Lance Mannion

Weather Report. Sunday morning, December 8, 2019: All the weather and everything I'm reading must converge

Mined from the notebooks, Sunday morning, December 8, 2019. Posted Sunday morning, December 29, 2019.

Flannery O'Connor, short story writer and novelist, and Catholic intellectual, on the front steps of her home in Midgeville, Georgia, in 1959. Photo by Floyd Jillson of the Atlanta Journal Consitution, via AP, via the New York Times.

Sunday: 8 a.m. 7 degrees! Correction: 9 degrees. Much better. Productive day so far. 1 mug of hot chocolate, 2 cups of coffee downed. 1 bowl of oatmeal, raisins and spice. 2 stories about last night’s Knicks game read. Knicks lost a heartbreaker to the Pacers, 104-103. Knicks could have tied it up and sent the game into overtime but Julius Randle missed a free throw with 0.1 seconds left on the clock. 3 poems by Charles Wright read---”Deep Measure”, “Thinking of Winter at the Beginning of Summer”, “Jesuit Graves”. “Jesuit Graves” begins with a weather report from the Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, Ireland, July 3, 1995:

Midsummer. Irish overcast. Oatmeal-colored sky. …

Glasnevin is the final resting place of many long-dead Jesuits, including the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The poem ends with what I took as a reference to one of Hopkins’ poems…

Whatever rises comes together, they say. They say.

The they that say are paraphrasing the line "Everything that rises must converge" and I took them to include Flannery O’Connor and I thought, “That’s where she got it. Of course.” O’Connor was a fiercely devout Catholic with a contrarian bent that sometimes bent toward the border of the heretical. She’d have made a good Jesuit. Hopkins would have been a source of inspiration. Turns out the title of her story and the collection that contains it were taken from “The Phenomenon of Man” by the Jesuit priest, philosopher, and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard’s writings helped persuade the Catholic Church to come around on the theory of evolution. I read “The Phenomenon of Man” when I was in college and understood about every third word. I still can’t tell you what the noosphere is exactly. I think his Omega Point, the point towards which everything that rises converges, is kind of like entropy but with intelligence. I think. He took the word from the Book of Revelation: "I am the Alpha and the Omega." Flannery O’Connor went to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She’s one of the reasons I went there. So Wright’s they includes Teilhard and O’Connor. And himself, and, I guess, me.

Teilhard reached his Omega Point in 1955. O’Connor reached hers in 1964. She died of lupus. She’s buried in Memory Hill Cemetery in her hometown of Midgeville, Georgia. Teilhard’s Jesuit grave is not far from here in Hyde Park. It’s on the grounds of what was St Andrew’s-on-Hudson Jesuit novitiate. The Jesuits closed shop there in 1968 and sold the property in 1972 to...the Culinary Institute of America. If you go there and ask they’ll give you the key to the cemetery and you can visit Father Teilhard’s grave. Next time we’re in Hyde Park, I’ll stop and ask.

Somewhere in the house is a copy of “The Phenomenon of Man”. On a nearby shelf is “Everything That Rises Must Converge”. On another shelf is "The Oxford Book of English Verse". I should dig one or the other or all three out and do some reading. But weather reports shouldn’t require that sort of homework. I’m just going to have another cup of coffee and re-read Wright’s poem. Here it is...

Midsummer. Irish overcast. Oatmeal-colored sky.
The Jesuit pit. Last mass
For hundreds whose names are incised on the marble wall
Above the gravel and grassless dirt.
Just dirt and the small stones---

how strict, how self-effacing.

Not suited for you, however, Father Bird-of-Paradise,
Whose plumage of far wonder is not formless and not faceless,
Whatever you might have hoped for once.
Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, 3 July 1995.
For those who would rise to meet their work,

that work is scaffolding.

Sacrifice is the cause of ruin.
The absence of sacrifice is the cause of ruin.
Thus the legends instruct us,
North wind through the flat-leaved limbs of the sheltering trees,
Three desperate mounds in the small, square enclosure,

souls God-gulped and heaven-hidden.

