Yesterday proves that it is ever-dangerous to utter the line that should never be said:
“Musn’t grumble. Could be worse.”
I’ve lived long enough — which means I’ve experienced my share of loss as well as joy — to know that words are easily misaimed at such times. But I have noticed that there are things that do help (me); reminders that make either sorrow or rage (both evoked by different events yesterday) a little easier to take. Just for a moment, usually, but better than nothing.
For my part, those self-escaping goads have always been natural beauty. Following that line, and for no other purpose than evoking any of your own such sights or sounds or whatever, here are a couple of shots of things or places that are among my current suppliers of escape from present wretchednesses.
So, first up, a link to a (copyrighted) image I saw for the first time only a few days ago, a picture of one of the traditional human symbols of hope renewed.*
And here’s a shot of the big mountain in the area I’ve been going to in the summer since I was six:
Every time I look at that picture (and the dozens almost exactly like it I’ve taken from that spot over the years) I feel better. Not as much as I do when I’m actually there, but still.
Over to y’all. Got any talismans to help with hard days?
Which is to say, a(nother) blue-tinged open thread.
*That newest possible moon, btw is one of those Don’t Try This At Home Kids shots. To get it, the photographer had to image very close to the sun, and you can see at the link above the rig he put together to do so safely. This is the second solar – esque shot I’ve posted here lately, and it seems to me a necessary PSA to say that doing any kind of amateur solar observing or photography is a tricky business indeed, and one with real risks — so please, if you’re moved to make some images of your own of our star, be careful. This is one of those situations where it is literally true that it is all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
gene108
Not really.
Any suggestions?
Betty Cracker
Places like this and this heal my soul. And the company of animals, of course.
Tom Levenson
@Betty Cracker: I can see why/how.
The Dangerman
As I understand Celtic traditions, they have a concept called “Thin Places’; basically, places where the distance between you and your own Belief System (whatever that may or may not be). One of my favorites after a bit of a story…
…once, while going here, I was asked by a couple if it was worth the drive. Oh, definitely yes, I said, and take this short little trail to a viewpoint. They clearly did as I met up with them later on and the woman had tears in her eyes and gave me a hug. This place gives me tears, too, so I understand it well and it’s a thin place for me:
fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/333/1/1/moraine_lake_by_porbital-d5fb026.jpg
Picture doesn’t really do it justice; it’s prettier in person.
raven
I’ve posted this already this week but sunrise on Haleakalā, the House of the Sun a year ago stays with me.
Violet
Is Balloon Juice slow for anyone else?
raven
@Violet: Yes, I didn’t think my post made it. Closed everything and it had.
Richard Shindledecker
Nature can do indifference. I can’t. this sucks.
trollhattan
Is that Mt. Lassen? It looks similar from certain angles; having spent quite a bit of time there myself. I find it a pretty magical place (and don’t have to cross three time zones to get there). It’s in the mountains I can achieve my damage-repair/soul-recharge, even to the point that going through my photos in winter can transport me, to a point (and hey, the mosquitoes are totally forgotten).
am
Katahdin?
Kevin
Up until yesterday, mine was from the Mel Brooks movie “Young Frankenstein”. Specifically, the scene with Marty Feldman and Gene Wilder digging up a corpse in the middle of the night. Feldman quips, “could be worse, could be raining” and of course with a crack and boom there’s a deluge flooding the grave they’re neck up to in.
Ever since I saw that movie, “could be worse, could be raining” has been my defensive response whenever I’ve been overcome with despair. Yesterday just piled on…the sadness of Stuck, the tragedy of Tunch, and then the anger and embarassment of sharing a continent with people who could allow the Trayvon Martin outrage. I’m Canadian, and a life-long admirer of most things American, but your long, recent descent into insanity makes it very hard. My deepest condolences to John Cole and General Stuck’s family, but lately I’d kill (deliberate choice of words) to hear about a mass shooting of Republican “leaders” and their equally insane followers. I know the great majority of American people are good, open folks, but at some point one can only hope the influence of the wingnutosphere will peak and they’ll slither back under their rocks forever.
quannlace
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The Peace of Wild Things
BY WENDELL BERRY
burnspbesq
Not the awesome natural beauty of Yosemite, but St. Stephen’s GreenSt. Stephen’s Green is one of the most healing places I know.
