The leaf

A leaf landed
on the surface of a pond.
Small waves
circled outward like a rose
unfolding.
Fish nibbled at it.
Wind, like a giant finger
moved it gently across the smooth surface
pressed between water and sky.
Slowly,
after days, it
sank
in
pieces.
Some larger,
some smaller,
drifting silently to the
muddy floor. Only a leaf
in a quiet pond
on a clear day.
The smallest change
yet still occurred
still felt
and by me
not unnoticed.

Santa Fe to Beacon, 2005

I started this blog a couple of years ago as a way to tell the story of our migration from Santa Fe, NM to Beacon, NY. I didn't get very far with that, but here's another little installment.

Literally the day we left, while we were cramming the last of our belongings into our cars, Jose came by to show us the wonders he had worked with Moby, the 1972 El Camino he had bought from me earlier in the year. Now a SuperSport (upgraded from a 350 to a 396 engine), beautifully restored (and no longer white, thus no longer befitting the name I had originally bestowed), I knew she was in good hands.

Ah, the yellow and beige food for the weary traveler...

Beacon, New York

Knowing we'd never do it after we arrived, we had the house "gutted" (awful, awful term) while we were still in Santa Fe. We pulled in to Beacon in late August, on a sunny and not too humid afternoon, unloaded the dogs, houseplants, and other essentials.

The kitchen on arrival day.

The kitchen, slightly domesticated. Can't believe I washed dishes in that sink for over 2 years.

The moving truck arrived the next day (or was it two days later?). James pores over our new surroundings.

From the Enid Haupt Glass Garden at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitative Medicine. Most of the pictures I took on this day were of the garden, but this green hose caught my eye.

I've recently learned that the Glass Garden and its wonderful horticultural therapy program are slated to be dismantled to make room for more buildings (and no, no plans to put them back somewhere else, even though there are other courtyards on the campus). This would be a true tragedy.

My friend Mike gave me a first-hand account of his experience as a patient there when he suffered a traumatic brain injury. For him, the garden offered a reason to live, a life raft for a drowning man. You can read the full story, A Life Worth Living: The Garden as Healer, on the Therapeutic Landscapes Network Blog.

The original Pledge of Allegiance: Liberty and justice, and not a hint of god

Mural, Santa Fe, NM. Photo by Naomi Sachs

My favorite fun facts from the recent NYT book review by Beverly Gage about Jeffrey Owen Jones' The Pledge: The History of the Pledge of Allegiance:

The original salute, written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, was

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands--one nation indivisible--with liberty and justice for all."

Gage writes, "In the 1920s, patriotic groups like the American Legion campaigned to change 'my flag' to 'the flag of the United States of America,' anxious that immigrant children might secretly be pledging to the flags of their original homelands. Three decades later, Congress added the words 'under god' to distinguish American patriotism from 'godless Communism'..." I never did feel comfortable with that whole under god thing. Whatever happened to separation of church and state?

Another fun fact: The original pledge posture was not hand over heart, but hand held straight out in a salute, "a gesture that mysteriously began to lose popularity in the 1930s."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/books/review/Gage-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=under%20god...or%20not&st=cse

The pictures I don't get to show

Maybe it's time to post fewer pictures on Facebook and more here on my little neglected blog. I don't get to share the stranger pictures on the Therapeutic Landscapes Network Blog because they're just a little too...strange. But to me, beautiful nonetheless, or perhaps just interesting in a way that "pretty" isn't.

Hamamelis virginiana, Stonecrop Gardens

Milkweed pods and seeds

All photos are (obviously) by me, Naomi Sachs. If you steal them, I won't be happy, so don't.