as the light fades

[15_the_circle]

[OT from cottage renovations]

while out for a walk as today's light was running out and found that my attention was drawn to these grass tips. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

---

church parking lot,
Chestnut Road

Maple Lake

you never know what you might find floating in Maple Lake. 

Comments

self crit

[15-the-circle.livejournal.com]

I'm really not satisfied with any of these images, nor with any from the past month or so.  perhaps things will improve with the arrival of new glasses.  I sure as heck hope so. 

the floater really is disturbing.  it gets creepier any time I take another look at it. 

Re: self crit

[collpepper.livejournal.com]

I think you are being toooo hard on yourself. I love these..They are so crisp, I can almost feel them through my fingers.

What a great thing to find in a lake...a smiley face...hehe...

[15-the-circle.livejournal.com]

thanks, it's always gratifying when some image works for another.  but the grass tufts did fall a bit short of what I was trying to do with them.  this is why I am hoping that better corrective lenses will bring about a better alignment between the mind's eye and the ones I live with. 

perhaps I hadn't been completely clear about the floater: I do think that image does an excellent job of conveying a sense of sinister creepiness.  I should admit to having fiddled the brightness/contrast ever so slightly with PSE.  what can I say?  it was calling out for it, and I couldn't help but respond. 

Re: self crit

[margravine.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree about the merit of these images. Especially the floater. Gah. Sinister as all get-out. That is brilliant found art there!

[15-the-circle.livejournal.com]

Maple Lake is in the West Woods; it has a small beach, a dock with a diving board, a little island (from which the image was taken), more than a few floating weeds and lots of little fishies.  all of our children learn to swim there.  though I don't know whose discarded toy it was, I probably do know the kid or their family. 

it is quite possible that my heightened sensitivity to the sinister was brought about by having looked at Oliver Stone's biofic of Jim Morrison and The Doors (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101761/) a couple of evenings ago when I should have been getting some other things done.  not a good late night choice at a time when one is already on the edge. 

[margravine.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely. I'm really enjoying the thought of all the Grove children having their swimming rites of passage in a lake rather than going to the local YMCA. Gloriously picturesque. Have you ever seen that Twilight Zone episode where the man falls asleep on the train and goes to Willoughby? I think we both live in Willoughbys.

Tabor used to have a lake just down the road within walking distance, but it was never a part of the CMA owned property and somewhere along the line it became a separate community. It's actually pretty interesting in itself as a snapshot of a 30s lake community out of time. It has little rough cottages that were built in the 30s through 50s or so and is still summer only. A few people in Tabor have places there and I hear its very rustic.

This area is comprised largely of converted lake communities. I just thought about it for a few seconds and came up with 7 just in the towns of Denville and Parsippany which places them within 2 to six miles of me. There are more, but I can't even remember all of their names. It's really pretty entertaining because everything will seem quite normal as you drive along the major roads, but any turn is just as likely to land you in the middle of a bunch of tiny little lakeside houses as it is to put you in a boring suburban subdivision. My favorite has little log, stone and half-timbered tudor cottages that look like something out of a storybook.

[15-the-circle.livejournal.com]

>
> I'm really enjoying the thought of all the Grove children having
> their swimming rites of passage in a lake rather than going to
> the local YMCA.
>

it came awfully close to not happening.  years ago, long before I came to the Grove, there had been a proposal for the Town to build a swimming pool.  it would have been paid for by selling off the West woods in which Maple Lake is located.  fortunately for all of us, wiser heads prevailed.  but we haven't always been that lucky: the lovely old wooden Auditorium was torn down in the 1960s, its fate sealed by a single vote on the Town Council.  its site is now graced with an asphalt basketball court.  years later the person who cast that vote told me how proud he was of having done so; it took a great deal of restraint on my part to refrain from giving him a strong and visceral reaction. 

that was just before the notion of historic preservation got going: it was the demolition of New York's Penn Station that really gave it national attention. 

>
> Have you ever seen that Twilight Zone episode where the man falls
> asleep on the train and goes to Willoughby? I think we both live
> in Willoughbys. 
>

though I haven't I presume it's like Jack Finney's 1950 short story about the 3^rd level (http://www.timetravelreviews.com/shorts/about_time.html) of Grand Central Station.  the Grove, and some of the other camp meeting site communities enumerated in post/reply threads above, have that out-of-time quality that I treasure.  it takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of many Grovers, and our allies, to keep things like this but it's worth every bit of it. 

 
next time y'all do a Virginia run, you should consider taking a few moments for a visit the Grove. 

grass

[(Anonymous)]

I just love the double grass photo -- I love the background. I was afraid to open the lake photo -- so when I went to comment and saw the diabolic face I was relieved. bw