Seaside

Posted on August 13, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 19

block Island High Speed Ferry to New London: Photo by Noelle

Someone’s Coke had exploded on the window; no telling how long ago, but it looked old and crusted. The waves fill in the scene between the running, brown spots telling a tale of holidays and luggage, children eating crushed sandwiches with chips and foamy soda. My nieces are giggling in the booth behind me and I pretend to read my book. In truth, the ocean moving beneath my window is far more intriguing. The girls launch off to the outer deck leaving the Coke and me and the dark green sea. Such a vast ocean full of life and dancing seagulls that laugh at soda and women longing for their vacation not to end.

I breathe deep and feel the sand still embedded in my sandals rubbing against my heal. The vacation may be over but my morning walks are alive within me as I sail for home.

State Beach Block Island, Rhode Island: Photo by Noelle

Some mornings the temptation to lie in bed would be great, but the island is a haven for bird migrations. The dawn is full of winged song and chattering old maids. Plus, I knew few walked the beaches in the morning leaving it mostly to myself. By nine o’clock people would be staking out their spots for the day, especially close to the water, but at the crack of dawn it’s a random dog walker and one or two folks likely fallen asleep on the beach from too much drink the night before.

State Beach Block Island, Rhode Island: Photo by Noelle

As I walk the surf rolls over my feet, a tempting lover, but hard to get. It’s in the way she pulls at my ankles then drifts back into the sea as if she could careless at my response. I chase her, as any sun-drenched lover would and she covers my legs with love. She could beguile the hardest soul winking delicately in the new dawn and makes positive beggars out of crabs whose claws outstretch demanding she return them home.

I collect stones and fill my pockets, smooth and black or mica-covered quartz the favorites. I walk, rubbing them, committing to a seaside rosary of sorts as I speak to spirits that pull my hair into the wind. Salt graces my lips and I lick it off for breakfast, smiling at the seagull who hovers wondering what I dine on. “The same as you, my friend. The same as you.”

Mohegan’s Bluff, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

I came upon a stingray, likely dead, but his eyes were still open and partially covered by a pool of water. I pulled him back into the seaweed thick surf and he quickly disappeared under the rolling garden. I could not tell if he lived or merely vanished in a tangle of kelp, but for some reason I felt very satisfied. After a time walking the beach I wondered at my need to deliver him from his death. We all must leave this plane at some point. The sight of death rarely disturbs me and I am at peace with the beautiful eco-system that has a purpose for even the decaying body. I sat on the sun-warmed sand and watched the surf for a long while. Clearly that day, I did not want either him or myself to be anywhere else but with the sea.

State Beach Block Island, Rhode Island: Photo by Noelle

Enchantment

Posted on August 10, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 20

Lazy Sunday: Photo by Noelle

I run my finger along the skin of my thigh. It is surprisingly smooth and soft. Knees bent the skin pulls taut and I can see the shape of the bones. I lay my hand flat over one knee and imagine I can feel the marrow alive and thriving at its center. These are my pieces. Pulled out of a toy chest and assembled into this form, specifically for this ride. I breathe in my good fortune, relishing the sound as the lungs fill with an expansiveness I had but all forgotten.

I remain still, my heart beating steady as spring rain – my breath slows to hear it. Each chamber opens the door to my life blood, as the grandest of hosts in a burgundy castle. “All are welcome here!” they call out and my blood flows in as giddy guests. The veins in my arms talk of banquet tables and vast dance floors where all life is on display. Fat oxygen molecules swinging as if ballerinas in and out of capillary beds hum my existence into life. I am humbled by the grace of single blue line mapping the tale of me.

The moment is brief as my senses remain tied to the dark chocolate I’d eaten a few moments ago. More bitter than sweet and rich as gold across my tongue. I feel the smile more than any facial change as I fall under my own enchantment. Beguiled by sensory facets that change as diamonds in sunlight. I wonder I had not noticed my beauty so thoroughly before. I cannot be disappointed, though. After so long a wait to make such a discovery now is pure magic.

I have lived inside this body for many decades and she surprises me still. Come close and I will show you the stone that has lived in my hand since childhood. A fall on a gravel driveway in the dark of a Halloween night left her there. Closer still and I will show you the scar where glass cut my back in a car accident and the place the surgeon’s knife lay fast upon my skin. Here you will see how my fingers bow slightly and over here the freckles that call to mind a constellation in a faraway galaxy. Let me show you the hands that age as all artist’s hands must. Weathered and wrinkled, traces of life beneath their nails. At this distance the green-gray pupil that has seen mountains and oceans fall beneath my feet will be readily apparent. She will, in all her extraordinary clarity, look back at you with immense openness.

