Tag: color

november, seasons

moving along

etikser

It’s cold so you need a jacket tonight, and the wind is blustery, leaves rustling, still clinging to branches above me in the trees. The moon’s high, shining bright behind tall oak trees in an otherwise open sky. And we’ve made it, yes, we’ve made it, to an old familiar rite of passage called November.

Turning the page, and making it past transitions. Truth be told, I’m awful at transitions, more okay once I get there. September, October, I didn’t get there yet. I held tight to summer habits, to the bliss and freedoms that probably didn’t even exist in the summer months. When I get to November, I feel like I can switch gears and roll through the next few months, even when it’s not really true. I’m not dismayed by winter. I would definitely miss it if there wasn’t a  good hard winter. Christmas and the holidays are one of my favorite times, and I’m cool with January. It’s almost sure to bring some frozen times and a good snow or two. I wish no one had to work when it snows, but I’m selfishly glad when I am snowed in. I try  to not schedule important appointments in January, and I like a good snowed in feeling. Under the covers with some good winter movies, and nothing else that’s too pressing. Come February, I’m hoping I can coast the rest of the way to spring.

I took this picture on the last day of October, but it looks the same today. So…moving along…yay, November.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.

feelings, mood

september blue

etikser

The sun’s still warm, and flowers still bloom.
The air feels heavy, slow and moody, like colors in a dream.
Skies are blue, sad and aching
September 11 blue.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.

spring

today’s outlook

etikser
This is a photo I’ve taken dozens of times.
It’s the closest I can get to what I’m describing.

It’s a little like when you glance downstairs late at night, and everything is dark. Everything in your full vision, everything that’s both central and peripheral, everything that’s in your soul, it’s all whispers and dark shadows. Dark as the night.

Except that now everything is dazzling bright, and green as a spring day. A full, mature, all-encompassing spring. When I sit at my computer these days and look out over the top of the monitor to what’s outdoors…everything’s the look of spring green. It’s mottled, of course, not one page of flat green construction paper. Patches of dark and bright, and everything in between, shimmering in the breeze. It’s a vision chock-full of spring.

It reminds me of that warm summer day when I went down by the stream, and the water was shining in my eyes in full reflection mode, mirroring the neon dreamy color of all the surrounding shrubs and trees. It reminds me of the time I stood under a weeping willow tree and looked up for comfort to the leafy green strands cascading towards me. A full vision, packed with the wondrous embrace of eternity.

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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.

2022

quiet

etikser

I dreamed there was an apparatus that could remove color from life. A device that could flip some switch to colorless. Like an unusual variety of color blind where everything goes black and white and gray. I felt the urgency of the dream. Not necessarily the craziness, but I felt the urgency.

In our dreams…in all our dreams, I suppose…everyday endeavors drag mentally. Our movements are ineffective, slow, tortuous. Navigation is near impossible. In this dream, I had some important assignment related to color. It required painting or coloring, and I stood challenged, facing a wooden color wheel and pondering the task at hand.

It was critical. Either I accomplish this task, or all sense of color would be gone. Luckily, dreams seem to end as haphazardly as they begin, and before the need for realization.

2021

faded dreams ….

etikser

faded scenes and sinking dreams,
missed connections,
and narrow streets in all directions,
immense,
impending structures,
intense,
irrational stares,
dizzying stairs in random rooms,
that lead to rooms,
commanding,
tangled thoughts,
unravel reality,
erase familiarity,
hands sweaty,
legs heavy,
breathless,
and thready,
turning,
reverting,
blurring,
escape,
escape …

ahhh, yes … awake … yes … awake.

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Do we all have pieces like this? Words we write, and we re-write, and re-write. It never feels complete or just right. I have at least five versions of this one. I’m not comfortable with this style of writing, but the words don’t fit well in sentences and paragraphs. Just maybe … it’s the sort of thing that should take me out of my comfort zone.

I just completed a small collection of written pieces and photos to give as presents this holiday. I did this last year too, and although the project is always surprisingly time-consuming, the end results are gratifying. This time, I tried to bring in plenty of bold colors and some of the dreamier layers of life. This piece is probably atypical, in terms of style, but it was one of the bits I included.

plants

fern

etikser

If someone did a Top Ten list of plants that inspire, ferns would be there. Mayapples would be there. Giant oak trees would be there. Flowers that show up on their own, and bloom at the edge of a paved street, for sure would be there. I’m talking about plants with personality, plants that stir the imagination, plants that make you smile. Plants that make you write a story. It’s a short list.

A field of wildflowers, as far as the eye can see. That kind of imagination.

Ferns. A stegosaurus stomps the ‘earth’, the way we imagine the earth looked millions of years ago. With each step, the ground thuds as the dinosaur moves past vegetation…huge, prehistoric ferns. Yeah, that kind of imagination.

So, ferns. This is what I love about ferns. Well, for one thing, they hang around all year. They survive the winter. Like we do.  They’re not fresh and robust when they meet the first light snowfall, or the last cold icy storm. But they don’t dry up and wither away, or lose all their leaves like some bigger, stronger, more impressive ‘plants’, otherwise known as trees. Buried under January’s coldest, iciest cover, the fern hunkers down, close to the ground. You scrape away the slush and snow and hardened icicles. And there’s a fern. I have respect for that.

Is there another plant that comes to life with the charm and charisma of a fern? I know, somebody’s gonna come up with some mushroom that pops up overnight in an interesting way. Nope, forget it, not good enough.

You can smell the scent of ‘earth’. And take in the filtered light shining from above through the branches of those tall awesome oak trees. Peculiar little mayapples cover the leafy-rich surface. And fancy green ferns unfold.

Bob Marley

music and images

etikser


When I hear Bob Marley, I see shades of tangerine and vivid pink. And pictures in tropical greens and blues and yellows. And one of those small half-circle type windows, with sheer white curtains gathered neatly in a fan, to block out the afternoon sun.

Outside on the covered porch, someone waits in the shade of painted wood. A fancy overhang, and thin carved spindles. Tiny glass chimes, multi-colored prisms, hang down between the spindles, quiet and motionless on a day that’s warm and still. And past the cover of the building, blue skies. Gravel and grass, magenta-colored flowers, and lush green sandy vegetation.

I pick up the scent of stewed chicken.

The imagination’s funny. It takes a little of this reality, and the flavor of a song or a memory, and without beckoning, it floats some kind of blurry image your way. Like the soft elements of it all have been waiting around in your head, waiting for something to stir them up.

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