Day 92 – Negotiations

March 11, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

I was alone in the park this morning. In the background, hundreds of geese conversed, all talking at the same time. In front of me, the Chesapeake Bay stretched out, presenting an icy sampler of geometric shapes. Fog muted the colors and outlines of this winter scene. This moment held the geese, a white patchwork quilt and me.

On an ice floe, I noticed one lone goose sounding a plaintive call. Was this sound born of nature’s habit or an avian need? Had the bird become separated from its gaggle? Soon a group of geese gathered near but separate from the lone honker. All of them put up a racket, seeming to negotiate with one another, the ayes and nays creating cacophony. Maybe they were taking a consensus on whether or not to include the loner. If so, the answer must have been yes because not long after that, they all flew off together into the dissipating fog. By tomorrow all the icy pieces will have disappeared from sight and melded with the Bay.

My life is like a patchwork quilt with bits from different parts of my world—past and present. The present especially is broken into so many pieces, one as beautiful as the next: family, friends, art, social, solitude, creativity…  Often when I go out, someone familiar will approach me. “Bonnie! It’s good to see you!” I then search my brain trying to remember which patch of my life they are from.
At times like this, the pieces are separated. Other times they coalesce. I appreciate each piece alone as well as all merged as a larger view of life. The patchwork quilt is good.

My gift today is an icy patchwork quilt.
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>Day 93 Mystery Package

You can read my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 90 Fish for Dinner

March 9, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

The Chesapeake Bay seen from the shore of Downs Park today.

After such gloomy weather of late, it felt good to be in the sun and observe nature from the outside rather than from the warm side of a glass door. 

It has been about ten years since Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay has frozen over as it has this year. A trip to Downs Park on a nearly 60-degree day with blue skies brought visual delights. Ice floes floated about on the Bay that reflected a deep blue from the sky. Families were strolling about and one group asked me to take a photo of them with their phone. They wanted me to be sure to include the icy water in the background. I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the ice on water that today was bluer than any time in my memory.

I sat for a while and watched a seagull pecking at something on one of the ice floes. With my telephoto lens, I could see it was the bird’s meal—a single hapless fish with a gaping mouth and intestinal problems. The gull stood watch over its food between bites. Its vigilance managed to chase away two of its brothers who were waiting for a chance to steal his meal. 

Bad luck for the fish but good luck for the gull; unpleasant bitter cold created small beautiful glaciers in the Bay. Nature seems to balance the bad with the good. This is a good thing to remember on bad days.

My gift today was watching white ice on a blue day.

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You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html