12 frogs read think get curious

Seeing things

I recently read Lawrence Weschler’s Everything That Rises. This means, of course, I’ve been noticing all sorts of convergences.

In my head, this post is due to reading Weschler’s book and using the visual bookmarking service we ♥ it. Looking back at the things I’d bookmarked, I started to see (imagine?) connections between the images.

Bare winter trees and the bones of the hands:

[credits: Amy Stein and Wacky Archives]

Mysterious avian and human group movements:

[credits: Andreas Weinand and Wayne Levin]

Small glowing enclosed spaces:

[credits: Paula Hayes and Mavis Yorks]

Squarish frames from wires, poles and trees:

[credits: Gene Smirnow and Ed Panar]

I’m not the first to read Weschler and blog these types of correspondences, and that is part of the fun. Things Look Like Things notices stuff like this and tells wonderful stories. (An Owl’s Dream really grabbed me.)

So I’ve been seeing things. After thinking I hadn’t seen one in years, I saw two chipmunks this past week. One was on the sidewalk across the street. Odd, because I don’t think of them as being city critters. (Then again I’ve seen a possum on my block, so Eastie may be wilder than I give it credit for.) The other I saw near the beach. Green grass is the backdrop for chipmunks, not cement or sand. It could be chipmunks were around before and I just wasn’t noticing them; at any rate I think I’m seeing them now because I was thinking about them, and because I’ve been spending time thinking about unexpected visuals. The brain and eyes are funny things that way.

What have you noticed lately? Seeing anything?

justifying even more books

Wheat, Windfarm in Kansas

originally uploaded by kathyv.

An Invisible Sign of My Own (page 123)

On Friday, listening to the now-familiar sound of retching in his room, I taught more subtraction to the second grade using word problems about the kids in the class: Ann DiLanno grew five heads in September and by October had only two heads. How many heads did she lose?

I have one head, Ann interrupted. I am not losing a single head.

I was fidgety because it was Friday, which meant tomorrow was Saturday, and after Saturday was Sunday, and that was two days of no work and all worry.

Aimee Bender’s novel — which I’m reading now — is about OCD and math. I guess that makes it a fitting subject for the page 123 meme.

If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged. Feel free to play along in the comments.