Helmet head

I have a principle against putting my picture on my blog, but this is an exceptional occasion, and I think you will be grateful.

As I was riding around the lake today, a little girl and her mother were getting out of their car.

“I like your hair,” the little girl said. Ignoring the amused look on her mother’s face, I thanked her, and she said I was welcome.

I could not suppress my curiosity as I continued around the lake and rode home. What did my hair indeed look like? How much of it was visible? It may be hard to believe, but I had not looked in the mirror back at home as I was gathering it into a ponytail and crowning it with my helmet.

Above is a photograph of my coiffure, essentially as it was seen by my admirer. There was about another hour of high-speed bicycling in a strong wind by the time I got home and took this photo, but I hope that vestiges of the glamour will still be perceptible.

The young lady’s praise is especially valuable to me because she appeared to be of African descent, and I think it’s reasonably likely that she has some experience with impressive hairstyles among her family and associates.

Most magnificent trees

For fun, here is a picture of a local tree I admire. It takes up an entire lot. The house next to it is included for scale.

Some blogger has put up a nice list of the ten most magnificent trees in the world, with photos. The subjectivity of such an exercise does not detract from its worthiness.

My favorite is the baobab; what about yours?

The Flower

Here is a little Easter Herbert for my reader(s). This poem is a longtime favorite of mine. I sort of wish it didn’t turn into a sermon at the end, but it is still a delicious piece of work.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! Ev’n as the flowers in Spring,
To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivell’d heart
Could have recover’d greenness? It was gone
Quite under ground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quick’ning, bringing down to Hell
And up to Heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing bell.
We say amiss
This or that is;
Thy word is all, if we could spell.

O that I once past changing were,
Fast in thy Paradise where no flower can wither!
Many a Spring I shoot up fair,
Off’ring at Heaven, growing and groaning thither;
Nor doth my flower
Want a Spring shower,
My sins and I joining together.

But while I grow to a straight line;
Still upwards bent, as if heav’n were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline:
What frost to that? what pole is not the zone,
Where all things burn,
When thou dost turn,
And the least frown of thine is shown?

And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my onely light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide:
Which when we once can finde and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

This book is realism and escapism thrown together in a strange soup, nonchalance spiced with melodrama, a brew of every flavor of bizarreness and impropriety. Eric Newby tells us the tale of taking off with a friend for remotest Afghanistan in the 1950s with allegedly little experience and preparation. He calls for no sympathy; tragedy is dismissed and pleasure denied. The reader must suspend disbelief at practically every turn.

We all know the feeling of doing something foolish and escaping the consequences. Newby seems to want to present his adventure as such a case, but there is clearly some understatement of his qualifications. He is funny, but I felt like he was trying too hard to deprecate their achievements. It got annoying. Even the reader who does not know their backgrounds as outdoorsmen and adventurers cannot question the determination of these two men. Newby describes disasters, disappointments, and pain, without self-pity. Somehow the account seems scrupulously honest and blatantly unbelievable at the same time. I suppose that is its charm.

That two men went to immense trouble to have this largely meaningless adventure was a consolation to me. Perhaps I wouldn't want to work closely with Eric Newby, but his carefree humor and his crazy story are enjoyable. I am all for stodginess and responsibility, but I can't help admiring, from afar, the courage of some of our planet's more oddly-dimensioned souls. Besides, anyone who would ride a bike around the office is a friend of mine.

Newby died late last year.