Art Things

There are new pictures in the Artthings web log. They are things I've worked on while resting and stepping away from wood chopping.

Last week I was assisted to the top of a very large boulder called Jockey Cap. That might be about it for this season. The trip up and then down was pretty good. Liz and I doing the tether over the hard parts. We are getting pretty good at it. We went back down with the tether also. My wheelchair facing backward, it was sort of a belay technique. It worked quite well. Only an hour up and an hour down. While the hike is not that challenging for adults and even young children on legs, I thought it might take over two hours for us just to get up. The head lamp and extra layer never came into use.

Again I was reminded what it might be like to go out exploring without the wheelchair increasing the challenge. Again I was reminded that gems are not always beyond reach. Again teamwork fostered both connection and freedom.

The camera battery bonked not far above the start. I'd like to go back and get some pictures of the rock and the adaptive hiking techniques we are developing. I'd like to get pictures of a number of things, so maybe the season isn't really so over.

Swimming for exercise has entered the game. I just bought goggles yesterday. Skiing is coming up also. I bought a helmet months ago. And then there is the more sedentary activity of driving. I seem to have bought a car. Maybe I will be driving: to the pool; to the slopes; to the writing and blogging shop, to the papier mache` shop, the number drawing shop and maybe even the metal shop.

Hey Everybody, Come Check Out My Pictures

The Basin in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire

Mount Minsi at the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware Water Gap

Dingmans Falls in the Poconos above the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania

Bushkill Falls in the Poconos above the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania


Vernal Falls above the Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park in California

the Zodiac Route on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in California which meant over 1700 pull-ups in under 27 hours

Mauna Kea which eventually tops out at 13,700 feet in Hawai'i

Some pictures briefly recapping events in the Mount Washington Valley in New Hampshire

All Terrain

Two Saturdays ago terrain was a heavy metal band called Terrain, a very heavy metal band called Terrain. These were boys (men) from Lennon's in Upper Darby, PA. They were performing at the Rusty Nail in Havertown, PA. The landscape of their sound, though quite loud and dramatic, was varied and interesting to me.

Three days later it was a change of terrain via flight to Manchester, NH, and then the smooth terrain of the paved path to a geological feature called the Basin. That was a Tuesday.

Two days later terrain meant the terrain of new people and a seat at their Thanksgiving Dinner table. Today I realised that I am suffering from post traumatic shock in the form of a latent desire for more stuffing- more stuffing now and more stuffing soon after I finish the helping of stuffing I haven't even got in front of me. I'm told that by Christmas Day I will have the opportunity for more stuffing.

Since that most excellent Thanksgiving meal terrain has been other things also.

It has been dreamscape. It has been the terrain of images and moods which are the dreams I remember after waking. It has been the textures and metaphors of dreams described to me by some one close.

And then their are the dreams which are plans made but not yet met. Things in the future, goals, things made of hope and vision. Is this terrain the scape of fantasy or calendar or is there a such thing as a pragmatism which dreams but also approaches those real things of which the dreams are pre-thought reflections? I have been making plans toward the next year or so for a few months now, but I am at this point within the terrain where once future plans are present behaviors and actions.

I am in the terrain of the Mount Washington Valley. I am in hope. I am in creativity and I am in nurturing and kindness and like-mindedness and goodness and growth.

I am not in Minnesota at the antFarm where the terrain is quite similar to the heart and soul but somewhat different to the eye. I am not back home in East Lansdowne from where all things for me have come, from where I have embarked out onto the terrain of my existence. What I am not is not, yet still it is. It all is, for I am here where I am and all those things which I have seen and felt and done and desired are me and I am grounded in and flying above this terrain which is my me.