 

P. Gerardus Hopkins, 28 July 1844-8 June 1889, Age 44.
And then the next name. And then the next,
Soldiers of misfortune, lock-step into a star-colored tight dissolve,
History's hand-me-ons. But you, Father Candescence,
You, Father Fire?

Whatever rises comes together, they say. They say.

---"Jesuit Graves" by Charles Wright, collected in "Oblivion Banjo: The Poetry of Charles Wright".

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Sunday before dawn, December 15, 2019: Hot Chocolate Tree

Posted Sunday morning, December 15, 2019.

Sunday: 4:15 a.m. 40 degrees. Wind from the WSW in gusts up to 10 mph. Gust earlier moved the wreath on the front door, wire backing scraping against the portal. Calm now. Furnace roaring. Hot chocolate by the light of the tree.

Weather Report. Wednesday morning, December 4, 2019: What color weather are you having?

Posted Wednesday morning, December 4, 2019.

Wednesday: 6;56 a.m. 26 degrees. Wind out of the SW at 6 mph with gusts up to 9 mpn. Cloudy day ahead with a chance of a snow flurry this afternoon. 24 hours ago the scene out the window was tinted blue. This morning it’s silver outside. The weather on any given day isn’t just temperature, precipitation, clouds, and wind. It’s color and light. Not a snow day. No 2 hour delay. Errands to run and no excuse to avoid them. Another day on the road until after dark. But for the moment I get to sit here and enjoy the weather. How’s it by you? What color are you having?

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report, Tuesday morning, December 3, 2019: Nice to feel the world isn't pushing us out the door

Posted Tuesday morning, December 3, 2019.

Tuesday: 6:42 a.m. 26 degrees. Wind 4 mph out the North. More snow overnight. Still hasn’t let up. Flurries now. The view out the window is all in blue, the last of the moonlight and the first rays of the sun bouncing off the fallen snow. Mrs M having a slice of her breakfast favorite peanut butter toast. “Lance, there are worse addictions.” Mannion guys still asleep. Schools are on a two-hour delay. Means Oliver gets to sleep in but will get paid for a full day’s work. Ken doesn’t have class today. Mrs M and I feel relieved too, even though we have no place we have to be today. We treat snow days and school delays as if we've been given permission to stay inside and do nothing but relax and enjoy the warmth and comfort of home. A two-hour day isn’t as good as a full snow day, but it’s nice to feel the world isn’t pushing us out the door.

Weather Report. Tuesday morning, November 26 2019: Frost without poetry

Posted Wednesday morning, November 26, 2019.

Tuesday: 8:00 a.m. 32 degrees. Bright and sunny. No clouds. Strong shadows on the neighbor’s roof. Wind 3 mph out of the SE. Supposed to get up to 57 degrees later. Now there’s still frost. Frost on the car windows. Frost in the grass. Frost on the fallen outlining the edges and veins of the fallen leaves in white.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. November 11, 2019: Cold with showers and a hundred percent chance of increased caffeination

Posted Monday morning, November 11, 2019.

Monday. Mom Mannion's back porch at the old Mannion Homestead. 6:46 a.m. 40 degrees. No wind. Not even a hint of a breeze. Out on the porch waking myself up by having coffee in the chilled air. Expected the cold to drive me in before I finished my first cup. Now finishing my second and considering a  third. A light jacket and I’m fine. Sun not yet fully up. There’s a squirrel making its way along the top of the wire fence in the far back of the yard, the squirrel making its presence almost visible by a squirrel shaped shifting of the shadows and the fence by inspiring the question “What else can be holding that squirrel shape up?”  But the leaves on the ground nearer in are as bright as copper and shine in the grass that’s as green as summer’s, and there’s just enough light to make these notes by. Chickadees buzz in the neighbor’s pines. Now there’s the sound of light rain falling on the leaves and rustling among the leaves on the ground at the foot of the invisible fence that might be two squirrels making their way in the opposite direction as the first shadowy one. The windows are misting over. I think I will have that third cup.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Sunday afternoon, October 20 2019: "Life's short, eat cookies" says the sign...Sorry, not when there are apple donuts fresh out of the oven to be had!

