Mornings

Mornings on the beach remind me in broad and beautiful brush strokes that every day is singular and new. This morning, it was a hushed place, almost sacred. The waves barely seemed to touch the sand before they softly rolled back away. Seagulls gathered on the rocks and then swooped off into the sky that was first a blanket of rose and then a dusty orange.

On the corner

Color

The Locks at the Ponte Vecchio

Toward

Moody Sky

Frozen Leaves at Walden Pond

And so you take a step and then another.

Cupcake! Cupcake Nederlander. I see the plate on the park bench and picture Auntie Mame-like fun, whole afternoons adventuring. I picture whimsy and pockets-full of movie stubs. Irreverence with a capital I.

I'd happened upon the bench in Central Park, meandering  along one sunny morning. I thought `what a lovely little tribute to someone.' Just a green bench in the park, as the world passes by.    

I did a little sleuthing and discovered that Cupcake is/was a dog - apparently much beloved! Not a woman in cat's eye glasses tooling along Route 66 in a pink VW with the top down, free as song. That's the Cupcake I'd conjured up. Life of the party gal.
Still, I'm charmed.

Five, together

Are they family? Just good friends? Whatever the connection, the five are together every day, always, paddling along the the inlets and rocky crags of our beach, taking a bit of a siesta on a warm February morn, all of them asleep but the white duck, whose one eye was open, keeping watch.
She's a gabber, a galvanizer and protector. When the ducks move along the sand, she often leads them, quacking all the way.

Outside Dante's Home, Florence

Time Slows

In flight

The Miles Traveled

October snowfall

Gathered

Standing Guard

La vita è bella! Life is good.