Inch close enough to hear my whisper and it will thread the needle you have held out for me, magic upon your ear. For what am I, if not the very grace spirit is made of…

Hometown

Posted on August 6, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 20

Stamford Train Station: Photo by Noelle

I pass through her shadow much like passing through a lake spring. I catch a glimpse of her in baggy shirt and jeans by the State theater, but it’s only a ghost that passes into the shade of an elm. I felt her pulling my steps into the same sixteen year old’s rhythm on Washington Blvd and I forced myself to pick up the pace. She haunted me at the corner of Summer and Broad where the old Caldor’s Department store used to be. Just thinking about that old five and dime throws my thinking back forty years. I shiver as the closed in feeling of a girl’s bathroom swims into view. Children laughing and pulling at my clothes as they shove me into the stall door. I dressed in hand-me downs and cheap clothing that all the kids knew where it had been bought. I stop walking and let her ghost drift past as I turn my face into the sun on Atlantic.

Caldors marketing stock photo circa 1970

I look in boutique windows that I would have never looked in as a child and her ten year old shadow hovers at my hip. We were too poor to buy clothes in such places. Now I dally vaguely window shopping, I suspect because I can, but I need nothing. As I walk past the first McDonald’s in our town I remember my mother bringing home fries once when I was sick. Probably sounds like a curious luxury to a world gone wild on fast food, but in the 70’s it was a big deal. I had strep throat for the umpteenth time with fevers that got as high as 105. She packed me once in ice to bring the fever down and would lay with me running her fingers through my sweaty hair until I’d fall asleep. I often slept on the floor with the fans because it was the only cool place to be in the summer. Even now I remember how unbearably hot I felt and the gallons of ginger ale I drank. As the scent of the fryers comes to me on the street I remember the taste of the salted fries she brought home. She sat with me by the sliding glass doors where a breeze came in and we shared them. It makes me weep to think about it. The ten year old shadow takes my hand and we keep walking.

This is my hometown and yet I could not feel any less at home. Walking along is an immersion in a time capsule. I no longer run from my previous selves, but I feel their weight here. I feel the lack of self-worth and fear she had. So much confusion of how to act or how to be. Loneliness. Isolation. I am a thousand light years from here and yet I find I want to find her on the next street. Take her shopping. Hear her laugh and see that lightning smile. Tell her, as Dr Seuss told us all, “Oh the places you will go, my love. Oh the places you will go.”

Stamford Train Station: Photo by Noelle

Regarding My Absence

Posted on July 9, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 54

Hine Lake: Photo by Noelle

I have not been posting much of late and missing many of my friend’s blog posts. I thought I’d share a quick update.

I have made the decision to self-publish my meditation pieces. It occurred to me one day that if I don’t do this I’ll have immense regret. My mother spent a life time writing poetry on the backs of envelopes and dreaming of publishing her work. She never did and it was one of her greatest disappointments at the end of her life. Not too long ago I had one of those crystal moments when I realized if I didn’t do something wild and foolish soon, I’d be lying there thinking the same thing.

In the past two weeks I’ve signed the contract and paid the bill. The book was complete, but after some consultation I am restructuring it before it goes to Lulu.com. I have deadlines I’ve set for myself to have it all completed and submitted before the end of July. Thus, my absence from my own blog as well as many of yours. I plan on being back online in August. Until then I extend you all the happiest of summers or the most joyous of winters for my southern hemisphere friends.

I also give you this: If there are any dreams left in your back pockets, take them out. Lay them out on the table in front of you and ask yourself, “If today was the last day of my life, how would I feel about not having pursued this?” It’s worth asking.

Wish me luck.

Hine Lake: Photo by Noelle

Morning Wind

Posted on July 2, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 15

Before dawn: Photo by Noelle

A storm blew in before the sun could challenge its strength. The dining room curtains flew up, partial apparitions of old ghosts flying by my house, as the pre-dawn light suddenly seemed alive with movement. Leaves from house plants and yesterday’s mail lifted up off the kitchen counter, waves on a hidden sea. From clear, hot summer night to cool, damp twilight in a matter of minutes, my lungs filled with the changing atmosphere. I stood in the channel between the north and south windows and felt it electrify my skin with its caress. Rumi said never go back to sleep, the breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. So I stood there, still as stone, and let the storm blow in. Come to me, my love, I have missed you.