Posted Wednesday morning, October 23, 2019.

Sunday. Tantillos Farm Market. 12:26 p.m. 54 degrees. Wind NNW 1 mph. Cloudy, gray, fog over the orchards in the distance. Mist turning to rain turning to mist turning back to rain. Day started off a beautiful fall day, perfect morning for picking apples and pumpkins. But we were slow to get going and by the time we got to Tantillos it wasn’t the best weather for tramping out into the fields. But it was good weather for staying warm and dry inside the stand and breathing in the aroma of pies and apple cider donuts baking in the kitchen in back. “Life’s Short, Eat Cookies” the sign over the kitchen window says but we gave the cookies a pass and took home a dozen donuts fresh out of the oven, along with a half gallon of local cider and a cheerful-looking pumpkin picked off a table out front. Carving’s next weekend. The donuts and cider are already gone.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Tuesday morning, October 15, 2019: A cardinal and a blue jay greet the day in their different idioms and the moon calls it a night

Posted Tuesday morning, October 15, 2019.

Tuesday. 7:10 a.m. 34 degrees. At the moment there’s no wind. Supposed to get blustery. 15 mph from SSE with gusts up to 24 mph. Clear sky fully light although according to the app it is only now sunrise. Moon’s still up, above the neighbor’s roof, white and nearly full, framed between the two large maples on her front lawn. Going to get up into the mid-60s later but it’s barely above freezing right now. No frost but when I go outside barefoot and in my pajamas to try---and fail---to get a better picture than the one I took out the front window and step out onto the lawn the dew-drenched grass is ice cold underfoot. A cardinal cheeper-cheeper-cheepers a ringing good morning. He’s answered by a louder blue jay screeching rustily as she flies between the trees, “Can it, Mr Cheerful!”. She’s late for work and the kids need to get up and ready for school.

Weather Report. Friday, October 4, 2019: It's fall. Do you know where your rake is?

Posted Saturday morning, October 5, 2019.

Mount Beacon, Dutchess County, New York, seen from the west side of the Hudson River. (We were traveling on the east side.) Copyrighted photo by Vijai Kalathur from his book Hudson Valley Illustrated.

Friday. 12 p.m. 61 degrees. Heading south along Route 9 after dropping Ken off at school. Approaching Fishkill, aiming to cross the river at Beacon. Leaves in the air over the road blowing straight at us but none slapping the windshield. Air we're pushing ahead of us lift them over the hood and roof or force them to veer off to the sides. The turnoff to the bridge is going to come up before we’ll be able to see Mount Beacon, but the Hudson Highlands are coming into view to the southeast. Think we’re looking at Quaker Ridge. Low gray clouds overhead and apparently stretching to New York City, but the sun’s breaking through to the east and shines on the ridge, lighting up the leaves on the trees on the hillsides bright scarlet and orange-red. Mrs M observes “There’s a sight that screams fall.” She re-thinks her word choice. Scream doesn’t connote how peaceful and comforting the scene is. “Maybe it whispers it.” I split the difference. “I think it just says it, matter of factly. ‘Hello, it’s fall. Do you know where your rake it?’”

Weather Report. August 27 2019: The blue-ing of Mrs M's hydrangeas

Posted Tuesday morning, August 26, 2019.

The bowl is full of coffee grounds, in case you're wondering what you're looking at. When I took this picture back in early July, they were slated for spreading around the roots of the hydrangea bushes by the porch. Like their gardeners, the hydrangeas here at the Mannionville Ranch like their morning jolt of caffeine.