Betty Cracker
@Violet: It’s not just you.
CaseyL
The more sorrowful I feel, the more I yearn toward anything vast, old and cold.
Mountains are great for that (Tom, is that Mt. Rainier?). There are hills in Seattle where you can look one way and see the Olympics, then look in the opposite direction and see the Cascades (including, if the day is clear enough, Mt. Rainier her own self).
The galaxy is good for that, too; or should I say, the universe. Contemplating nebulae in particular.
I’m not sure I believe in a God or gods per se, but the beauty of the universe – beauty that we would never even know about if we didn’t have amazing telescopes to see it with – does put me in a contemplative mood, wondering if there is some kind of awareness or intelligence at large in the cosmos. Not in the sense of Something having created it all, but Something that appreciates the wonder of it all…
I almost feel that vast, ageless awe when I look upon such beauty; as if Something is looking at it with me and saying, “You’re right; that’s amazing.”
It gives one perspective, if nothing else.
tybee
smile, things could be worse.
so i smiled and sure enough, things got worse.
Tom Levenson
@trollhattan: Yes, from Kings Creek Meadow (about a mile from the trailhead, just after the junction that gives you the choice of heading left to the falls or right, to end up in the Warner Valley.
MomSense
@quannlace:
Oh I love that–sang it once in a large chorale. Hauntingly beautiful. “And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light”
Tom Levenson
@trollhattan: @am: @CaseyL:
Sorry, should have been clearer in the reply to trollhattan above. That’s Mt. Lassen, a largely tourist-undiscovered gem in north-eastern California.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I spend 4 days and nights hiking and sleeping amongst The Spider and the Fly in Colorado. Awesome.
gogol's wife
Mine is Renata Scotto singing “La mamma morta” from Andrea Chenier. Unfortunately, her performance is not on YouTube. But I have to say I haven’t been able to listen to it yet.
“Smile and hope . . . You are not alone.”
Ruckus
Nature does it but I live in the middle of a crappy neighborhood and for a number of years haven’t had any extra money to go anywhere. So I use music. Steeplejack posted this last night. One of my favorites for the down in my ass blues. I had forgotten it and now can’t stop playing it. I need something to restore my faith that my fellow man is not all that fucked up and we can make progress towards a better place. I am woefully lacking in that ideal right now.
Tom Levenson
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Beautiful. I’ve not spent that much time in Colorado and hadn’t heard of the Gores. Now on my list…
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet: Yes, it was very wonky for about 90 minutes. Seems to have calmed down now.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
Something that appreciates the wonder of it all…
That is supposed to be us.
For some of us it is, for many it seems not.
Ruckus
@The Dangerman:
It is beautiful.
So where is this place?
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Tom Levenson: For sure. I lived in Colorado for two years but that was my only extended stay in the back country. A friend from work, me, and a friend’s dog I was sitting. I think of it often. 1998.
Tehanu
@Tom Levenson:
Mt. Lassen National Park is one of my favorite places on earth, since the day in 1960 when my family decided to drive out east of Redding, where we had just moved, to look at the countryside. We came over a rise and the entire world seemed to be spread out in front of us, with Lassen on the horizon, and I remember we all gasped out loud. I learned much later that it’s also where Ishi and his tribe lived. Such a wonderful place, and I’m so happy to find that you love it too.
WereBear
My favorite pond, and my own pictures:
Rankin Pond
eemom
After yesterday’s double slams re the General and Tunch, I saw a beautiful sunset, which stood out especially because of the nonstop shit weather we’ve been having. Tried to think it portended something good.
YellowJournalism
We’ve been watching a lot of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” at my house today.
The Dangerman
@Ruckus:
Oops. Moraine Lake is near Lake Louise (which is somewhat more famous) which is near Banff (more famous yet) in Alberta.
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
It was then, in my grief,
that love came to me.
A voice full of harmony says,
“You must live, I am life itself!
Your heaven is in my eyes!
You are not alone.
I shall collect all your tears
I will walk with you and support you!
Smile and hope! I am Love!
Are you surrounded by blood and mire?
