Spring Spawning
O to break loose, like the chinook
salmon jumping and falling back,
nosing up to the impossible
stone and bone-crushing waterfall –
raw-jawed, weak-fleshed there, stopped by ten
steps of the roaring ladder, and then
to clear the top on the last try,
alive enough to spawn and die.
I love those lines, Robert Lowell wrote them. I think Lowell is talking about freedom, pursuing desire, illogical sex drive, and the ability to really committ, to “break loose” (with the ten steps/ten commandments & your own failing self/raw jaw in the way).
Large fish are spawning in Cascadilla Creek that runs by my house. Inspiring and beautiful to see them struggling against each other in the shallows, and fighting the current.
They are not globe trotting salmon, but rather husky local fish, as long as my arm & quite solid. From my perusal of several fish guides, they are “Moxostoma Erythrurum” in latin, and that sounds more noble for the beauty I saw than calling them by their local names, “Golden Redhorse Suckers”.
Wanna see? here is the movie I took
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In undergraduate school, as I was being published right and left, accepted almost every time I submitted writing to a publication, true joy for me was the rainy New England collegiate cycling races, and the muddy cyclo-cross racing in the fall. The pic here is of the “usual suspects” of the Hampshire College cycling team after the UMass cyclo-cross race. From L to R is Chris, Able, Earl, Donnie, Me (with smashed bike) and Evan (wearing the rubber gloves he always used to race in during foul weather, note his gap toothed smile from a bike crash earlier that year).
The scarecrow was always too scratchy for Dorothy to really hug, he smelled like hay from close range, and after he got his brain, like most people he found true thinking a mixed blessing. He spent many hours in his original field, conversing with the flowers, consulting with the rain, right back where he started from, less happy than before (so he would sit, and think some more).
In the middle of week 4, now I just want to lie around, keep working on learning CSS, take long walks, read blogs on the computer, and do the dishes while listening to 
he said that what I am feeling is just about right, and please could I endure one more week of low key inactivity! now my coach does not want me to completely turn into a blob, but whatever I do physically needs to be super low key and fun…
My wife jessica is starting to ramp up the job search process, she came home yesterday with some interview worthy clothes. She looked so smashing I got out the digital camera. None of the pictures I took were as interesting as this one, where the animals came over and were checking her out. I would make some comment on how she cleans up nice, but she usually looks sharp. 
my father always said “if you want something done, give it to a busy person” I think there is an athletic corollary to that.. I think people are like 