Tuesday. 7:49 a.m. 51 degrees. Supposed to get up to 72 by this afternoon. Wind from the SSE at 5 mph. Cloudy but the clouds are high so it’s gray but not gloomy. No rain in the forecast. Thunderstorms tomorrow. Weather app predicts what I consider perfect summer weather for the end of the week. Sunny. Highs near 80 during the day, lows in the 50s at night. But fall’s coming on. Our flowers are showing signs. The blackeyed susans are doing fine. The coneflowers, though, are having a hard time keeping their heads up, and a few have toppled. The hydrangeas have blown. The few petals left on their withered blossoms have turned an ugly and burnt-looking pale pink draining to a lifeless white. But they were beautiful while they lasted. Bluer and fuller and heartier and happier-looking than I remember they’re having been in many years. Must be due to Mrs M’s tending. At the beginning of the summer I read that hydrangeas do best in acidic soil and that an environmentally friendly way to acidify the soil is to spread coffee grounds around their roots. Mrs M liked this idea and all season she’s been diligently following the advice. This has been good for her as well as the hydrangeas. One of the symptoms of her tumor and hydrocephalus that I missed was that she lost interest in her gardening, which she enjoyed almost as much as her cooking.. I attributed it to her work schedule making her too tired and keeping her too busy. She’s not back to form, yet. Maybe next spring. But tending the hydrangeas has made her happy, and the coffee grounds may have done the trick, although, like I said, I give the credit to Mrs M.

Here’s what the blossoms looked like at their bluest in the middle of July…

Filed under How the Weather Was and Diary of Her Recovery.

Weather Report. Saturday evening, August 24, 2019: Summer waning

Saturday night, August 24, 2019.

Saturday. 8:24 p.m. 67 degrees. Passing clouds. Breeze from the northeast, 3 mph.. Late evening grocery run. Twilight when I went into the supermarket. Near dark when I came out. Fully night by the time I was halfway home. Summer waning.

File under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Sunday morning, July 28 2019: "Kvetch! Kvetch!"

Mined from the notebooks Sunday morning, July 28, 2019. Posted Sunday morning, August 4.

I need to become more fluent in catbird: Grey Catbird looking slightly irritated, the typical expression of its species. Photo by Ryan Schain. Courtesy of the Macaulay Library, via the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Sunday. 7:36 a.m. 76 degrees. Feels warmer. Real Feel 69 says the weather app but it feels even warmer than that. Probably the humidity. 96 percent. And that there’s no breeze. Wind at 0 mph. Catbirds are feeling as chatty as usual. Heat doesn’t seem to be cramping their style. Like I would know. Maybe they’re complaining about it. Would be hard to tell even if I was more fluent in catbird. They always sound as if they’re complaining about something. In fact, it’s not taking to much of a poetic license to transliterate their rusty gate call as “Kvetch! Kvetch!”

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Very early Sunday morning, August 4, 2019: The preferred late night snack of bloggers

The Old Mannion Homestead. Sunday 2:09 a.m. 66 degrees. Wind SSW. 3 mph. Up late working out on the porch. Peepers peepering nonstop.From inside the house, the musical drip of the faucet in the kitchen sink, drops hitting a knife and making it ring on a plate that won't get washed until morning, sounding like a bird piping contentedly in its sleep. Very light breeze bringing a chill through the open jalousies. Thinking I need a sweatshirt. Knowing I need fortification. Wheaties may be the breakfast of champions, but Cheerios with blueberries is the preferred late-night snack of bloggers.

 

Weather Report. Wednesday morning, July 17, 2019: A Summer for Butter Birds

Mined from the notebooks, Wednesday, July 17, 2019. Posted Sunday morning, July 28.

American Goldfinch on a mullein stalk, a more stable perch than the thistles in front of our house. Photo by Gary Fairhead, courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Wednesday. 6:55 a.m. 74 degrees---already! No wind. 88 percent humidity. Supposed to get up to 90 by midaftertoon. Goldfinch on telephone wire. Flies towards the house. Lands on a thistle in front of the window. The thistle bounces under his weight. Decides he doesn’t like it. Flies back up onto the wire, back to me now, surveying the neighborhood for a more stable perch near food. This has been a summer for goldfinches, not just in the neighborhood, but in the area. See them at the ends of low branches and at the top of tall bushes wherever we go. Bird populations fluctuate from year to year. Some years there are more of a species than others. Been a summer for cardinals too. Usually their peak is winter and early spring.  Rosalie---Uncle Merlin’s mom who still seems to make her presence felt even though she’s been gone 27 years now---loved goldfinches. Called them butter birds. The first time I visited her gravesite in the memorial garden behind the Episcopal church in Chatham her name hadn’t been put on the plaque inside the door yet. There were no markers in the garden. So I just took a seat on the bench and let myself miss her. I wasn’t alone there though. There was a bird perched on the overhang over the door into the church from the garden. One of her butter birds.