The Station: Part Three

Posted on June 25, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 15

Breakfast: Photo by Noelle

The clanking of pots caught my attention and I turned to look inside. A gray head bobbed behind the grill; I suspected he was doing prep work. The tables were half set up and the smell of bacon drifted out the cafe window. Listening recently to a lecture with Carol Tuttle, she guided a meditation where you experience the divine through your senses of touch, taste, smell, and so forth. Without hesitation my first thought was that God likely smells of bacon. I smiled sheepishly. I sometimes have deep vegetarian guilt.

Even at 6:30 on a Sunday morning the station is active with movement, though my own eye is more interested in the long angles. Nothing effects our inner clocks so completely than the long angle of sunlight at dawn and dusk. One elicits a feeling of promise, while the other – mystery.

Union Station: Photo by Noelle

Union Station and the Moon: Photo by Noelle

Amtrak: Photo by Noelle

People milled in coffee shops or sat on the benches by the Amtrak ticket window. Newspapers laid in laps or noses were buried deep in phones, while dreams of future destinations stuck out conspicuously from suit coat pockets and overstuffed purses.

The Flower Stand: Photo by Noelle

The flower stand was still closed, but full of spring blooms and a rainbow of tissue paper and inexpensive vases. I looked back at my reflection in the glass doors to the refrigerator case. A rose bloom appeared where my mouth should be committing me to only speaking love for the rest of the day.

The Station hotel: Photo by Noelle

I moved along the perimeter and stopped at the entrance to the hotel. I have never stayed at the Crawford, but the romance of it fills me with a timelessness and magic I haven’t felt in years. The concierge and I share gentle bows of good morning and I move on. I roam about the terminal for the better part of an hour, letting my ghosts wonder the gates and tracks, fingering imaginary maps to infinite destinations. There’s a beauty in not needing to go anywhere. I can simply indulge in the energy of the space without the frantic longing to be on my way. The mindfulness metaphor there is not lost on me. The Power of Now, as Tolle would say. If I stop and breathe deeply I can smell the scent of every train station on this earth, for they all hold decades and even centuries of diesel oil, engine smoke, luggage fibers, coffee grounds, newspaper print, and thousands of hungry soul’s anticipation in their rafters.

The Windows: Photo by Noelle

The Terminal: Photo by Noelle

Glitz and Glamour: Photos by Noelle

I stare at this last photograph on my phone and marvel how I can be a dozen different versions of myself, by allowing my mind to fall into a single image. I hear the call to track 3, followed quickly by eggs over easy with whole wheat toast. A door to the street opens and the smell of engine exhaust wafts into my nostrils. The flower girl steps behind the flower counter, the sound of jangling keys to open. The man seated to my left rises, still wearing both reading and sunglasses on his head, and begins to move. I breathe deeply.

I am a Time Traveler and this moment is my current home. While we are together, allow me to introduce myself.

The Station: Part II

Posted on June 18, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 18

Photos by Noelle

The photography meetup instructions were to be there no later than 6:30am on that Sunday morning. I probably should’ve left everyone a note “Come anytime between 6:30am and 7:30am, because the Zephyr is never on time”, but why spoil the anticipation. As it turned out, she presented herself, full of hydraulics and steam, at 7:45. As everyone grumbled about the delay I quietly sipped my coffee and admired her individuality. “Arrive whenever you want, honey. Nobody’s going anywhere until you get here.”

I have avoided a number of the meetups because I don’t have a camera. Just an iPhone. I have found all the lenses and tripods daunting in this group. No one has ever said a word to me or done anything to make me feel awkward, this is my own shit. I know it doesn’t matter on an intellectual level, but emotionally, I’m thirteen years old again getting beat up at the bus stop for not fitting in with the other kids. Cheap clothes, pudgy, dirty finger nails, greasy hair, nothing remotely fashionable, current or hip. I have probably never fit in, at any point in my life, but whenever I lack confidence I’m that poor, little girl, scrambling not to be noticed. Not that an iPhone isn’t hip or sophisticated. I’ve got a six, but in my mind I often feel this oddness of being the only one there with a phone and no paraphernalia.

Photography aficionados are a hearty and welcoming bunch. They love trading information and working their craft. Everyone is going to great lengths to set up their equipment and find the exact right angle and I’m just looking for a pole to lean against. People are trading tips and current Lightroom techniques and I haven’t a clue what any of it means. I look at my finger nails. They’re clean.