I am Divine! I am Oblivion!
I am the God who saves the World
I descend from Heaven and make this Earth
A heaven! Ah!
I am love, love, love.”
But it’s the music that makes it. It’s the one Tom Hanks makes Denzel Washington listen to in Philadelphia (but that’s Callas).
ranchandsyrup
lassen’s an old volcano. i really enjoy the hike up it. My brother works on the Lassen nat’l forest and does some skiing on Lassen during the winters.
ranchandsyrup
@Tehanu: The book about Ishi is awesome. I think it is still required reading in CA public schools.
eta: The Ishi in two Worlds book.
Mustang Bobby
I spent ten summers — 1976-1986 — as a camp counselor in the Rocky Mountains outside of Estes Park, Colorado. Every morning of those ten years I woke up to see the Mummy Range across the valley.
This photo is on my wallpaper on my computer at home, along with a small shrine to that place in a bookshelf here at home. I may be a Quaker, but there is truly magic in the mountains and peace in the valley.
Cermet
Such images are very nice unless one is ill, or hungry … money is the key, not images; after that, yes, such places can be a way to recover from stress (as long as it is not caused by the two issues I discussed … .)
hitchhiker
I guess . . . I don’t try to make myself feel better, which in my experience isn’t possible.
Partner diagnosed with inoperable brain tumor
Beloved cat found dead in the street
Husband breaks his neck and becomes quadriplegic
Brutal shit happens to be brutal, and there’s just nothing for it but to suffer and wait for the reasons to go forward to assert themselves, which they eventually do. When our cat was killed, the person who loved her best was our 10 yr old daughter. She looked at me through her tears that night and asked if she was going to wake up feeling like she used to — happy . . .
No, honey. Not tomorrow. But sometime. And that’s all I know how to do. Face it, let it shred you, and surround yourself with people and animals who need to be loved.
ruemara
I love to read, probably too much because I should be writing. It’s an effective transportation device for mind and soul. But the best thing is to wander outside for a bit. This was work I did for World Water Day where I spent hours on my belly in the mud of the sacramento wetlands areas. If I had my old ipod full of tunes, a picnic basket of water and maps to even more natural spots, I might be a lot happier.
RSA
Some years ago I bought a scanner that would do a reasonable job with negatives, and I digitizing a couple of hundred old photographs. My wife and I had traveled a lot in our 20s, when we were living in Europe, and we had albums and loose photos that I just never looked at. Now on hard days, my screen saver gives some comfort.
(I’ve spent days with my wife in the Neuro-ICU of different hospitals, and those photos of places we’ve gone together hold important memories.)
Gin & Tonic
Way late to this thread, but Thierry Legault is a god.
realbtl
@The Dangerman:
I’m headed up that way on the scooter 8-1. I usually go to Moraine to avoid the crowds at LL. It’s nice living only 300 miles away, I get to go every year at least once.
Tom Levenson
@Gin & Tonic: Yup.
Comrade Jake
Nice post. I’ve had the good fortune to visit many of these places, from Maine to Colorado. I grew up in NH and love the NE, but the scenery in the southwest really is captivating.
Does anything really compare to Rocky Mountain National Park? Man that place is majestic. Arches is another place that blew me away.
dmbeaster
Mountains have always been my solace. And my favorites are the Sierras, with many many serene moments spent there in many places. Another special place is the Whites and the bristlecones. Always happy going there.
Debbie(aussie)
I am about to and sit here, with a coffee in the sun and warm my body and my soul. A beautiful park. Has a nature park(zoo of sorts) too. Think I will visit the animals as well.
Fort Geek
Yes. My car. I’d been looking for a Citation X-11 to replace my stock Citation. For all the hate heaped on these little cars, both of them have been nothing but dependable and fun as hell to drive. I found an ’81 X-11 for sale, bought it and had it trucked up from South Florida. It was in pretty rough shape, but I had it drivable in 3 weeks. Within a year I had the worst of the bugs worked out and a lot of pride in the fact that I did it all myself.
When I’m in a dark place mentally, I just grab the keys.
Kurt Montandon
… can we not post pictures that encourage people to come here? We’ve got enough tourists as it is.
(Sitting fifteen miles from where this picture was taken).