Weather Report. Friday, July 5, 2019: An old familiar face

Adapted from the Twitter feed and posted Friday morning, July 5, 2019.

American Goldfinch: Breeding male perched among apple blossoms. Uncredited photo via Wild Birds Unlimited.

Friday. 7:36 a.m. 61 degrees. High light gray sky. No wind. Weather app says 96% humidity. Can that be right?  Not yet uncomfortable out on the porch but can feel the heat building. High of 87 predicted. Goldfinch just made an attempt to land in our bushes. He couldn't get a good purchase and flew off. Closest one has come to the house in a long time which means it's the closest I've been to one in a long time. Probably he was looking to get at the thistles. All About Birds recommends planting native thistles to attract them. Most years we pull them before they bloom, thinking of them as weeds. This year I left them alone and they’re now several feet tall and looking like flowers instead of weeds. Goldfinches seem to come and go year to year around here. Some years we have a lot of them in the neighborhood. Some years it seems there are hardly any. This year is a bounty year. Good to see an old familiar face.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Friday, May 31 2019: Roadside attractions

Posted Friday morning, May 31, 2019.

Friday. 8:23 a.m. 66 degrees. Clear blue sky. Beautiful morning here on the road home from dropping Oliver off at the school where he’s subbing today. Took a roundabout route and pulled off at the graveled turn around just above Forest to take a picture of the Trump flag mounted on the garage across 32. No breeze to lift it. A red-winged blackbird flew up out of a stand of reeds next to the car. Perched on a telephone wire, and turned to look back on where he came from with a keenly observant and wary air. Wondering if I was there to disturb the nest, I guess. Opposite roadside yellow with wildflowers I’ll identify when I get home. Picked a bouquet for the purpose that will go into a vase on the kitchen table to surprise Mrs M when she gets up to have her coffee.

Weather Report. Monday, May 27, 2019: Memorial Day Morning at Valley Forge

An appropriate place to begin honoring Memorial Day: Washington Memorial Chapel, Valley Forge National Park. This morning around eight, Monday, May 27, 2019.

Wednesday. 8:03 a.m. 66 degrees. Another beautiful morning at Valley Forge. Not as warm or humid as yesterday. An actual breeze freshening the air and causing the shadows of the leaves to play under the trees. Pulled into the chapel lot hoping to pick up some stray WiFi. No luck. Drove over to Von Stueben's statue. No WiFi there but the view across the parade ground is nicer than the scaffolding at the chapel. A mockingbird going through his routine perched on top of the Baron's cocked hat.

Weather Report. Tuesday, May 21, 2019: "No place is special except we make it so through myth and habitude"

Posted Tuesday morning, May 21, 2019.

“Moonlight” by Winslow Homer, 1874. Via Wikimedia.

Tuesday. 5:30 a.m. 45 degrees. Wind out of the north, 6 mph. It’s not August. It’s not the middle of the night. It’s five-thirty. Just after dawn. It was raining, softly, but it’s stopped. I’m not out on a deck. I was on the front porch with my coffee, not tea, but it got too chilly. But this poem by Sam Hamill describes my morning so far perfectly, at least the mood and the physical feel of it. So at the moment I love every line of it---except the last stanza. Where does the speaker get off thinking all his wife has to worry her in her sleep is that her sentimental old fool of a husband is wandering about in the night again, composing a poem that uses her as a convenient image? Mrs M’s still asleep, sighing in her dreams but probably not because she’s worried I’m out at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, pretending to write, and listening to the breeze that followed the soft summer rain stirring the leaves of our rose bushes which won’t blossom for another couple of weeks but when they do they’ll hold those red blossoms for more than a day. Still…good poem.