It’s weird the stuff we hold onto. The knee jerk reactions that are so deeply hardwired they feel like they belong to someone else. A few weeks before when the event was posted I sat and thought about it for a good long while. I’ve photographed this train station before, last summer. Click the link below if you’d like to see that series. I have an artistic eye that exceeds, more often than not, my lack of better equipment and software. It seemed silly to still be sitting, hunched down, on the school bus hoping no one would notice me. So I clicked the RSVP ‘yes’ I would go.

Everything changes with one genuinely, heartfelt choice that invites in newness. Histories can change on such small things. Just a click and my younger self is redeemed, as easy as walking through a station door. https://noellevignola.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/night-train/?preview=true&preview_id=1598&preview_nonce=90bbf66289&post_format=standard

Photos by Noelle

The Station: Part I

Posted on June 17, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 2

Photos by Noelle

It’s a huge love affair. The feeling of train stations. Newer ones aren’t as sexy, but that pulse of people moving places and massive engines engaged around me remains. There is a wondrous sense of travel, time and motion in train stations, even in the hubbub of a morning commute, that never feels as strained as that in an airport. Time becomes the maleable element. There’s little fanfare when the California Zephyr is late. In fact, it might shock everyone if her silvery self arrived on time. Where else do we so willing accept that there is a rhythm we can’t effect and casually grab some coffee and take a seat? Few places, whether within us or external to us, are like this in our lives. We are all in a tremendous hurry. To where? Who knows? Most of us can tick off places and times on some schedule, but could hardly tell you what cracks a whip, so persistently in our minds, to make us move faster.

In the United States the name of all the main train stations remains Union Station. I find a cozy comfort in this, too. A familiarity that fills you the moment you walk through their doors. They are timeless places hawking to eras long since past, and yet, here I am like thousands of others partaking of the stone and glass. Thousands long dead and vanished in the dust that swirls upon the early morning tracks invite me in. Train stations are, for me, time machines for touching on the life force of dreamers.

Photos by Noelle

Story in Mud IV

Posted on June 9, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 22

Photos by Noelle

I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at mud. My love affair often draws the attention of the neighbors. I squat down over huge mudslides, a mud vulture surveying for something to eat. I love the way it swirls and forms after a storm. New channels spring up where none had been before, each with a story. The mica glints in the sunlight flirting with me and only furthering a feeling of dark, gem-like sculptures.

Photos by Noelle

Life unfolded on the planet in these rivers of mud. Plant life germinated from seeds carried by water and mud far upstream. It picks up everything in its path and absorbs whatever it can. Thus, the same streams of mud can appear with different colors and hues, depending on where in the river you find them. As with water, only slower, it moves down paths of least resistance allowing whatever is to come, to come. There seems a spiritual lesson in this for me.

Photos by

In Jewish folklore the golem was often an evil creature made of mud. In recent times the most famous might’ve been the golem in the X-Files episode on the creepiness of HOA communities. Very funny, but I can’t imagine evil in mud. It feels the most life giving of substances with changing patterns, new tributaries or old ones made anew and in that, I find solace and hope. I can transform, change, become something else, travel new paths, with just a little rain. So I dance my rain dance and wave at the neighbors. They cannot help their ignorance of mud. Few people are schooled in this magic. I may, in fact, be the last one.

Photo by Noelle

No Audience

Posted on June 6, 2015 by noellevignola Standard 19

It’s a show of phenomenal proportions. Lightning, hail, outrageous downpour, I mean its something. There I am glued to the deck watching it roll in. I feel the air electrify the hair on my arms and dampen my face, as it all comes down with force and the All Mighty God of effort. And I am the only one. Every shade is pulled, every light on, in every home I can see. Where there are no lamps, there is the flicker of TV’s behind those shades. No one is watching. I thought we loved reality shows? It doesn’t get any realer than this, eh? In my wilder, more rebellious moments, I consider standing on the deck naked and calling out, “Outrageous thunderstorm, naked neighbor — Whoop! Whoop!”. The older I get the more I understand Lady Godiva. Sometimes humanity needs a little audacity.

The storm demands wild self expression. Each clap of thunder is an affront to the eaves and a banging on the front door. Who let the dogs out, indeed. Hail turns summer grass into winter cold, and trees bend as Muslims at prayer in a Mosque. “I will tear off your roofs and rip the panes from the frames”, she wails, as her storm clouds pass overhead. She is unimpressed by closed up homes and in parts of the city she demonstrates that fact with tornadoes and flooding.

How can we all be so asleep? When did we leave nature so thoroughly behind that Zeus’s lightning bolt is shuttered out, as we turn up the old tele?