can’t see if it is too bright”)!

 

goldenrod

I had attempted a word puzzle (Strands) last night before sleeping. Clue was “Sun Shade” and first word at random that I got was Lemon. I thought it might be beach accessories or some such, but none fit. Slept on it and in the morning, it was somehow clear to me that the answer was Yellow without even looking at the puzzle. As I was finishing it, one more word wasn’t fitting – Gold, Golden didn’t work. Finally figured it was Goldenrod. I hadn’t heard of it before – looked it up and it was a yellow flower that covers a stem, maybe a rod like look. I had seen one such in US, that we used in place of Konna Poovu (Golden shower, Cassia Fistula) for Vishu Kani (needed a yellow flower to stand in for beautiful konna, to see as first thing as one open our eyes on the day of Vishu). Wondered if Goldenrod is the same.

Later in the morning, came across an article with interesting subtext “My time is my own even when I don’t spend it particularly well.”. It was written by someone with terminal cancer, living in a cottage near Maine coast. One could imagine the days lived out in peace, while reading it. Out jumped the word, Goldenrod, from it. It seems the flowers mark a grave of someone in middle of his land.

Goldenrod marks her place, left tall from Steve’s thresher blade. Birds land on the flowers’ heads, hang carefully as the plant decides to accept their weight, then skillfully launch themselves into the air like children sliding from a swing on the upward arc, their bodies temporarily suspended, neither falling nor rising.

Goldenrod strikes twice in the same morning.