I woke past midnight
to the slightly burnt orange odor
of soft summer rain.

My wife slept beside me,
her breath punctuated with
the little sighs of a dreamer. Outside, pale moonlight
shone through the clouds, the great
evergreens dripping.

the katsura at the far end
of the garden turning
bright yellow already, although

it was early August.
I made a cup of tea and went
out to stand on the deck. I've clung to this place
like Han Shan-tzu
clung to his cave near the temple

on his beloved mountain.
I've watched these trees reclaim
a chunk of forest---slash,

waste and underbrush
when I came here
thirty years ago. No place is special
except we make it so
through myth and habitude. The forest reclaims itself
as best it can. Can I
do less? "No road leads the way," 
Kotaro duly noted his echo
of Han Shan's echo of Lao Tzu,
and hundreds of years between. I love beyond words this quiet rain
in these trees, the rose
whose stark white blossom lasts only a day, this garden
in moonlight, and the woman
who sighs, worried in her dreams. about her sleepless paramour
who rises in the night
to smell the rain.

---“Summer Rain” by Sam Hamill, collected in “Almost Paradise: New Poems & Translations”.

Weather Report. Monday, April 15 2019: Watching the tornado watch go by

Mined from the notebooks, early Monday morning, April 15, 2019. Posted late Tuesday morning, April 16.

Monday. 6:34 a.m. 56 degrees. Wind out of the east, 3 mph.  Startled awake at four by wind and rain and thunder and Oliver coming downstairs with his laptop to report a tornado watch. Rain heavy on the deck, the roof, and the porch outside the door. Loudest on the porch because the gutter was overflowing and the water was spilling out of it in a curtain that rattles the aluminum and slaps on the wood. The wind was gusting from the southwest at 29 mph. The tornado watch included our area and counties to the south and southeast all the way to New York City. The weather app said a severe thunderstorm warning was in effect until 4:15. Sure enough. Almost on the dot. Rain stopped, wind died, front had moved on. Silence. Lasted for about an hour then the birds start singing. They’re still at it. Sun’s up. Rain started falling again. A light shower this time. It’s let up but the prediction is it’ll be on and off all the rest of the day, sometimes heavy, sometimes just more showers. Wind will kick up again too. But the tornado watch has been cancelled and for now all is calm outside and cozy, snug, and warm within.

Filed under How the Weather Was.

Weather Report. Monday, March 25, 2019: Almost

Mined from the notebooks, Monday morning, March 25, 2019.

Wednesday: 9:30 a.m. 43 degrees. Wind out of the NE 8 mph. Power’s out. Been out for about an hour. Crews from the power company are at work putting up new telephone polls. Two long-bedded bucket trucks in front of our house. Couple more around the corner on the cross street, plus the crew chief’s pickup. Each of the bucket trucks carrying several poles in their beds. Good to see. Always good to see work being done. I’m not sure but I think the company’s stepped up its maintenance over the last few years. Seems that any day there’s nice weather wherever I go around the area I pass a crew at work. They’re not waiting for the old poles to rot or crack or blow over or for the bugs to eat them out or woodpeckers to dig at them going after the bugs. I remember it being an event when I was a kid and the Niagara Mohawk trucks came to our street to replace a pole that had split. Niagara Mohawk was terrific about getting the power back on after a storm. The object now is to keep the power on during storms. So our company’s become more assiduous about tree trimming and replacing poles that have barely weathered let alone rotted. So the wind and the snow don’t take as many lines down. Anyway...it’s always fun to watch the crews at work and watch the buckets going up and down. It’s a nice morning. Sunny. Breeze so light I hardly feel it when I step outside to supervise from the porch for a few minutes before going back inside to watch from the living room window. It’s almost a nice enough morning to sit out on the porch steps with my coffee and watch the whole process from there. Almost.

Filed under How the Weather Was.